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"The Devil's Jig"
John Lane, The Bodley Head Limited, London, 1930
"The Devil's Jig"
John Lane, The Bodley Head Limited, London, 1930
OUR most modern wisdom does not deny the existence of the Devil, and there are some who still maintain that the Universe is governed by a Demon to whom the writhings of humanity in the trammels of circumstance give an especial pleasure. And even those who do not subscribe to this ugly doctrine must admit that the evil springing from some malicious action, nourished by fear and folly, does assume a shape which, if not concrete, is at least unmistakable in the urgency of its influence, the power of its suggestion and the untiring spite of its pursuit. The mystery and the horror of some lives can only be vaguely explained by the crude phrase, "They fell into the clutches of the Devil."
We write "Devil," but it was one of the privileges of the Prince of Evil (he had many) to assume thousands of shapes and flourish under thousands of titles; a hundred and fifty years ago many of his sobriquets had a grim cosiness, being coined by comfortable, jolly people who admitted even the Devil to a certain good fellowship. A century at once elegant and brutal, sentimental and coarse conceded that the Devil might be a sorry character, but that Old Patch would be fine company (using the name of a Cardinal's Jester to denote the Father of Sin), for they had observed with grim amusement the sharp cackle of the bitter jokes that point out the paths to disaster.
When the writer came upon the present story he discerned so clearly in it the workings of a malicious humour, so in tune with the period, as if the Fiend had put on the Cockney dress of 1750, that, in casting about for a title that should encompass the fortunes, so odd and startling, of these men and this woman, he could think of none more apt than this to describe the havoc some invisible Power worked in the lives of these inhabitants of London. Misfortunes undeserved, unhappiness inescapable, love wasted, hate purposeless, beauty destroyed, a cheat triumphant and through all, gaiety, a laugh ... "The Devil's Jig."
R.P.
Holborn, 1930.
THERE is Truth in what we are told as Children about the Devil and his Works. It is not an outworn superstition that we need the whole armour of God to enable us to withstand these unseen Enemies.
Evil is not always good in the making, but there is such a thing as active positive Evil, which for practical purposes may be taken as being what it seems to be, an External Malignant Power which endeavours to ruin our Souls.
(The Very Reverend Dean Inge, Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, from a Sermon preached in the Parish Church of St. Luke, Chelsea, on Sunday, February the twenty-fourth, Anno Domini Nineteen hundred and twenty-nine.)
Ora pro Nobis
AMONG the press of beggars who whined, lounged and hobbled along the street posts, one in a peculiar manner held the young man's attention.
An old woman, erect, leaning on a stick, with huge black skirts and mantle, stained, ragged, faded; a round black hat and veil, and steel-rimmed darkened spectacles; her face, like soiled wax, was lined with dirt, every wrinkle, a harsh, grey beard sprouted from her quivering chin, grey-white locks hung on to her thy collar; in a broken whistle she sang: "Oh, my beautiful dream! Oh, my delightful dream!" the contrast between the words and the repulsive degradation of the hag who uttered them impressed e young man with such unaccountable poignancy that he paused in his easy walk and stared at the singer. Despite the darkened glasses, which gave her the appearance of an owl, she perceived his interest and thrust out a foul hand from her rags; limping forward she shrilled in his face: "Oh, my beautiful dream! Oh, my delightful dream!" Wraxham put his hand in his pocket; at this gesture all the beggars made a lurch and clutch towards him, squealing and jostling; with impatient disgust he shook some coins on the ground and, while the beggars disputed them, gained the steps of his father's house at the corner of the square. When he had pulled the bell he had the curiosity to look back; the spectacled hag had kept her ground and discovered sufficient agility to drive off the others with her stick, while her shrivelled fingers picked up the money she quavered: "Oh, my delightful dream! Oh, my beautiful dream!"
"How vile!" thought Wraxham fastidiously. "And how detestable of me to throw the money—one should not insult those already sufficiently unfortunate."
Turning, he saw the great door open and Heslop standing in the dark hall awaiting his pleasure. Wraxham's spirits, already low, were further sunk; the loathed visit became almost unendurable when he was crossing the threshold of the great house associated in his mind with fear, angry unhappiness and bitter resentment.
"Why don't you drive those beggars away from the house, Heslop?" he asked listlessly, throwing hat, mantle and gloves on the wide chair between the gleaming porphyry busts of Caesars, who scowled into the gloomy recesses of the silent vestibule.
"It is difficult, sir, with the Fields, the hackney coaches and the playhouse; and then my lord has his moods, sir, when he orders them food and pence, and they are always in the hopes of that."
"Hark ye, Heslop, everything the same—Mr. Ambler yet here?"
"Yes, sir—my lord, I always forget that."
"It's new to you, Heslop, and I don't like to hear it, so let it be, d'ye see?"
"Well, my lord, you'll always be Mr. Edmund to me."
Wraxham saw himself reflected in a mirror shaded with bronze acanthus leaves that hung opposite the busts; he thought he looked insipid before the massive bulk of the Caesars who sneered behind his reflection—too slight, too fair, too much like any other young fellow who carried a pair of colours in the Guards.
To delay the interview with his father he said vaguely:
"Mr. Ambler yet here, d'ye say, Heslop?"
"Yes, my lord. Not likely to leave now, sir, is Mr. Ambler—as your honour will guess."
"But my lord sometimes seems tired of him, eh?"
"Yes, your honour. But Mr. Ambler—" the older servant spoke with bitterness—"knows how to make his peace."
Wraxham still hesitated; Heslop, who had petted him when he was a boy, waited, understanding, respecting his almost agonized reluctance to face the Earl.
"Anyone else in the house, Heslop?"
"Only Mrs. Luckett. You'll have heard of her, sir?"
"No, but there was sure to be some one."
"Yes, sir. It's been Mrs. Luckett some months now—Mignonette they call her, she is a—"
Wraxham stopped the sentence; he realized the stupid cowardice of lingering on his father's threshold, talking of his father's affairs with a servant.
"I'll see for myself, Heslop. Thank ye, though, Heslop—I understand your good will. My lord is waiting for me?"
"And has been, sir, for an hour, with great impatience."
"Am I late? Was not twelve the hour?"
"It is past that, sir."
"Is it? Oh, I dare say it is."
Still reluctant, still unable to calm himself into the required equanimity, Wraxham fingered an already precise neckcloth, pulled at an exact sash and followed Heslop up the wide, noble stairs gloomy in the north light of a cloudy March day. He knew that the hostile cynic eyes which would now glance him over would observe with mockery his pallor, his downcast air, his ill-controlled voice, his distaste for the moment, his confusion poorly concealed behind his stiff, military carriage.
Heslop opened high doors pompously crowned by a pediment where robust flowers and fruits wreathed aside to display a coat of arms, and Wraxham entered his father's presence.
The Earl was seated in a chaise-longue by the tall window that looked on the Fields, and Wraxham realized with a stab of vexation that he must have witnessed the ridiculous scene with the beggars and thought: "How characteristic of poor Edmund!"
Lord Shalford's first words revealed that he had indeed thus amused his leisure.
"How long you have been, my dear Edmund! I observed you at the corner some moments ago. Chattering with Heslop, eh?"
Wraxham bowed; long ago he had learnt never to answer his father's cool gibes.
"I wonder why I keep Heslop," smiled the Earl.
Wraxham knew; the old man was an excellent servant and did not very often see his meagre wages.
"What did he—that rogue Heslop—say of me?"
"That you were waiting for me, my lord."
"Among other things, eh? Well, what account have you to give of yourself? You carry regimentals very trimly. You have found Dublin to your taste?"
"Lord Harrington is very obliging, sir. The life seems idle after the field, but I have not been inactive."
"Ah, you soldiers! Must Europe be in flame to feed the appetite of fire-eaters? Personally, I have enjoyed the peace. Sit down, Edmund."
The young man took the large velvet chair with arms opposite his father. "I have been satisfied with my life in Dublin. I intend to remain on Lord Harrington's staff, sir, as long as he is agreeable."
"You intend," smiled the Earl. "No thought of consulting my wishes, eh?"
"I had not, sir, considered so doing."
"Ah, candid Edmund! But since the death of poor Edgar you have been my heir; you might do a great deal better for yourself than remain attached to the Viceroy of Ireland's Court."
"Forgive an interruption, my lord." Stiff and frowning the young man forced himself into speech. "There is no aspect of my situation that I am not familiar with—I am resolved on my course. I do not care to remain in England, and the lady—the lady to whom I am contracted—is Irish and wishes to remain in Dublin."
"In brief, Edmund, you wish for no discussion with me?"
"It would, sir, be useless."
The two men gazed at each other and Wraxham shivered; at this his father broke into a disagreeable laugh, which caused the young man to flush miserably and glance away round the high, pompous room with the massive, costly appointments, so familiar, so detested, so unchanged.
The Earl's laugh ended abruptly; there was no amusement in the quick scrutiny he turned on his son's elegant figure and fine profile.
Lord Shalford was a worn-out man of fifty-four with an invalidish air; thin and haggard, with force and power in the handsome outline of his high features, in his sunken dark eyes and the mobile shape of his withered lips; his sumptuous attire and the elaborate arrangement of the powdered curls of his peruke made him appear less than his age; Wraxham was thirty years younger than his father and felt, when before him, at a complete and most wretched disadvantage. His distress was enjoyed by the Earl, who remarked:
"Your discomfort flatters me, Edmund. You hold all the winning cards. Come, think of all the young rake-hells who, this very morning, I dare swear, are shivering before their fathers with tales of debts and difficulties, whereas with us the positions are reversed."
"I should prefer to be in a more natural situation, sir."
"So, perhaps, should I, Edmund. You are staying with your mother's aunt, Lady Anstice?"
"Yes, sir."
"You came from Ireland to pay court to her—don't put a gloss on it—she has a swinging fortune and is in ill-health. You were wise, Edmund—a very prudent young man."
Wraxham rose, his fingers at his neckcloth.
"If you asked me here merely to mock me, sir—"
"Sit down, Edmund." The Earl was stern. "You shall listen—hark ye, I say shall."
"Sir, if you mean to discuss what has already been decided—"
"Do not interrupt. I intend to run over our circumstances. Sit down."
Wraxham obeyed. His distress was hardening into a deep anger; the Earl continued to speak easily, lounging in his chair, regarding negligently his fine, outspread hands.
"You are a rich man, Edmund, I a poor one. Since Edgar's death you have been in possession of part of your mother's fortune; the rest, I believe, will be yours in the autumn, when you are twenty-four. Besides that, this old woman Anstice intends to leave you her very considerable wealth her husband made by trade."
"Yes, my lord."
"As well as those fortunes, you will have my estates, which are so rigorously entailed that I cannot even mortgage them; you therefore have the advantage of this handsome, unencumbered property. And I hear that the lady you are about to marry will have a considerable dowry."
"Yes, my lord."
"You are then, Edmund, a very wealthy man with large expectations."
"Undoubtedly, sir."
"While I, on the contrary, am confoundedly embarrassed."
"If, sir, you are about to ask me what you have asked me before—"
The Earl suddenly leant forward.
"I am, Edmund. I desire your consent to breaking the entail and I request a portion of this my large fortune which both my father and my father-in-law, in so absurd a fashion, settled on Edgar and you instead of on myself."
"You had, sir," replied Wraxham, "a very fine sum on your marriage, and the moneys left to us were subsequent to your dispute with my grandfather."
"That is beside the argument. Mr. Purvis passed me over for my own children. It is unheard of; if my attorneys had not been rogues—"
Wraxham interrupted:
"This is so useless, sir. I promised my grandfather—so did Edgar, when we were boys—not to break the entail, not to allow the Purvis fortune to be dissipated. I promised this also to Edgar." The young man found his nerves getting out of control under the bitter stare of the Earl, but anger helped him to give strength to his denial. "I do refuse, I must refuse. These properties are only held in trust by me."
The two men looked at each other and a lassitude fell over the sunken spirits of Wraxham.
He wondered why there was this dreadful passion between himself and his father. How many neglects, cruelties, sneers, how many glimpses of a weak mother's tears, how many indignant flashes of temper from an admired grandfather, how many evil tales, whispers, how much stark shameful knowledge had gone to unite him and Edgar in resolute antagonism to their father?
The young man felt, under the weight of his own thoughts and his father's cruel stare, faint, almost overwhelmed, and moved uneasily as if expecting to see a third person in the room.
Surely there was another presence, impalpable but invested with infernal power, grinning at both of them. Hate.... Wraxham winced. He was aware of the terrible injury done to the soul by hatred; what was Hatred but the Devil of the Churchman? He struggled with nausea.
"Sir, I have given my answer; what sums I may supply from my income are yours; I will not touch my capital, sell my estates or break the entail."
He turned aside to avoid the Earl's look of fury, and so saw, in the folding-doors that led into another room, the third person he had imagined might be of this miserable company. But yet this was not the grim evil he had sensed but a harmless creature, a negress, wearing a robe of rose brocade and many links of green and red gold on her arms.
"Mrs. Luckett," said the Earl coolly; his vile composure had always been detestable to Wraxham.
Mrs. Luckett—the name Heslop had mentioned; the young man recalled the broken sentence, "she is a negress," he would have said.
Wraxham rose, passionately eager to be gone. The negress paused by a large vase painted with pink roses; she was a beautiful creature, her shape superb, her skin like dark amber, her hair and eyes purple-black.
As calmly as if he spoke to a casual acquaintance the Earl presented her to his son.
"This is Mignonette. I bought her from a Spaniard; she is a Coromantee negress—you know they ship these slaves from Africa to work at Yucatan. She was found at Port Omoah where the ships wait for the indigo—a prize, eh, Edmund?"
Mrs. Luckett, who had listened to this with painful eagerness, said slowly:
"I come from Rogreso."
She turned on Wraxham huge eyes of an infinite mournfulness and approached him; he perceived that she wore a gold collar with a short hanging length of chain and that his father's title was cut on the first in deep letters.
"Help me to rise, Mrs. Luckett," asked the Earl. "I am something disabled to-day—gout, eh?"
With a tender grace the negress assisted the lean man; her bracelets tinkled, slipping down her dark arms, which were smooth and polished like glass.... Wraxham observed this—gold, gold adorning this slave; to pay for that he was asked to pawn or sell his birthright.... He turned swiftly to the door.
"By your leave, my lord—your servant, I give you good day."
Leaning on the arm of the negress the Earl replied in low, even tones that had almost an accent of good nature:
"You damned pragmatical fool! Do ye think I have done with ye?"
Wraxham, pausing by the heavy door, again sensed some active presence standing between them, menacing, alert....
"Thou hast refused," added my lord negligently, "a fair chance of compounding with me."
"I have—" Wraxham was released by this from all obligation of respect or courtesy—"refused."
"A Purvis," sneered the Earl, with deadly spite. "Cursed trading blood—nothing in thy life but moneybags—Edgar was the same—a fiddler too! How do thy damned squeakings prosper?"
"Take care," breathed Wraxham, "I am going—say no more—there is no more to be said."
"There is—and I shall say it. Thou'lt hear from me, thou lookest fresh and jolly, Edmund, from thy thrumming and praying."
The young man instinctively put out his hand to shut out the sight of his father's face and left the room with no further farewell than that desperate gesture of defence.
On the sombre stairs filled by a melancholy sunlight Wraxham met Laurence Ambler, who paused, saluted him with hesitation, fingered his wasted lips, and seemed about to speak but was silent, as Wraxham hurried on. In the vestibule he came to a stand beside the heavy-jowled, crimson-purple Caesars, fumbled on the grim, braided chair for his cockaded hat and gauntlets, then, flung them down again and passed through a half-open door into an ante-chamber, by him too well remembered.
This high, narrow cabinet, at the back of the mansion, was filled with sunshine. A blackish tapestry showing the death of Dido was on the walls, a mirror framed in dark blue glass reflected the pale rays of the March sun; the narrow stools appeared stark as coffin trestles.
Wraxham glanced at the floor near the window; there the oak boards had been newly scraped and polished; from what stain they had been cleansed the young man would never forget.
Here, less than a year ago, his brother Edgar had destroyed himself in the height of youth, health and good fortune, for what reason no one knew.
Wraxham withdrew from the dismal chamber, the gloomy house; as he hurried away he observed that the tall poplars in the Fields were putting forth red buds and that the monstrous filthy old woman was still quavering: "Oh, my beautiful dream! Oh, my delightful dream!"
WRAXHAM returned slowly to the heavy mansion of Lady Anstice in St. James's Square; the sky, which had darkened into a cloudy gloom, seemed to him to hang idle and empty above the sombre town.
Lady Anstice, this old, ailing woman, whose eyes still sparkled with a generous vitality, welcomed him with an air of apprehension: she guessed from his looks that the interview with his father had been even more disagreeable than he had anticipated.
The young man, seating himself beside her in the large, handsome, but depressing room, briefly admitted as much; gazing into the wide fire, kept burning to warm the chilly blood of age, Wraxham recited his encounter with the Earl.
He omitted any mention of Mrs. Luckett, but Lady Anstice knew of the presence of the negress at Shalford House.
She did not speak of this. Most of the affairs connected with the Earl were not spoken of between his relations and himself, so much was understood by implication. Words dropped negligently and yet with inner meaning, glances and, above all, silences explained the Earl to his kinsmen.
To Amelia Anstice, last representative of the great merchant family into which Lord Shalford had married, he was a man who had outraged all fair feeling, all honour and justice, even all conventional decency of behaviour. As soon as the marriage contract had been signed, John Purvis had fiercely regretted giving his young daughter to the charming and aristocratic young rake, so unfortunately met and so disastrously loved, and a fierce estrangement between the two families had widened and intensified with the years.
"I feel dead-hearted, I can't forget about Edgar, I sense that my lord had some concern in that—the more I see of his humour."
Lady Anstice was startled, not by the thought, which was by no means new to her, but by the fact that Edmund should put this thought into words.
"Why did he shoot himself, without leaving a word of explanation, in my lord's house?" Wraxham added.
"Edgar must have had a powerful reason for an act so dreadful—to think overmuch of it is to run mad."
"It was investigated," mused Wraxham, in a low voice, still staring into the fire, "most laboriously, and I during this past year have had my agents at work, my attorneys, inquiring; I have myself taken every possible step, as thou knowest, to elucidate this mystery, but there is nothing—in all Edgar's life nothing to account for a deed so heinous, so appalling."
Covering his eyes with his hands as if the glare of the fire hurt them, and resting his elbow on his knee, he continued:
"I was in the room to-day, thou knowest the door behind those scowling, gross Caesars—I always hate 'em —you can see the place on the floor newly scrubbed, they yet labour at the stain—"
"You must take your mind off what so sinks your spirit."
"It was only a year ago—not that," replied Wraxham moodily. "And why—why? My mind ever comes round to my lord. To-day I thought of it."
"You must not blame your father," said Lady Anstice with some sternness. "We have no shadow of excuse to suspect him," she added bitterly. "What could he have said, what could he have done? Edgar, like yourself, was familiar with all possible injuries and independent of them."
"There might have been something," insisted Wraxham. "My lord was the last to see him; it was after speech with him that Edgar went downstairs and—"
"Hush! I'll not hear of it. Thou shouldst not have visited thy father, Edmund."
"I'll not go again. No, my lord makes all ridiculous and horrible. I told him my decision about the money. But the position is ugly, it is almost scandalous. All in Ireland know of it and are compassionate towards me, and that is hard to bear."
"But thou hast thy Cecilia," smiled Lady Anstice gently.
"With her also," replied Wraxham, "there must be this tacit silence, and that I loathe. I would rather bring my wife to my father's house and I would rather that Edgar had lived and been happy. Yes," he added, in rising bitterness, "I would that Edgar had lived to share this burden with me. I do not want Edgar's titles, estates and money."
His mind went back to that day a few years ago when (two young cadets together at the war) they had promised each other, before a battle, that if either fell the survivor would maintain his heritage against the father they both detested. As a boy he had knelt beside the great bed on which lay dying the grandfather who had given him what happiness his childhood had known—"All for ye, Edgar and Edmund," the old man had said. "But promise that none of it goes into thy father's hands."
"It is too much money," murmured Wraxham, "too much responsibility."
He looked earnestly at Lady Anstice; she fingered the locket which hung by a black ribbon round her neck and on to her thin muslin apron; there, behind a crystal, were two locks of hair intertwined with initials in gold wire (the initials of her own husband and son) the last slain at Dettingen.
With her tired glance Lady Anstice considered Edmund.
Poor Mary's boy! He was a soldier; one who, for his years, had much experience and yet, to Lady Anstice, there was a deal of the child about Wraxham, with his fair, candid face, his grey eyes so easily overclouded, confused or distressed, and his gentle uncertainties and courteous hesitations; the timid, generous, sensitive Mary's child, indeed, with nothing of my lord's character or appearance.
Wraxham could not shake from his mind a sense of gloom. The mansion was too large for so few. Themselves and the servants did not make a dozen people. The ostentatious pride of the merchant prince, which had caused him to maintain an establishment in competition with the great nobles, showed out of place around these two, the old woman and the young man, both beset by unconfessed loneliness.
Wraxham wrote to Cecilia, sitting solitary in the wide cabinet which looked on to the square where the trees, so faintly bloomed with the earliest green, tossed their boughs mournfully against the grey sky overspread with loose flying clouds. He thought of Cecilia with exquisite tenderness and nothing more. His love for her was of so delicate a quality that he could enjoy her in her absence as in her presence. Sometimes he was distressed by a certain vagueness in the quality of his love, a feeling that they had between them missed something. But this passed into satisfaction at the delectable security of love with a creature so fine, so noble and kind, so symbolic of all that the grace and purity of youth represented to the elevated mind of the fastidious young man, whose knowledge and experience, though gained in many a rough encounter with the world, had not soiled his integral and cloistered ideals.
When he had composed his letter he went to the music-room; music was his secret passion, one so intense that he was half-ashamed of an obsession that went deeper into his soul than his love for Cecilia.
Sumptuously and yet half-furtively he had indulged this love for music, being accompanied on every occasion by musicians and himself diligently and secretly studying the technicalities of this engrossing and difficult art; everywhere he went he took with him portfolios of music, and on every possible occasion he practised on various instruments.
He had but little skill, and this tormented him; he fumbled where he would have stepped surely and crawled where he longed to fly. He was vexed and confused by his inability to express himself in a medium which, to him, was so entrancing, by his powerlessness even to shape the bewildering harmonies that fretted his heart and brain into melodies which should enchant the ears of other men.
Even his execution of more happy artists' work on the violin, harpsichord, spinet or lute was, he knew, mean and poor.
That evening there was news from the Fields. My lord had met with an accident, twisted his ankle on leaving his coach; he had demanded the instant presence of his son.
"I will not go," said Wraxham, and occupied himself desperately to working out a sonata by Pergolesi.
"A WRENCHED ankle is nothing; my lord has a very strong constitution. He will live to a great age I dare swear, and you, with a clean conscience, may set out to-day for Bath with me."
"We will go to Bath as soon as it pleases you to order the coach, Aunt Amelia, and I will do no more than send an inquiry as to whether my lord has passed a fair night."
But even as his man was busy with his portmanteaux, Lady Anstice's valet returned from Shalford House with the news that the Earl had passed the night in a high fever approaching delirium, that he did little but demand to see his son; there were two doctors in attendance on my lord, and they both earnestly requested the immediate presence of the heir.
"My lord will not die," repeated Lady Anstice, "he has weathered worse than this. A wrenched ankle is nothing."
But Wraxham thought: "He has lived hard and drunk violently and he must be fifty-four. Of what use is his existence to anyone? What has he caused but terror, shame, fear and ruin? And yet there is something unnatural and terrible in wishing the death of any human being, and something impious in wishing the death of a father."
On the third day of the Earl's illness one of the doctors called in person on Lord Wraxham, and informed him that the broken ankle had mortified and that it might be necessary to amputate the leg at the knee, in which case, considering the state of the patient's health, there was but little chance of his life.
The surgeon, who appeared to Wraxham to be a disreputable charlatan, added that my lord had got his cloak entangled between his foot and his sword and had fallen from his coach on his return from Captain Fenton's gambling hell, he being far gone in liquor at the time and Mignonette Luckett, the Coromantee negress, in his company.
But Wraxham cut short a recital which the doctor appeared willing to embroider with many grotesque and amusing details. As for the amputation, the decision for that rested with my lord himself.
"Well, look ye, he is not willing to risk it. I have had a consultation with my colleague—Sir John Nasham hath been called in—and we are all agreed that amputation is the only chance of my lord's life; for ye must know, sir, that the mortification will run quickly up the injured limb until it touches the heart. The pain, too, is excessive and exhausting, we have been obliged to give my lord such quantities of opium that his senses are confused and his stomach sickened."
"Well, sir, you must do your duty," replied Wraxham, pale and with a rising nausea. He had seen too many surgical operations on the battlefield to consider with equanimity the proposed torture of his father.
"My lord refuses," grinned the doctor.
"Then I can do nothing."
At the end of this week of waiting Laurence Ambler himself came to the house of Lady Anstice and crossed the threshold he had never crossed before.
Wraxham received him with the most rigid formality.
"Ye are displeased to see me, my lord, and I'll not deny that ye may have cause enough—"
Wraxham checked this, which he considered a cringing before the rising power.
"What have you come for, Ambler? To fetch me again to my lord?"
"Sir, he hath refused the amputation and the last word of the doctors is that he can scarcely hold out the night. This is no device to entrap ye to Shalford House, sir, but the doctors' confirmed opinion, and if ye were to see my lord ye would scarcely dispute his peril."
Laurence Ambler lifted dim, restless eyes; his face had an ashy look and was fallen into hollows filled with brownish shadows; his dress, always dark, shabby and like that of a bailiff or turnkey, had a look of disorder unusual even for one so slovenly.
It occurred to Wraxham, with a pang, that perhaps this ill-looking fellow loved his master after all, and the young man said:
"Believe me, Ambler, I am sorry."
"I have no doubt your lordship is sorry, ye would not see a dog suffer, I know." Ambler seemed to speak more in sarcasm than admiration. "But I don't know if ye are sorry enough to come to Shalford House."
"Doth he send in goodwill? Ye know all there is between us, Ambler, and I could ill endure to hear malice from a death-bed."
"Sir, he hath something to say to you which concerns neither goodwill nor malice, but is a matter of fact."
Wraxham paused by the tall window, looking out into the greyness of the cold day. Rain splashed on the window-panes and a low wind stirred paper and straws in the wide square. He balanced his conscience against his desire and could scarcely distinguish the one from the other. "If I do not go now I may be tormented all my days by my refusal; if I go I may but heap further pain and indignity on both of us."
Ambler picked up his worn hat.
"It is not very pleasant at Shalford House, sir. Sometimes my lord bears himself as one who fears hell fire, another time he is shrieking that he will not be thrust into annihilation. Most of the servants have gone, dreading your lordship's rule."
"Why did not ye go, Ambler? Have ye indeed some affection for him?"
"I do not know about that," replied Ambler, with an indrawn smile and look. "I think it is more that I consider you, sir, might have some use for me in the future."
Wraxham was surprised at what seemed to him an amazing insolence.
"It is not likely that you and I will meet after my lord's death."
"It is more than likely, it is almost certain," said Ambler quickly. "I know what it is my lord wishes to tell you, sir."
Wraxham indignantly shook off this sly suggestion of menace or threat. He could see that Ambler wished to involve him in some disgraceful secret affecting his father's memory about which he might be weak enough to bribe him to silence.
"I have decided that I will come to see my lord, but I do not wish to go with you."
Ambler bowed and left him with no more than that.
Wraxham played through the little sonata that had been sent him from Venice. It seemed to him that never before had he achieved so fine and easy an execution.... Why, to-morrow he would himself be Shalford, with all the power that meant in his hands.
He went on foot to his father's house, walking deliberately and steadily through the narrow streets and the dark cloudy evening. To-morrow everything would be over. All that was hideous and repulsive would be gone from his life for ever. For neither in his own character nor in that of Cecilia Torrance could he discern anything which might mean unhappiness or tragedy.
There were a few chairs and a coach in the courtyard of his father's house and lights in all the unshuttered windows. Behind the tall poplar trees in the Fields rose a new moon which appeared to slip in and out of the hastening vague clouds. Wraxham looked at it and felt with intense pleasure the chill, fresh breeze of evening on his face.
Heslop opened the door and, seeing him, kissed his hands; Wraxham felt wet cheeks.
"Were ye also fond of him?" asked the young man, taking off his hat.
The servant glanced up at the generous face and the bright, golden-brown hair, unpowdered and uncovered in the light that burned above the porphyry Caesars.
"'Tis not that, my lord," he muttered, "'tis the relief of seeing your honour, of knowing it's nearly over."
WRAXHAM could not forbear a glance at the door behind the bustos of shining purple marble. It was closed. A sluttish maidservant fled into the shadows beyond the lamplight at his approach. The vestibule showed more than usual signs of neglect. Wraxham noted that a gilt clock which usually stood on a bracket by the foot of the stairs had gone; he suspected not only the servants but the doctor and Lord Shalford's friends of being alert to take their plunder.
Half-way up the staircase was Laurence Ambler, standing, undecided in attitude and look, against the harsh-coloured tapestry, where coarse goddesses sprawled in rank, dark foliage. He saluted Wraxham, but made no effort to follow him. As the young man proceeded, he thought that Ambler's worn face in its anxiety and pallor had an ascetic look and an intellectual power, grotesquely at variance with all he knew of the man. But he was aware that this decayed and fallen creature, lost alike in character and reputation, had been a fine and elegant scholar, of no ignoble birth and always of considerable wit and judgment.
"Where doth my lord lie?" he asked of a lackey who went ahead of him with a branch of candles. The usual lanterns on the stairs had not been lit and the engrossing shadows were oppressive.
"In his bedchamber, my lord."
Wraxham did not know where that apartment was, so little familiar was he with his father's house or his father's life.
He was conducted to a room at the back of the mansion and, outside the massive door, paused, gathering his courage.
In three years of active campaigning, in a year of residence in a troubled and often rebellious country, Wraxham had been in many situations which had taxed his exquisite sensibilities, his sensitive nature; but in none where he had felt such dread and shrinking as he now felt, pausing on the threshold of his father's death-chamber.
As he clenched his hand on the hard door-knob he thought, with keen self-contempt, how much easier was physical than moral bravery.
Entering, he found his father's vast chamber was encompassed on every side by shadows, for the sole light stood on a table by the high, curtained bed which was surmounted by lofty, dark plumes. Seated at the end of the bed, concealed from the patient by the drawn curtain, were two doctors, half-dozing, half-disputing together, their wigs off, their hands crossed on their laps, wrapped in the full skirts of their coats, in an idle and disgusted attitude. On the bed-step sat Mrs. Luckett, no longer bedecked in her exotic magnificence, but wearing a plain garment of Indian printed cotton in red and yellow which looked garish in this place and barely concealed her dark and gleaming shape. She was leaning her black, glossy and tousled hair against the coverlet, and Wraxham noticed, with that curious attention to detail which overwrought nerves will give, the design of this—acorns and feathers in brown and gold, twisted in broderie on a satin ground.
On the table by the bedside with the one silver lamp, that gave a hesitant and yellow light, were books, bottles and a pile of papers.
At the young man's entrance the two doctors rose, alert, but not very hopeful of the future Earl's favours; therefore they permitted themselves some sneering doubt as to the decorum and propriety of the scene.
One of them, and that the least respectable, remarked at once that he had several times entreated my lord to see a clergyman, but without avail.
Mrs. Luckett did not move; Wraxham thought she might be asleep, her slack and drooping attitude suggested complete exhaustion. He advanced towards the bed which, with the curtains but slightly drawn away from the pillows, presented a deep cavern of shade.
"My lord sleeps since the last dose of opium," remarked the second doctor, rubbing his hands together.
"You lie," said a voice from the bed.
Wraxham, coming nearer yet, stared into his father's face.
The Earl was placed high on the large pillows and wore a quilted bedgown of a dark green and flowered material, a white nightcap was dragged down over his ears; his face was a dismal and unwholesome yellow, flushed with hard red on the cheek-bones. He looked twenty years older than when Wraxham had seen him a few days ago; his linen and the sheets were stained with a few brownish-coloured marks from the opium; the smell of this and other drugs was heavy in the room and the nauseated Wraxham thought he could detect beneath these sickly perfumes the stench of rotting flesh and the peculiar odour exhaled from the smooth body of the negress.
"I thought you would come, Edmund," whispered my lord, in a voice from his throat, "but you are only just in time. I hear I shall not last the night."
"I am sorry," said Wraxham simply, "that your lordship would not consent to the amputation."
"Why should ye be?" replied the Earl, grinning.
"There might have been a chance for you," replied Wraxham, feeling more courage and yet more distaste as he saw that his father's attitude was not in the least changed towards him—the old scorn and the old malice still shone strongly in those sunken, blood-injected eyes.
"Don't afflict me with your pragmatical hypocrisy," muttered the Earl. "You know and I know that you will be delighted when I am dead. You are already planning what you will do when you are Shalford. Well, you've always been lucky, blast ye."
"Perhaps not so lucky as you think, sir; mine has been all material gain, in myself I have not been so happy as many other men I know."
"That's your damned soured disposition which curdles all ye touch, ye dead-hearted Puritan."
"Sir, why did you send for me? Is there any service I can render you? If not, need I stay?"
"Ye can do nothing for me, Edmund. Everything is as I would have it. I'll have no shambling, chattering knaves to plague me."
"I do, sir, know your general disposition and have forborne to attend you, even at your importunate requests."
"And yet, if thou considerest thyself a Christian, Edmund," muttered the Earl, his voice coming with a deeper difficulty, "it was thy duty to come."
"And, in the conclusion, sir, I have come."
The Earl beckoned to the hovering doctor, whispered for his drops and asked to be helped up on his pillows, when he could speak he again addressed Wraxham, who was standing erect and cool, though pale with secret anguish, in his trim, precise, white and red Guards' uniform.
The negress had roused herself and, with little gestures like an uneasy and hurt animal, was moaning and swaying to and fro, her shoulders hunched.
Wraxham interrupted his father's whispered preliminaries by asking:
"Shall I not send her away, sir?"
"No, leave the trull alone. If she annoys ye so much the better."
The Earl coughed and fumbled for his handkerchief, cursing softly the doctors and the servants because he could not immediately find it in the sheets.
Wraxham realized, and not without admiration, that his father was enduring fierce pain from the limb which, swathed and protected from the bedclothes by a hoop, showed such a grotesque outline beneath the rich quilt.
"There's no occasion to go over the old ground, eh, Edmund?—our several differences, disputes, quarrels and estrangements...."
"Before God, sir, I hope no need. If you bear me as little ill-will as I most earnestly strive to bear you," replied the young man with a rising passion, "you and I are at peace."
"Ye were always a pragmatical, hypocritical prig, may you die in your virtue and be damned," replied the Earl, "and I suppose ye think as I'm to die to-night that 'tis a Christian duty to prate of forgiveness. Forgiveness for what, damme, eh?"
"For nothing, sir, let it go at that."
Wraxham strove passionately for resolution and grace to put through this night with dignity and good report, for it would be, he knew, the last of any such days or nights. Too often had he seen dying men to doubt this man's condition.
He stared at his father with a dreadful fascination, for some shrinkage and distortion of the features, some ghastly change in the colouring and outline had made the Earl look as Edgar had looked when Edmund had last gazed upon him, and yet, in life, he had never noticed the least resemblance between the cheerful young soldier and the detested father.
"I'll spare as many words as possible, Edmund," the Earl was saying. "If ye had come before I could have given ye a longer story. As it is ye must go to Ambler for details."
"Of what, sir? I wish for no conferences with Laurence Ambler. He is your lordship's man and not likely ever to be mine."
"Do not talk too fast, Edmund. Ambler was always in this and always will be. For my affairs I saw my attorneys this morning. The miserable amount I have in my power to dispose of is arranged for."
"As for that, sir," broke in Wraxham, "you know that if there is anyone you wish provided for, I shall do it."
"I ask nothing of you, Edmund. I don't want your charity for anything of mine. I have even a legacy to leave ye." He paused, struggling with agony; he wiped his forehead with a shaking hand and, with a grin of anguish, continued, "A legacy, my dear Edmund, ye did not expect that, did you? Your father who was a beggar for your bounty has something to leave you, after all."
"An obligation?" breathed Wraxham.
"You're quick, quicker than I thought you'd be. Yea, you could call it an obligation. An opportunity, perhaps."
"I'll undertake it," replied the young man.
"Will ye? I wonder. I regret that this interview has to be so short, I should like to have got a good deal more out of it. What I have not time to explain will be clear enough in those papers." He nodded towards the table. "Everything is there. Ambler will expatiate on them."
"Ye torment me, sir!" cried Wraxham.
"Tell the doctors to leave the room," commanded the Earl.
Wraxham did so, then again asked if he should not order the negress to leave also.
"Let her be, she understands nothing."
After saying these words the Earl seemed to struggle so strenuously and bitterly for his remnant of strength that Wraxham asked if he could not be of any assistance and if he should not call assistance.
"I require nothing but a little breath," gasped the Earl. "Come close to me, Edmund, and listen carefully to what I am about to say. Ye have been an undutiful son, blast ye, and I am about to reward ye."
"Not undutiful, I hope, but—as you yourself say—useless to look back."
"Useless for us to recriminate each other, Edmund, but look back I must. Listen. I was married to your mother in 1722, having come in January of that year unexpectedly into the title. I was a second son, like you, Edmund; your uncle was killed in a duel."
"All this I know," murmured Wraxham, and he thought that his father's mind had gone or, at least, that his senses were clouded.
A contortion passed over the Earl's sallow face; he plucked at the flaps of his nightcap and with an intensity of malice and vigour of hatred that appeared to maintain him entirely, as a flame will continue to burn the wick by its own fierceness when the wax is melted; he continued:
"Two years previously, in 1720, I was married to Barbara Pascoe secretly; she was an actress. The marriage took place at a church in Islington and we had one son—born the following year."
As his father's breath failed and he struggled with a long cough, Wraxham asked:
"You wish me to provide for him? It shall be done."
The Earl grinned. "Ye provide for him? I soon separated from Barbara Pascoe, no one knew of our marriage but two witnesses were entirely in my interest and the clergyman who knew me under an assumed name. She died in Paris at the Hôtel-Dieu two years after my marriage to your mother—a pretty story this, you fool, of a strumpet and her brat."
The moaning of the negress took on a sharper note. She rose and slipped away between the two men as if frightened of something she had seen, and passed behind the bed curtains.
Raised on his elbow the dying man peered into his son's face.
"D'ye understand?" he whispered.
"I don't believe it, it is not possible—not credible."
"Ye'll find it there in the papers." The Earl again nodded towards the package by the lamp. "I have kept 'em all, it is easily proved. Ambler will tell ye. The young man—your brother—is living; he does not know, I always made him an allowance. I think ye'll find him in Islington, in a little house I bought for his mother. She was an extravagant trull."
"Don't say any more," interrupted Wraxham, "we can't talk about this. I suppose, sir, it is some test or trap or trick, for ye know not what ye say!"
"It is my legacy," replied the Earl. "You and this young man can work it out between ye. He is your brother, my heir. My second marriage was not valid, your mother was not my wife and you, Edmund, are only my bastard."
Many confusions danced between Wraxham and his father's contorted face; the realization of what this meant, if true; his position towards his mother's family, his regiment, his friends, Cecilia, the humiliation, the degradation, open disgrace, this other young man.... But, no, the impossibility of it all, a malicious contrivance invented by a drugged, half-insane man who was dying with all his black hate clouding his wits.
"God forgive ye," sobbed Wraxham. Then, almost on a shriek, "This is what ye told Edgar—this is why Edgar shot himself?"
"Yes," smiled the Earl. He lay back on the pillows, striving for just a little more breath. "It would have been very difficult for me to reveal all this while I lived. I had no wish to acknowledge that strumpet Barbara Pascoe's son and I thought that Edgar might compound with me to keep the secret."
Wraxham moved away from the bed, not knowing what he did.
"Your brother's name—the name he goes under—is Philip Guise," breathed the dying man. "It is left to you who have preached honour and virtue so often to do him justice. That is my legacy, Edmund."
Wraxham threw out his hand to stop his father's speech; the Earl muttered:
"Philip Guise."
AS the dying man repeated this name (which seemed already to ring in Wraxham's heart with terrible familiarity) he fell into a convulsion that his sternest efforts could not repress, and whilst the negress, flinging herself against the coverlet, shrieked, Wraxham called the doctors, who were no further off than the ante-room.
They came immediately, declaring, with an air of sneering wisdom, that they had expected as much; their manner towards Wraxham was half-obsequious, half-mocking, and, as his raw nerves shrank from their cringing demeanour, he felt as if they made him party to a guilty pact. He was scarcely able to realize that they had not heard what the Earl had said; he wanted to shout at them:
"Don't fawn on me, d'ye see? I'm no one, I've nothing, I'm this man's bastard."
He scorned himself that he had not, in this most awful crisis, a keener presence of mind. It was not till he returned to the bed that he saw the papers still lying by the lamp where anyone might have observed them and even taken possession of them.
As the doctors bent over their patient he slipped the packet into his large, flap pocket and struggled to maintain such a command over himself that he could coolly attribute his father's declaration to the most cruel malice.
No need to doubt that my lord had been the leading figure in many a mock marriage, in many a paltry comedy of deception; no need to doubt that he had had other sons besides himself and Edgar. But every need to doubt and reject this tale of a true marriage and this survival of the wife. A most ingenious, a most devilish invention, but no occasion for him to be disturbed by it; let him rather struggle to maintain an attitude of indifference, of compassion towards the man who went either to eternity or annihilation with such a bitter lie upon his lips and in his heart.
"He is being snatched away," said one of the doctors, picking up the lamp and allowing its yellowish beams to fall over the tumbled bed and the twitching features of my lord. "Is there anything, sir, you would care to say?"
"I have nothing to say," muttered Wraxham, falling back from the circle of light.
The dying man appeared to hear these words, and with the last effort of consciousness he opened his eyes and, staring past the lamplight at Wraxham, whispered:
"As for me, I've said enough—all I had to say." Edmund covered his face with his hand and turned away.
It was over at last. No more torment, no more such scenes, and, as for this sting the dead man had tried to leave behind him—why, that was nothing; yet the words his father had used to him on his death-bed seemed to be written in pin-pricks of fire all over the dusky shadows of the room.
"He is gone," said one of the doctors in the loud, comfortable voice of one who had no longer the fear of disturbing a violent invalid.
"He would have lasted longer but for this last effort," remarked the other; "if your lordship had seen fit to come earlier—But it is little matter, he had not long to go and his pain was continuous."
"Pull the curtains," commanded Wraxham, without turning round.
He heard the rings slip on the poles and then faced the doctors.
"His mind was befogged, was it not? He knew not what he said? The words he used to me made no sense."
"He was not, to my thinking, delirious," replied the first doctor, rubbing his hands together doubtfully. "I found him in full possession of his faculties. Now and again at night he would be delirious, but not for these last twenty-four hours when the fever had sunk."
The second doctor added:
"I dare swear that when your lordship came here to-night the late Earl was in full and clear possession of his senses."
"He was not," said Wraxham, with a touch of violence. "He raved! I tell you what he said to me were ravings!"
The doctors glanced at each other and shrugged their shoulders. They awaited their instructions and, observing that the young man stood motionless and, as if his mind were far away, stared at the drawn curtains of the bed, they asked for his commands.
Wraxham referred them to Laurence Ambler.
"Your lordship will stay in the house to-night?"
"Yes, I'll stay here. I'll send a message," he added, as if thinking aloud and scarcely knowing to whom he spoke, "to Lady Anstice. No one else will be much concerned."
He went downstairs, taking infinite trouble to hold himself erect.
Laurence Ambler was still leaning against the tapestry above the niche used as a coffin rest. Wraxham pulled himself up short and stared at Ambler, who stared back.
"It's over, sir?"
"He is dead," replied the young man curtly and hoarsely. "See to everything, Ambler."
"I hope your lordship feels at peace with him?" said Ambler.
Edmund did not reply. He went downstairs, not knowing his own destination. He despised, he must despise all this long attempt to torment him, but when he reached the hall with the purple bustos of the Roman emperors the thought stabbed at him: "If there is nothing in it but malice why did Edgar destroy himself?"
This terrible reflection drew him, as surely as if a hand had pulled at his skirts, past those frowning bustos into the little room where Edgar had shot himself. As he flung open the door and blindly advanced he found himself stumbling in the darkness and, for a second of incredible horror, he felt as if he had followed his father's soul into that blackness of annihilation which Ambler said he had dreaded and where he might be now for ever eclipsed. He turned towards the bell-cord and pulled it violently.
Heslop came with a lamp in his hand.
"I knew it was no one but you, sir, who would ring the bell in this room. Is my lord—?"
"Gone to his account," muttered Edmund. "Set the light here and leave me. Do as Mr. Ambler says."
"Mr. Ambler, sir, is still to give orders?" inquired Heslop.
"Just for to-night, Heslop."
"And you, sir, your honour stays here? There's nothing I can bring your honour?"
"Nothing—yet. I don't know. Bring me some brandy, set it on the table here and leave me. Don't speak to me for a while, and send some message to Lady Anstice, telling her my lord has gone and I will be over on the morrow—or, is it to-day, Heslop?"
"About two of the clock, my lord, and raining heavily. The watch has just been past."
"Thank you, Heslop; the lamp will do there very well."
The servant went to the door and there hesitated, looked back and spoke:
"Oh, my lord, if you would choose another chamber to-night—"
"I know what I am doing, Heslop. Thank you."
The servant left him.
Edmund drew the packet of papers from his pocket, untied the black ribbon that bound them and laid them out severally before him. His senses were acute. He noticed at once their matter and their detail. A package of love-letters, some signed "Barbara," some written by his father signed "Edgar Dellow" in a bold clear hand; hers, "Barbara" always; sometimes from an address at Drury Lane, sometimes at Islington; his, with no address at all. A note of an entry in the parish register of the Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Islington, February 13th, 1720—Edgar Dellow and Barbara Pascoe—and their several descriptions. As witnesses, François St. Clair, valet, and Thomas Cramer, gentleman; the minister, Robert Fishlock, Clerk in Holy Orders. Copy of the baptismal entry of Philip Dellow, son of Barbara Pascoe and Edgar Dellow, born June 16th, 1721, in Hinton, a village in Buckinghamshire, in the parish register of the Church of St. John, the minister, Thomas Gale, Rector. Copy of the entry in the hospital register of the death of Barbara Pascoe, or Dellow, of typhus fever in the Hôtel-Dieu, Paris. Copy of the entry of her burial in Père la Chaise, the receipt to Edgar Dellow for her burial expenses. Papers from a Mrs. Isabel Duchene for moneys received for the nourishment and maintenance of Philip Dellow, called Philip Guise ... from an address in Islington.
"I'll keep my judgment, I will not have my spirit chastened or my blood flurried by this. It is not true. There has been devilish craft shown in making it appear true, and now I shall have to deal with Ambler."
He sat motionless, took his hot head in his hands, placed his elbows either side the linen envelope and stared into the steady flame of the lamp.
Heslop entered with the brandy.
Wraxham drank one glass after another.
Heslop informed him that a lackey had been sent to Lady Anstice. "But I told him, my lord, to wait till the morning so as not to disturb my lady, who is old and needs her sleep."
"I thank you, Heslop, for that thought."
The servant lingered.
"It means a great change, sir?"
Edmund did not reply. He knew what Heslop meant, he was the Earl now—ninth Earl of Shalford. Yes, it was a great change.
"Won't your lordship take some little sleep? There's nothing the doctors and the women cannot do—"
"Certainly, Heslop, and thank ye again. But now I must be alone and here."
The servant left him. Edmund knew that the man would be wondering why he was so moved at what had been now for days expected and could be no more than a relief to himself. The brandy made his blood run faster. He stared across the small room at the spot in the corner where Edgar had last stood in life, and spoke to him as if he could see his phantom there.
"What did ye think of it, Edgar? Were ye convinced? Did he make ye believe it was true? Why did ye not tell me about it? Weren't we sworn into each other's secrets?"
Then, realizing that he was talking aloud, he cursed himself for a fool and a drunkard, clapped his hands over his mouth and pushed the brandy bottle away from him, lest he should drink too much and run shouting his secrets over the house.
"I'm only that dead man's bastard and Philip Guise is the Earl. Ridiculous as atrocious! Absurd as grotesque! Ambler has hatched this, I dare swear, and will require good money for his silence. But I'll not pay a farthing, look ye. This Philip Guise, too, who is he? Has he helped forge these papers? Is he in the plot to bleed me? No doubt my father had many such sons—rogues and outcasts."
His father endeavouring to trap him on a point of honour, to put him in a nice dilemma before his conscience and his integrity.
"My God! he must have convinced Edgar!"
That was the throb at the heart of the wound—Edgar must have been convinced ... by those crude lies, by those flimsy papers, so easily fabricated.... Edgar must have been so convinced that, faced by an intolerable situation, he had destroyed himself.
Edmund rose, thrusting his fingers through his hair.
"I'll investigate it, I'll prove it, d'ye see?" He pushed the envelope into his pocket.
He felt heavy and drowsy; the long days of restless tension were over, the best and the worst had befallen; it was not relief, but condemnation to something more dreadful than anything he had yet experienced of dark uncertainty, of vague yet menacing mystery. He thought stupidly: "In any case there is my mother's fortune." But he remembered, as stupidly, the wording of his grandfather's will: "To my daughter's legitimate descendants born in wedlock, Edgar and Edmund Dellow."
There was a sofa near the new polished boards in the corner. Edmund threw himself on this and slept. Heslop, creeping into the room, turned the lamp down and moved the brandy, and he winced to see where the young man had chosen his resting-place.
Edmund, stretched in his tumbled uniform, resembled that other youth, Edgar, whom Heslop had seen lying so near that couch, with his head shattered from the self-inflicted wound.
EDMUND sat up to discover Ambler and Heslop regarding him; the shutters had been opened and a colourless light filled the cold room. Edmund understood at once that both these men feared his brother's disaster for him, Ambler, because he must have guessed the Earl's revelation, and Heslop out of pure affection and superstitious dread at seeing him sleep in that cabinet.
Clearly recalling every detail of last night's events Edmund rose. He felt sick and disordered, and mechanically pulled his uniform into place; the taste of the spirit was still acrid in his mouth; he was extremely temperate, contrary to the usages of his class, and he felt disgusted with himself for that panic snatch at drunken oblivion. Cowardice—he must be careful about cowardice.
Heslop, with deference, said he had prepared a room—"which your lordship may occupy away from the business of the day."
Away from that other chamber where the dead man lay, Heslop meant; Edmund shook his head.
"I'll not stay in this house." He glanced at Ambler, leaning, distracted and melancholy, against the door. "Did ye wish to see me, sir?"
"Oh, my lord, there are matters to be attended to, as I suppose."
"Why were ye watching me?"
Ambler answered the challenge.
"Heslop told me, sir, that you were lodged here, confounded uncomfortable. It is ten o'clock—I've done what I can without instructions, the attorneys are here and Mr. Pollexfen, my late lord's steward."
"You are very fitting for this affair, Mr. Ambler," said Edmund. "Tis all formality and follows a prescribed course."
"The funeral will be at Wraxham Abbey with due pomp and decorum."
"What else?"
Heslop, with affectionate anxiety, pressed his young master to leave the dreary cabinet, and Edmund listlessly passed into the vestibule, the two men making way for him with a deference that reminded him of his changed estate.
He went upstairs and entered the large room overlooking the Fields where he had interviewed his father a few days before; there was a stronger shoot of green visible on the tall trees beyond the high windows; the clouds above the square were quick, grey and menacing. Edmund drank his coffee as avidly as last night he had drunk his brandy; there was a letter from Lady Anstice, formally worded, but more a letter of congratulation than condolence; the cover was triumphantly inscribed—"To the Earl of Shalford."
He would have to write to her, to Cecilia, to his friends, but not now ...
His hand went to the long pocket in his coat; a fire glowed on the wide hearthstone, one gesture and he could burn all these documents; but they were copies, probably Ambler had the originals. His father had left Ambler to blackmail him for the rest of his life.
Very pretty, and he a fool to imagine that my lord dead was my lord powerless; yet this trick was too palpable a fraud, too vile a lie.
Edmund, drinking his coffee, gazing into the fire, took counsel with himself. To investigate secretly to the bottom of his father's assertions, to search for the spark of truth there might be beneath the ingenious falsehoods, or to face Ambler at once, to deal with him and be rid of him immediately?
His mind strayed from these questions and tormented itself with imagining his dilemma if the thing were true—"as Edgar must have believed it true."
Edgar's way, suicide, leaving it to Ambler to produce the real heir?
The way of buying Ambler, lavishly, for ever, destroying, as with his money and influence he would be able to destroy, all evidence of this secret, to conceal it for ever, as many such secrets must be concealed?
Or the impossible way his father had mockingly suggested—renunciation of all that made life desirable, humiliation, loss of lands, title, money, position, even perhaps of Cecilia, an open proclamation of himself as baseborn, of his mother as dishonoured?
"Yet, if it were true, that would be the only honest course."
Philip Guise.
The name would not leave him. Was there a Philip Guise, or was he, like the story in which he figured, the invention of malice?
Edmund heard hammerings; they were putting up the black hangings on the stairs; he would have to follow the funeral in a mourning-coach on the tedious journey from London to Hertford; how short a time it seemed since he had ridden behind Edgar on the same road to the same destination—the Wraxham vaults.
"But nothing must be shirked."
He went upstairs; in a closet where he had played as a child he splashed water from a silver faucet into a marble shell-shaped basin and bathed his face and hands; he was displeased to see how these latter shook as the bright drops ran off his fingers; surprised, too, he believed he had himself so well under control.
He entered his father's chamber. The bed had been transformed into a catafalque draped with black mohair and silver braid, surmounted by sable plumes, hung with funeral escutcheons with the Dellow arms. Laurence Ambler, directing the last touches of this sombre pomp, said that all had been in readiness for days, in a tone as if he expected praise for his forethought and celerity.
The chamber was shrouded in black, no sign of the occupation of the living remained; only Mrs. Luckett remained on the bedstep, asleep, in her crude red cotton dress with a bow of crape on her bare arm.
"What is to become of the poor creature?" asked Edmund.
Laurence Ambler said he would see to the future of the negress; he added that, during the night she had been robbed of her jewels, bracelets and brocades by the women servants, who had beaten her and dragged the gold from her arms, and then fled no one knew where.
"Of course she is only a slave; my lord gave twenty pounds for her."
"Could ye not have kept better order?" demanded Edmund; but his disgust was for himself in a sodden sleep, relegating his authority to a man like Ambler.
He approached the bed. My lord was high on shapely and unblemished pillows, the crape coverlet, argent-fringed, was turned back from his folded hands; he lay a little crookedly, already stiff; a cap of linen and puckered lace was tied under his chin; the likeness to his dead son was emphasized on his sunken, stained face, which seemed already patched by the stagnation of decay.
Edmund looked resolutely at this corpse set in this sumptuous parade; as he turned his gaze he saw Ambler looking at him very intently.
The two men considered each other; Edmund had the intolerable thought: "That scoundrel thinks himself my master." Aloud he said:
"Will there not be some scandal and difficulty because he did not see a minister?"
"Not with a man of his quality."
"The air is foul—a window might be opened."
"They have had to be sealed up and draped, sir, but that in the passage without has been set wide."
Edmund looked again at his father who, with his prim cap, folded hands and a sideways turn of the head, seemed to assume an attitude of mockery.
The young man thought: "If his spirit does exist anywhere it is grinning at me in triumph because I am frightened and ashamed."
He took his resolution.
"Mr. Ambler, I should like to speak with you."
"Not here?"
"No." But Edmund hesitated. "But why not here —perhaps a suitable place, after all?" Ambler glanced at the bed.
"Well, I'm not afraid of him—no one will come here till they bring the coffin, in an hour or so. Very suitable we should keep watch, my lord."
They seated themselves at the foot of the bed where the black curtains hid the body and conversed in low tones, conscious of that invisible companion.
The young soldier spoke of indifferent matters; he could not bring himself to fetch the packet from his pocket, he cursed the brandy. He had taken too much of the spirit and the fumes still beclouded and unnerved him.
Ambler plucked at the fringe on the mourning drapery; he appeared exhausted; his ascetic face was melancholy; his soiled cravat, his shabby suit were dishevelled; his grey hair, unpowdered and untied, hung negligently. Edmund could not discover any trace of malice or gloating triumph in his demeanour.
At last the packet was out and held towards Ambler.
"How much truth is there in that?"
"A great deal."
"Ye have known it a long while?"
"Ever since those events occurred, my lord." Steadily the young man returned the packet to his coat.
"These are copies?"
"Yes."
"A conspiracy, eh?"
"No." Ambler shook his head. "No."
"What then? Blackmail? You and these others—the valet, the parson, all to be paid, eh?"
"There is no one but myself knows the truth, my lord. The parson is dead, so are some of the others, those who survive are not aware of any importance in this knowledge."
"Naturally." Edmund spoke with dry lips. "I regard the whole affair as a forgery, those papers as counterfeits."
"No. I could give you details, show you proofs, sir, fit one incident into another so that you'd be convinced."
"Never. I would make all public and fight it before the law."
Ambler smiled, and Edmund was humiliated by a panic desire to glut him with bribes, to wipe all out. The easy, cowardly way.
"You won't wish, my lord, to enter into the affair now?"
"My God! do you think I can keep in suspense on a business like this?"
"It's touched you?" Ambler sounded curious. "I wondered if it would. I hardly thought you would approach me so soon."
"Touched me? And yet its flimsy—"
"No, it sticks together because it is the truth; there was such a marriage, such a birth, such a death—it's all woven and can be proved, step by step."
"And Philip Guise?"
"I have not seen him for years."
"He, then, exists?"
"Undoubtedly. Every quarter day he draws his allowance from my lord's bankers."
"The amount?"
"One hundred pounds per annum."
"My lord had a conscience, then?" The young man's bitterness shook him like laughter.
"Why, no; this Philip Guise was to be held over you and your brother—a threat in the background—to use on occasion."
Edmund replied sharply:
"But it was too foolish a lie. Who has ever heard of such a case? A family so pulled down and by its own chief—the scandal would have blasted my lord."
"What had he left to blast? In my opinion he would have done it—twice; but first your brother shot himself and, second, he met his own death."
"I shall fight it to the utmost," said Edmund. He spoke not defiantly but vaguely and took his head in his hands; this whispered conversation in the death-chamber behind the curtained bed seemed to him so grotesque as to escape into unreality. By speaking to Ambler of this atrocious secret he seemed to have given it a wilder incredulity, as some half-glimpsed monster, dragged from the dark, might appear more impossibly horrible by the light of candid day.
"It would be a most ruinous scandal," suggested Ambler.
"But this man, this Philip Guise, would not, perhaps, put forward his ridiculous claims."
"If he saw the originals of those papers he would not think them ridiculous, and he would fight—any man would."
Edmund thought that precisely now Ambler would softly put in his own price, his own terms for silence, and his one impulse was to agree to whatever was asked; struggling with this temptation he did not speak; nothing could have surprised him more than Ambler's next words.
"You have not noticed, sir, nor did your brother, the weak point in this affair—the attitude of this woman, Barbara Pascoe, why should she have allowed the second marriage and her own relegation to such misery that she died in the Hôtel-Dieu?"
"She knew too well the baselessness of her claim," murmured Edmund.
"Yes," agreed Ambler, "that could have been the only reason, for she was a creature of spirit and adored her child."
"Why--What d'ye--?"
Ambler leant towards him as if afraid the dead man would overhear himself betrayed.
"My lord was not married to Barbara Pascoe, there was a ceremony in which another took his place—the man she married was, shall we say, my late lord's jackal?"
"Who?"
"Myself."
"Who, then, is Philip Guise?"
"My late lord's son—his bastard son."
In the radiancy of his relief Edmund rose and walked blindly across the room so that he must see again the mocking corpse on the black-draped bed. Another question broke from him:
"My father did not mean me to know this?"
"No."
Ambler was peering round the heavy, mohair curtains and Edmund, standing between him and the dead man, asked sharply:
"This was not to your interest to tell me. Why did ye do so?"
Ambler smiled, reflecting on his own reasons.
"I suppose, sir, you would hardly understand ... it was a foul turn, even for my lord."
"But you have not been squeamish—"
"No, but there are some things.... Besides, I rather enjoy crossing my lord, at last. And I have no desire to benefit Barbara Pascoe's child."
"But where is your count in this? You have forgone an opportunity to bleed me."
Ambler rose.
"My lord laid this on your conscience. I do the same. I have forgone a personal advantage in telling you the truth. I suppose I may expect your toleration?"
The young man's doubt, even his disgust, showed in his face. He felt no warm rush of gratitude towards his saviour, and my lord, twisted on his pompous pillows, had not lost his expression of mockery.
IN the heavy mourning-coach which followed my lord's hearse from London to Wraxham Abbey, in Hertfordshire, Laurence Ambler told Shalford, as he might now name himself with security, the story of Barbara Pascoe.
The young man was galled by the intimacy with one whom he disliked and who now, to an odd extent, held him under an obligation, and vexed by the relation of a tale to him in every detail displeasing and disgusting; he, however, could avoid neither the one nor the other, and the slow tedium of the funeral procession, the close confinement in the black-lined coach with the leathers up, seemed suited to this sombre recital and this uncongenial companion.
Shalford felt that it had been noticed that he had taken Ambler—his father's discredited favourite—as his sole company. He had seen the attorneys and such distant connections of the family as had attended these obsequies glance at each other in soft surprise as if they should say: "The present lord, so different from the last, takes into favour the same jackal!—"
But Shalford had no choice. Ambler, with one of his deprecatory, melancholy smiles, had chosen to come with him and to take this moment for the relation of the story behind the bundle of papers which my late lord had presented to his son.
As they left London behind, Shalford raised the blind and let in some of the cool spring sunlight. Ambler, in his mourning coat with his crape favours, looked a sad and dispirited figure. There seemed more melancholy than malice in his demeanour, but Edmund, despite the candour of his revelation, could neither like nor trust him.
"Ye will leave out all ye can," he commanded, "ye will tell me only the essential facts and remember that whatever ye say I shall investigate for myself."
Ambler's story went back twenty-seven years, to the year 1720, when Barbara Pascoe had played with charm and vivacity at Drury Lane and attracted the roving attention of Edgar Dellow, as he then was, second son of the seventh Earl of Shalford and one of the worst-conditioned rakes of his moment.
"We met at Pembroke. Though he had always money and spirits, I had nothing but wit and learning. I attached myself to him in London. I was hesitating then between the theatre and the church. I hoped that my friend's father might get me a benefice if I took Holy Orders, and I hoped that his influence at the Lane might get a drama on the boards should I chance to write one—"
"I can guess well enough, Mr. Ambler, your several characters and situations."
"But you must remember, my lord, that your father—then Edgar Dellow—had little hope of the title. Even so, he was not in the least prepared to marry Barbara Pascoe. She, however, was not only virtuous but cunning. She knew her worth and my lord's poor opinion of it."
"Come to the facts. He deceived her with this mock marriage."
"Ah," smiled Ambler, "for such a common trick as that she was prepared; she knew the tale of Roxana and Lord Oxford in her mother's time.... No lackeys disguised as clergymen, no unfrocked priest, she declared, would serve her turn. And her manifest virtue"—Ambler's sneer was scarcely perceptible, but nevertheless stung Shalford, who glanced away out at the bleak spring countryside—"secured her the terms she demanded. You might have thought my lord had been caught by her and surrendered to his passion. But this was not the case. Several were agreed in a plot to outwit the knowing actress. The marriage was to be, as she insisted in the terms of her capitulation, in her favourite church at Islington, where she lived, and performed by the Reverend Robert Fishlock. She was to bring Mrs. Tremaine, her dresser, and he François St. Clair, his valet, and one Thomas Cramer, his friend—I at the moment was ill with a flux on the stomach—the marriage was to take place at night and with the greatest possible secrecy."
Shalford's glances expressed an impatient restlessness.
"Once I have related this tale I shall not care to be questioned on it. My lord chanced to receive a wound from his mother's parrot—a laughable incident, you may consider, sir—and this meant the bandaging of the greater portion of his face. In those days gentlemen still wore the full peruke with long falling curls either side of their cheeks, and wide-leaved deep hats were the fashion. When my lord arrived at the church that cold and stormy night in February, muffled up against the cold, with his face bandaged, his black hat pulled down, accompanied by his friend and his valet, those who received him at the church door had little opportunity of studying his features. The church was ill lit and Mr. Cramer contrived an opportunity to overturn—it would seem an accident, you will observe—the largest lantern near the altar. There was an alarm, too, of some pursuit, of the old Earl having noise of the matter. The bride was in flurried spirits, half-awed with her triumph. The minister, too, was a little uneasy, and Mrs. Tremaine, with her hartshorn bottle and her handkerchief, in a state of considerable emotion. In brief, the ruse was very successfully carried through. I, you may recall, am much of the height and figure and something of the features of my late lord."
Shalford stared out of the window. He was amazed at Ambler's cynical and melancholy coolness.
"There was a coach outside and I and my wife got in. It was dark and I had no occasion to speak. At the corner of the street an accident had been contrived—a wheel came off. Shouts, confusion, shrieks from the ladies, and in the medley my lord and I changed places. A hackney was hired and he took her to his chambers in Jermyn Street. I believe that only when the doors were locked behind her and she discovered that he had no wound upon his face did she begin to suspect an elaborate deception."
"She was your wife," remarked Shalford, still staring out of the window.
"Yes, I had a thousand pounds for my share in that business, and spent it very pleasantly on a woman about whom I, at that time, had a little lost my head."
Shalford pressed his black-bordered handkerchief to his lips.
"What passed between Barbara and my lord was no business of mine. I heard of them again when he had tired of her. It was not, of course, difficult to prove to her how she had been deceived. Both the valet and the friend—St. Clair and Cramer—knew that it was I and not my lord who had stood beside her at the altar, and the poor woman's sole hope went when she discovered that Mrs. Tremaine had also been bribed into acquiescence in the plan. In brief, she and the clergyman were the only two people in the church who had believed that Edgar Dellow was her bridegroom."
"And this unfortunate creature accepted her misery?"
"She did, resignedly enough. She had made a bold try and failed. My lord was generous, he supported her and occasionally visited her at a cottage in Hinton, Buckinghamshire, and there her son Philip was born in 1721—one year after the mock marriage. Soon after—you will observe, my lord, that I keep to essential facts—my lord's brother was killed in a duel, and he became heir to the title and estates. His affairs were, however, considerable involved and his extravagance was notorious."
"I know it indeed," said Shalford dryly.
"In the latter part of 1722 your father married your mother and speedily ran through her dowry. This was indiscreet, for, though she had vast expectations, he found that her prudent parents and relations had cut him out of them in favour of her children—your brother Edgar and yourself. Your father was by that time on the worst terms with his wife and his wife's relations. I believe that more than once when he was desperately pushed for money and refused by his wife's family he had the intention of making public his first 'marriage' and declaring it a genuine one. But I restrained him. Barbara Pascoe proved petulant and quarrelsome. My lord stopped her supplies in disgust at her behaviour. She went to Paris under the protection of a Jamaica sugar merchant, but soon left him. My lord kept track of her, and in January, 1725, she died, destitute, in the Hôtel-Dieu, Paris, and I was immediately sent over to take witnesses' depositions as to this fact and, on my own account, I saw her decently buried. As you have twice reminded me, she was my wife. She left her child at my lord's charges, and he had put it out with some woman of his acquaintance in Islington, where he had bought for Barbara Pascoe the house where she used to lodge."
Ambler peered at his silent companion and continued:
"Cramer was then dead, the valet had proved unreliable. The boy was called Philip Guise. The house at Islington, mortgaged by Barbara Pascoe, was redeemed by my lord and settled on Philip Guise with the sum of one hundred pounds in Consols, to be paid every quarter through his bankers; he was termed a protégé of my lord, the child of an old servant. He was brought up by Mrs. Duchene, whom I have mentioned, and by the Reverend Robert Fishlock, who had married his mother to me, but whether this worthy gentleman was deceived as to the origin of the child I do not know; I never was concerned to inquire."
Here Laurence Ambler paused abruptly, mopped his forehead, wiped his lips, and leant back, as if exhausted, against the harsh, black cloth cushions of the mourning-coach.
"There's very little more," he added. He continued after watching the silent Shalford: "And all I have said you can prove yourself if you care to make inquiries."
"Where is Philip Guise now?"
"That I do not know. Since he was twenty-two—that is six years ago—I have heard little of him, save that he occasionally visits the house in Islington and that his money is drawn or forwarded to him."
"Has he any profession?"
"He was trained for none. His education was respectable but scarcely liberal, he would be little of a scholar and, I believe, nothing of a gentleman. But I scarcely know, he has been abroad so much. It is possible that he lives on the hundred pounds a year, but very likely he has taken up the life of an adventurer."
"What is he like in his person?"
"When I last saw him, as a youth, he was sickly, ill-favoured, dwarfish."
A HIGH wind was blowing as the funeral cortège turned into the grounds of Wraxham Abbey. As Shalford looked out of the window of the mourning-coach on to the wide and rich landscape his heart was touched with a faint happiness. As he glanced across the pleasant prospect of green sward and avenues of high and noble trees putting forth their first leaves, of deer in the dark shade, of smooth ponds broken by the stir of frightened waterfowl, he thought of Cecilia and was glad that she had been out of his mind during that squalid recital by Laurence Ambler. At Wraxham Cecilia would be at home; that neat and elegant lady, graceful, so candid and so generous, with her simplicity and gaiety, would be the mistress for which Wraxham for two generations had waited. For neither Shalford's broken-hearted mother, with her drooping pallor and her tears, nor his hard-featured, stern-living grandmother had been the châtelaine for which the beautiful estate seemed prepared.
After London, Wraxham appeared enchantingly lonely and lovely to Shalford, almost as if he had ridden into another world.
Those high winds blowing clearly through the tall tops of the bare trees seemed to sweep away all that was terrible and sordid. Even his father's life and death. In the distance, glimpsed between the avenues, were sloping woodlands bathed in pure hyacinthine light and a purple horizon veiled in soft azure mist. Where the funeral pomp gathered in the churchyard Shalford saw the tufted primroses growing by the headstones, and daffodils bloomed with sparkling light and colour above the short, faint-tinted grass.
Not even the tolling of the bell, the black-draped church, the diamond-shaped funeral escutcheons, the mourners in trailing cloaks and crape weepers, not even the sight of his father's monstrous coffin could wholly sink the spirit of Shalford, which responded so surely and so delicately to this pure and still beauty of an English day in early spring in a lonely country park.
The funeral service was read and Shalford found strength and beauty in the familiar words which he had so often read with something of a shudder of inward awe when turning over his prayer-book, secretly, in the high church pew during the long tedium of a droning sermon on some childish Sunday afternoon.
The vault was opened, the coffin was lowered, the vault was closed.
Edgar Dellow, eighth Earl of Shalford, who had so meanly and so miserably misused many opportunities, would offend no more. Shalford could forgive him now, even his last and most monstrous malice. But for Laurence Ambler's cynic candour he, Edmund Dellow, might have stood there now wondering in private anguish if he had any right to the name he bore; but that shaft had proved harmless, and what was it all in the face of the sun, the primroses, the daffodils, what was it all but an old tale? Barbara Pascoe, wronged as she might have been, was dead. The friend who had helped in the sordid affair was dead. It was all over. It had happened a generation ago, and of all that squalid entanglement there remained but Laurence Ambler who in a sense, had expiated ... Shalford did not feel easy on this point, he could not acquit Ambler, scarcely tolerate him, but he was not the keeper of that strange man's conscience.
There remained but one fellow-creature with whom to deal, and that was Philip Guise. And here Shalford, moving slowly through the sweet soft air to the noble mansion, was caught by another entanglement. How should he believe the perfect truth of a man like Ambler? Philip Guise might, after all, be Ambler's son. If my lord had lied so subtly and so cunningly, might not Laurence Ambler also twist some figment of truth into a disgraceful complication?
A little collation was served in the great room overlooking the terrace. The covers had been snatched from the tapestried chairs, canvas and muslin removed from pictures and chandelier. The room smelt of cleanliness, of wash balls and herbs, of polish and wax. The fresh, ineffably pure air blew in through open windows. A heavy service of silver, ostentatious as befitted the occasion, was on the table. Shalford remembered being asked for the key of the silver chest by the steward, and this reminded him of the essential bitterness between his father and himself. All this property was what the late Earl had not been able to dispose of, which had been by a foreseeing and energetic grandfather, the seventh Earl, entailed upon himself.
Shalford thought: "If he had had his way there would be none of this here—all mortgaged or sold and I, a beggarly lieutenant in the Guards, forced to marry an heiress or live on my pay."
During this funeral banquet where the guests, none of them knowing each other well and not at their ease, conversed in low, formal tones, Shalford frequently glanced at Ambler, who ate his meat and drank his wine with no sign of discomfort. He seemed indifferent, negligent towards his surroundings. The manner in which he had related his tale in the coach proved to Shalford that he was a creature without conscience or honour, and the young man beat about in his mind as to why he, this despicable Laurence Ambler, had chosen to tell him the truth when to maintain the fiction invented by my late lord would have been so greatly to his advantage.
"Did he fear that I should find out it was a palpable lie and, in disgust, spurn him? And yet it would not have been so easy to find that out," and there came again the savage thought—"Edgar was deceived. I must ask him why he did not enlighten Edgar."
But Shalford believed that he knew. His elder brother, haughtier and more passionate than himself, had behaved with scorn and contempt towards his father's jackal. Ambler must have hated him. There was, possibly, another reason. It might have been that Ambler had not known what the Earl had revealed to his eldest son. Shalford was tormented by these puzzles. He wished passionately to know how long had elapsed between my lord revealing the secret to Edgar and Edgar's suicide. Had Edgar made investigations? If so, strange he should not have stumbled on the truth. Strange, too, that he should have committed so final an action without investigation.
There was another problem, also, over which he mused as he drank his wine. How to reward Ambler? What would the fellow want? Something considerable, no doubt. He would give him anything he asked, as long as it was not his intimacy or a place in his household. And there remained Philip Guise—he must seek out Philip Guise.
The funeral was over and the young man was in possession of his kingdom. The keys had been delivered to him; the attorneys had handed over to him his title deeds, his rent roll, his accounts. There were weeks of work ahead in which to consider and adjust all these, but nothing of fret, the steward had done his task excellently. He had been responsible, not to my late lord, but to the trustees of the entailed estate, which was now, without a shadow of suit or contradiction, in the possession of the present earl.
He walked out into the lovely park and found himself at the decoy ponds. The day was of an extraordinary clarity, the high yet gentle wind blew clouds of crystal clearness across a sky that overbrimmed with light. Shalford turned into a grove of trees. Here he could imagine Cecilia in the classic robes in which he loved to imagine her, standing with her pipes in her hand as her namesake in Raphael's painting, calling down, by her divine melody, the angels from heaven.
He had too many of such graceful whimseys in his love and, vaguely and with some distress, knew it; in all his wooing there had been this element of unreality ... she was St. Cecilia, a saint, she was a fairy, a goddess; yes, in this grove he could see her as Diana perpetually virginal, almost he would keep her so, a flitting shape of poetic fantasy. Musing, he pondered to himself: "It is, perhaps, dangerous to forget that Cecilia Torrance is a woman, and yet I often do so."
Through the boughs of the leafless grove of trees fell the intermittent sunshine, bright, pure, colourless; only lightly obscured now and then by those flying, transparent clouds. And Shalford, wandering free of all that was detestable in this most delicious place, found himself confronted by the image of another woman—the loathsome beggar with the black spectacles who, leaning on her stick, had approached him outside his father's mansion and shrilled in his ear, "Oh, my beautiful dream! Oh, my delightful dream!"
Shalford laughed at his own stupidity in recalling such an image, and at such a moment. Cecilia—Diana—pure and fragrant as the young grass and the almost unseen leaf—alone dwelt there. When these trees were in full leafage she would be by his side, lifting the hem of her muslin robe from this smooth turf, her face in shadow from her wide straw hat, but on her gentle bosom the light chestnut curls would gleam in the sunshine.
LORD SHALFORD awoke in his unfamiliar room, and grasped the dark, heavy curtains of his bed. The shutters were closed, the moonlight falling through the round hole in one of these threw a patch of cold light on the floor that he at first thought was the icy gleam of the silver breastplate on his father's coffin; he stared at this, his senses in abeyance, and believed himself closed in the Shalford vault in Wraxham Church with my late lord for company. His mind cleared, he wondered what frightful dream had awakened him so suddenly, but could remember nothing.
Rising, he felt his way across the spacious room, opened the shutters and looked out on to the park; the moonlight lay pure and colourless on the empty terraces, on the long slopes of grass, and silvered the tops of the delicately-leaved trees under which lay interlaced black shadows; an almost impalpable mist of faery lightness veiled the distance.
The air was cool, still; Shalford leant out into the night, glad to be relieved from the oppression of his forgotten dream.
The silence soothed him, the unearthliness of the moonlight was grateful to his spirit; his mind became alert, vigilant; he recalled the tale that Laurence Ambler had told him in the mourning-coach. And suddenly saw it as a lie.
He was startled at himself; why had he awakened resolute, clear-headed, and immediately thought of Ambler's story?
But so it was.
And he was convinced, without need of reasoning, that the ingenious relation was invented from beginning to end.
He was even amazed that he had ever been satisfied with Ambler's story, which now appeared to him, from beginning to end, as grotesquely impossible. It had been the man's quiet ways, a certain fascination about his words and gestures, his subtle looks and intonations and the strangeness of the long ride in the mourning-coach behind his father's hearse that had persuaded him, Shalford, into believing those careful falsehoods.
But, in the silence, the silver dark, the solitude, Shalford saw the whole tale as a fabrication that would be blown to pieces by the first breath of common sense.
A man like his father would have had other means to obtain a woman of no birth beside an elaborate mock marriage, and what bride was ever deceived in the identity of her groom?
The pretended wound from the parrot, the bandaged face, the feigned coach accident, the bribing of so many different people—Ambler, Mrs. Tremaine, St. Clair; the deception practised on the minister, the false signature in the register—all these details appeared to Shalford as clumsy fictions.
And the woman, this Barbara Pascoe, described as chaste and spirited, why should she have submitted to such a vile deception?
She could have made an open scandal, she could have gone to my lord's father, well-known as an austere and upright man; she could have done many things sooner than endure humiliation in secret, bear her child in shame, sink to a wanton life and die outcast in an Hôtel-Dieu.
It was also, though not impossible, improbable that in thirty years nearly every one concerned in this affair should be dead; Barbara Pascoe herself, her dresser, Mrs. Tremaine, the minister, the valet, the friend, the woman who had brought up the child—all, Laurence Ambler had said, dead. Not one left to blackmail my lord during his life, not one left to testify to his tale after his death.
An impudent fiction, all of it; Shalford stared across the park.
If this were a fiction, what was the truth? And who was Philip Guise?
The young man endeavoured to answer these questions; the truth was probably ordinary enough; his father had likely indeed seduced some woman under a promise of marriage or a mock marriage and maintained her child—or, there had been no child and this Philip Guise was Ambler's son.
Shalford's mind rested with some satisfaction on that solution; Philip Guise was Ambler's son, of base origin, and he and my lord had planned to use him to torment my lord's heirs; then Ambler, afraid of the blatant lie, had twisted the tale round so as to give himself a generous air and maintain a hold of the new Earl.
"He knew that if he defied me I should soon prove the stupid plot baseless, and so he thought to get me this way."
But the papers?
If they were forgeries, some pains and ingenuity had gone to the forging of them. "I must investigate them coolly, slowly and alone; above all I must be on my guard against Ambler, who certainly lies, who has invented this crude tale and who seeks to entangle me in some detestable complication of falsehood and malice."
With self-disgust the young man confessed to a weak regret that he had not been able to credit Ambler's story; that would have been an easy end to the matter and would have left him without a shade of doubt as to his own legitimacy. But, not being able to believe Ambler, what a weary prospect of suspicion, consideration and investigation lay before him ere the final truth satisfied his mind....
He would have been able, however, to have assured himself that this truth, when discovered, would not concern him, had not there been before him the dreadful fact of Edgar's suicide.
Ambler had insinuated that Edgar had shot himself because his father had menaced him with Philip Guise; the horrible conclusion, then, was that Edgar had believed the tale my lord had breathed on his death-bed, a tale more fantastic than the version of Laurence Ambler that he, Shalford, now contemptuously rejected.
If Ambler's story was a lie, what had Edgar discovered? Or had his suicide possibly nothing whatever to do with Philip Guise?
Shalford endeavoured to fix his thoughts on Philip Guise, this obscure personality, sickly, unattractive, ill-bred, poverty-stricken, who was perhaps his half-brother. "I must see him, he has been unfortunate, possibly wronged; in any case I have everything and he nothing."
Pacing about the moonlit room in his bedgown Shalford tried to escape from Philip Guise and to think of Cecilia Torrance.
It would be an extravagance of sensitiveness to allow this miserable business to delay his marriage, he had nothing to fear.
This thought led to another, that of his large wealth and high fortune; all these garnered moneys from merchant ancestors, all these guarded lands from noble ancestors, all the villages, farms, stables full of horses, houses full of furniture, the picture galleries, the libraries, gardens, parks—all his, sternly and jealously preserved for him; he need not be so timid before Cecilia Torrance, he had much to offer.
He sickened to think how much; he revolted against all this hoarded treasure, he wanted to be free of it; he wished he had given way, he wished he had let his father squander everything; he would have liked to have gone down to the Wraxham vault and pile the money-bags round his father's coffin....
He caught himself up; such fantasies were dangerous; he had responsibilities that he had fought to keep; pledges had been given to the dead; to his grandfather, to Edgar. Seated on the bedstep Shalford recalled that his father now lay between these two—Edgar and his grandfather, the fringes of their palls touched in the dust; their coffin trestles were side by side, the same escutcheon was repeated on each breastplate.
"I must think of Cecilia." Shalford rested his hot head with the tangled fair hair against the cool coverlet and stared at the band of moonlight falling across the stiff curtains of the bed.
From this pure silver light he strove to create the body of Cecilia, exquisite, unearthly, lily-white, partially veiled by the fine threads of her gleaming hair-Diana, Melody, an angelic creature....
But his disturbed senses beheld rather Hecate, the evil aspect of the moon who draws all foul monsters from their unclean lairs, who is herself mysterious, deadly, dealing in confusion and lunacy.
How vague had Cecilia become to him! Would he ever satisfy her or she satisfy him?
He tried to think of her in this very room, bending over him, her tresses falling over her bosom, her eyes full of compassion and tenderness. But instead he saw the wistful ghosts of those light pleasures of the camp, the winter quarters, whom he had so reluctantly taken, so shamefacedly left; whom he could not recall without disgust, for he had always been unfortunate enough not to be able easily to follow a fashion or carelessly gratify a desire; he had often despised himself for feeling deeply where other men did not feel at all, and for sickening at these loveless affairs which to his companions meant nothing but agreeable diversions.
Cecilia was so different from these women that it was profanation to consider them together; yet he did so consider them; some of those little creatures had been fine and elegant enough; often their fortunes, not their will, had led them; perhaps Cecilia only owed her remote air, her delicate chaste allurement to her guarded life; unprotected she might have been no more difficult of attainment than poor Lisette or Rosetta, who had so joyfully shared his lodgings in Mons or Brussels—was she so different, after all?
The young man's head and heart ached; Cecilia must be different; passionately he valued her still purity, that dreaming virginity that he had scarcely ventured to disturb even by a kiss; he would enshrine her, ensky her; as his wife, possessed in reverence, she would fill his life with peace and radiance....
This faint, gracious image he desperately evoked would not remain; his mind returned wearily to Ambler's story and hung on the name—"Philip Guise."
The fatigue of his vigil clouded his face when he met Ambler on the terrace the next morning. The day was bright, clear; pale sunshine streamed between the branches of the trees, gay with young foliage, and lay across the stone balustrade where Shalford leant.
Ambler, with his solitary air, had his book and his pipe and was seated on the stone bench in the angle of the terrace beneath a vase holding a great plant yet barren.
He said he had been up early enjoying the clean country atmosphere.
Shalford's aching eyes turned on him.
"Ye must not think I believe what ye told me yesterday, Ambler."
The melancholy man replied, unsurprised:
"Is it not convenient to believe it, my lord?"
"Oh, I don't consider conveniency!"
"Well, then, of course," Ambler shrugged his shoulders. "At least, I have no other tale to tell."
"I can investigate myself."
"I do not recommend that you do, sir."
"No, I suppose not. It is all a flam—no bottom. And, Ambler, I do not find it expedient that you should remain in my establishment."
"I hardly supposed you would, my lord."
"But you shall be sufficiently pensioned."
"Thank you, my lord, that will do very well; I have a mind to rural retirement—there is a cottage in Highgate—"
Shalford was secretly disturbed by this ready acquiescence in his wishes; he even discovered something menacing in the sad, passive face of Ambler; for he could not forget this man's long association with his father.
"I intend to be married very soon, Ambler; I shall not return to Ireland, Miss Torrance will come to London. You will realize how disagreeable, how impossible your presence would be in our household."
"I have not asked for these explanations, my lord; I am content with your generous offer."
Nothing could have been more humble than his manner, more submissive than his look; Shalford tried to tell himself, "Why, this is an end, I have done with it—with him," yet could not believe this comfort.
"One affair"—he paused to conceal the effort with which he spoke—"this Philip Guise?"
"Yes, my lord, Philip Guise?"
"You can help me to find him?"
"Assuredly. There should be no difficulty. The bankers know his whereabouts." Ambler looked up blankly as he spoke. "I believe he lodges in Islington. But why concern yourself about him? He knows nothing."
"The very reason I must see him. If he is my father's son I ought to relieve his fortunes."
"If? You then doubt?" Ambler seemed discreetly amused.
"Anyone but a fool would doubt every detail of such tales as I have been told."
"Sometimes, my lord, it is as well to assume the complacency of a fool. Why not let this matter rest? Neither I nor Philip Guise will ever trouble you."
"No?" Shalford frowned. "How do I know that you have not some mine laid beneath my feet ready to fire when you choose?"
"Had I intended blackmail," replied Ambler calmly, "I should never have contradicted the story my late lord told you."
"You knew it would not hold."
Ambler sighed; his eyes were secret, his voice meek.
"Well, my lord, investigate for yourself and see if it holds."
CECILIA TORRANCE idled in her London bedchamber; the city was unfamiliar, depressing; Lady Anstice, in whose care she was, too anxious and careful a guardian; the girl felt lonely away from her people, her country, caged in the large gloomy house.
She thought that her father, who had brought her to London, might have remained; but he had married a second wife and was not so interested in Cecilia and her magnificent marriage as she wished him to be; he snatched, for her, but little time from his own matters.
The spring was late, cold, obscured in clouds and rain; Cecilia missed the tender azure skies, the rioting fresh early flowers and lush grasses, the violet mountains of Ireland.
She was vexed with herself for her own depression and tried bitterly to understand what was this blur between herself and happiness—always.
The most important factor in her own life was her own beauty, and this both amazed and disappointed her; sometimes she felt her loveliness a burden; she was surprised at her perfection, obsessed by her superb body, which she could seldom forget; then she would see another woman—a peasant perhaps—equally beautiful, and feel herself valueless.
All she had read and heard assured her of the great power of beauty; but she had observed very little of this; she was often secretly surprised at the small impression she made on her male acquaintance. Too indolent and fastidious to play the coquette, she never exerted herself to please, and men, absorbed in work or pleasure, passed her by. She often wondered ingenuously if any of them realized how beautiful she was; the world seemed dull with the waste of beauty of women, with the neglect of men.
Her family were Protestant, of Norman descent, but intermarried with Irish; Cecilia inherited a Celtic melancholy, a dreaming indolent belief in the cloudy world of the Shee, and the austere shyness, the quiet reserve of the English; from both strains an unconscious chastity and the secret voluptuous passion usually concealed deep beneath such a warm and drowsy purity, but of this potential passion she herself as yet knew nothing. She had been educated strictly in a religion and a morality that were not to be questioned; both were gloomy and tended to repress beauty, gaiety, joy; she heard self-sacrifice, abnegation, suffering exalted; she learnt of God as a jealous greedy tyrant; she associated churches with graves, sermons with hell, prayers with despair.
Often in a profound melancholy she marked the names and ages on tombs—"She was younger than I, perhaps as beautiful "—and she would dwell fearfully on the long humiliation of the body, the slow rotting till the Judgment Day.
She would wake up in the night trembling and think: "I am twenty, soon I shall not be young; how shall I endure to be old and repulsive?" Or, "Perhaps I shall die soon, there is no surety of any safety; and how shall I endure either Heaven or Hell, so alien, so terrible?"
All that she was really concerned in she kept secret; her family were absorbed in each other, and even with her maiden friends she only spoke of simple, foolish, charming trifles. She was idle, even lazy; she liked to linger over gossip, needlework, a dish of tea, to drive slowly behind fine horses, to hold a sleeping baby or kitten on her knee, to listen to music, to lie in a rich orchard or fragrant hayfield in summer, or on a soft couch in front of a fire in winter. Above all she loved to day-dream.
Living in a distressed and wretched country she was often frightened at human misery; the sight of a beggar, a ragged child, or the walls of the prison would cause her to wish to become one of those nuns of whom she had read, to give up everything in the attempt to ease suffering. She would take out her jewels, dream of selling them, of sending the money secretly to charities, of going herself to Dublin slums and dispensing benefits.
Then she would admire the splendour of the gems, set them against her lovely arms, white breast and radiant hair, and return them to the casket, sighing, reluctant, dissatisfied. And she never went to the slums, because dirt and illness, vice and brutality made her giddy, sick and useless; despising herself, she shuddered away.
Cecilia had mused much on the love of men. Once, when her stepmother had taken her to the viceregal court, she had observed a young soldier stare at her with smiling, unabashed pleasure; his glance had dropped from her face to her bosom, to her ankles; her stepmother had chidden her for gravely turning her head to consider this bold gallant.
"Child, never pay heed to such glances; nay, show you are offended."
"But, madam, he appeared to approve me."
"How have you been brought up, child, not to resent such approval? The fellow is insolent, you must never speak to him. Cecilia, please understand that a gentlewoman must be respected, such staring is insulting."
Cecilia pondered this rebuke; perhaps, when she had a lover, he might be permitted to gaze at her with such audacious, gay admiration; she had liked that sparkling glance. But when Cecilia's lover came he was as reverent as her elders could have wished; never had she surprised in Edmund's gaze the expression she had seen in the young soldier's eyes, that she had remembered so clearly and so often wished to see again.
Cecilia knew that others saw in her grave faults; she had heard her stepmother describe her as "a pampered, idle miss"; her father had gently lamented her indolence, her lack of effort to ingratiate herself with powerful people, her passivity; a friend had regretted—"Cecilia might be a vast success if she took more pains." So she, as well as these others, was bound to feel herself very fortunate when the handsome and wealthy young aide-de-camp to the Lord-Lieutenant with due form and ceremony asked for her hand. It was a splendid match and the young man was quite agreeable to Cecilia; she heard every one praise him; she considered herself lucky that the rest of her life was settled for her, without effort, in this pleasant fashion.
She did not know that her father had sighed and said: "Wraxham is rather dull and staid, but then so is poor Cissie; she will have a large family, I suppose, and live quietly in the country."
"Well, why not?" his wife had asked.
"Oh, with her beauty! It seems a waste—"
Yet Mr. Torrance was delighted with the marriage, especially when the unexpected death of Shalford removed a scandal and a problem; Cecilia was more than fortunate—such wealth, such devotion! Cecilia came to a deeper liking of Edmund, she admitted him to her day-dreams; he had advantages—youth, his showy regimentals, his tales of the war, the assurance given him by his rank.
Out of the dreary horrors, the corruptions, the blood and torment of the campaigns in Flanders he had contrived for her faery tales of pomp, banners, beautiful horses, Te Deums, acts of heroism; she listened to these with pleasure. They played together and to each other harp, spinet, viola, the ancient harpsichord, for loved the old music of Monteverde and Palestrina; her skill and her appreciation were slight, but she liked the languorous drowsiness of the melodies; they were often silent in each other's company, and nearer to each other, in their dreams than either was ever to know.
Cecilia idled in her London bedroom and mused on her lover; when he was absent she dwelt on him tenderly, when they met she was conscious of a sense of disappointment in herself, in him, in love.
Always this blur between herself and happiness. Edmund was a very great gentleman now, everywhere she heard praises of her good fortune; indeed she was aware that among his friends who had crowded into Lady Anstice's mansion to welcome her to London there were many who considered that Edmund might have made a better match than this Irish girl—"a beauty, of course, but—"
She went downstairs, lonely, idle, oppressed by the vast size of the house; Edmund's mourning had been the excuse for her refusal to go much abroad, she had been glad to escape from the entertainment of strangers.
Edmund, she believed, was also lonely; he could not find a decorous excuse to leave the mansion in the Fields, but she knew he hated it, was aiming to sell it and buy another. His father had died there, and Cecilia knew, vaguely, he had not been fond of his father; his brother had died there, and Cecilia knew, vaguely, that there had been some horrible accident connected with the death of Edgar Dellow. Edmund had said that he did not wish her to enter that gloomy house, so she had seen nothing of it but the dark front facing the Fields; she thought, however, that it could not be more sombre than the vast mansion of Lady Anstice, the empty monument to the pride and wealth of the city knight.
Edmund was due, was a little late, as the clock in the hall told her; Lady Anstice was in her own room, the servants silent; all so still, grey and shadowed in the chill afternoon.
Cecilia had arrayed herself for her lover; it always gave her pleasure to do that, to put on the pale silks and heavy laces, the pearls and perfume; but this pleasure was short, for he looked at her so little, but always down or away, and complimented her not at all.
To-day her hair was powdered; her hostess had said it must be for London; but Cecilia had regretted the radiant locks hidden under pomade and flour, though, no doubt, the stiff grey tresses made her complexion appear even more than ordinarily delicately pure, and her eyes even more than ordinarily lustrously dark.
Edmund found her idle in the large drawing-room; it was odd to have her alone in his great-aunt's care, away from her family and friends; he felt himself embarrassed by her passivity. She knew nothing.
"Aren't you moped, Cecilia? Won't you keep some company?" he asked anxiously. "Aren't your father and mother returning soon?"
"Oh, next week, I suppose. I am not melancholy."
"But this house is gloomy, and mine no better. I hope you will like Wraxham, Cecilia."
She looked at him, smiling vaguely, and he, moved by her gentleness, leant forward and said:
"Cecilia, I do love you."
Cecilia wanted to ask eagerly, "Do you? Why? Because I am beautiful? Tell me about it, make me believe it," but she had not the courage for this, and he took her silence for offence and feared he had been too ardent; mutually dissatisfied they looked away from each other; she spoke of indifferent matters, of the little house her parents had taken in Queen's Square, of mantua-makers' visits, of sending to Paris for patterns of brocade, then suddenly:
"Do you like my hair à la mode?"
"'Tis a vast pity—"
"But the fashion."
He was weary of the insincerity of women in their elaborate artificial attire, he wished he could have had Cecilia wearing a muslin gown in the Wraxham woods; but every one would fuss and dress her up; for weeks yet ceremonies would separate them, all combined to divide them.
"Cecilia, I regret I so selfishly brought you from Dublin; this is very dull for you here."
"Oh, no, to-night there is a party for faro, to-morrow we go to the play. Lady Anstice is very kind."
"But these formal occasions are tedious, Cecilia—and I have been so occupied, there is much business to attend."
She glanced at his kind, candid, anxious face. "Dear Edmund, do not distress yourself. I am happy."
"I hope," he ventured again, "you will be happy at Wraxham, Cecilia, and in another fashion."
She leant back on her cushions. She found it difficult to fix her attention on Edmund, much as she wished to be generous with him; she was drowsy with vague musings; she hoped that at Wraxham there would be nothing to do but dream; airy palaces rose before her mind, sunny glades, cool woods, sparkling fountains—amid which she wandered accompanied by a lover. Was this dream palace Wraxham Abbey and Edmund that lover?
Lady Anstice and other company intruded on them; there was tea and light talk; Cecilia and Edmund played on viol and harpsichord an air he had arranged from the ancient book, "A Pilgrim's Solace," by Dow-land; then she sang an old song he had translated from the Italian, "Solo et pensoso," and they smiled at his antiquarian tastes and disregard of fashionable modern music.
But Cecilia's rapt beauty silenced them; despite her modish hair she looked like Raphael's "Cecilia" as she sang in her pure slight voice to Luca Marenzo's music:
"Solitary and musing I idled
Through the most lonely meadows.
With slow and mournful steps—"
When the music was over Shalford escaped from the company and went out uneasily into the cold afternoon; he thought that Cecilia saw him depart without reluctance.
It was a month since his father's death, it was a month to his marriage, and he had made no inquiry as to the truth of my lord's and Laurence Ambler's stories, as to the authenticity of that packet of papers. He had had excuses in the press of urgent affairs that came with the entering into his heritage; but for the last few days he had been at leisure and the address of Philip Guise had lain in his pocket; he had obtained it easily from the Lombard Street bankers his father had employed.
Though the upland town of Islington lay but a little over a mile beyond London, Shalford had never been there and knew of it only by repute as a place where citizens of the meaner sort went junketing to play bowls and skittles and to eat syllabubs and curds.
He took a hackney along the Great North Road, left this at the turnpike, where he bid the man wait for him, and proceeded on foot by Hedge Row to the "Pied Bull," where he asked his way to St. Michael's, which was past the great gates of Canbury House and reached by a footpath across Hopping Lane.
The landscape was very pleasant even in the grey light; the hedges were burdened with early flowers, jasmine and briar climbed above the cottage doors; as Shalford entered the churchyard the sun overcame the sullen vapours and poured gold over the scene.
The church was much decayed and appeared neglected, about it was a huddle of poor dwellings and, built against the sagging walls, some mean shops. The sexton and a boy were digging a grave amid the spring grass and weeds.
Shalford found the church open and entered; a dismal place smelling of damp and mould; high pews crowded round the Norman pillars, half the windows were blocked with hideous mural tablets, the whitewashed walls were stained, the floor sunken. Why had his father chosen such a setting for his blasphemous mockery?
Before the recent passing of the Marriage Act it had been easy to contract a marriage in the Fleet or the little chapel in May Fair....
Shalford returned to the churchyard and questioned the sexton as to the house of the parish clerk. It was one of the homely cottages that leant against the churchyard wall, and the man himself was in his garden setting sallets.
Shalford broached his errand with what he felt to be clumsiness; he asked for the Reverend Robert Fishlock.
"Dead these five years, and there's his grave yonder, if you'll be at the trouble of looking for it—"
"I have a commission to look at your parish registers for the year '20—a matter of a will; should I ask you or the minister?"
The parish clerk hesitated; he was a dull, idle fellow and stared at this strange gentleman with stupid curiosity.
"The minister, Mr. Wright, leaves the register to me," he said; "he don't take no interest, as your honour would understand if you was to see him coming home across the fields from the 'Adam and Eve' at night."
Shalford passed a guinea to the other's earth-stained hand, and was at once admitted to the cottage and a dark back room where the final hoard of last year's apples and onions were stored and a large clamped chest stood beneath the window. This, which was unlocked, contained several volumes bound in vellum, and bundles of loose memoranda not yet entered up.
"Your registers seem in as great a decay as your church," remarked Shalford dryly.
The clerk replied that the old church was coming down soon, and therefore no need to be patching at it; and as for the registers, he entered them up when he had time, in this manner he had found them; he had not been above two years here and might call himself a stranger, having come from Bagnigge Wells when his grandfather died ...
"Then you'll not know one, Philip Guise?" asked Shalford, bending over the piles of heavy volumes.
"Aye, I know him. Seen him in church o' Sundays since he came back from the war."
Shalford stood silent over the dark open chest. A soldier like himself ... he had never thought of that.... Aware of the other's inquisitive scrutiny he turned this piece of information to account. "At the war I met him—a companion-in-arms—I lost sight of him, and only knew he came from Islington."
"Captain Guise lodges over the baker's shop by Hawbush Lane; anyone will show your honour the place. That's the wrong book you have, sir; this'll be for the last forty years."
Shalford smiled to himself ... Captain Guise, eh?—no trooper! He dare not press any further questions; no doubt he had already been indiscreet, being totally unused to any manner of intrigue.
The clerk had unclasped the volume, closed the chest and rested the book on the lid; the years 1718-22 were found, several packets of notes removed; if that particular marriage, through this careless lack of method, should not have been entered? Shalford did not know if, in that case, he would have been glad or sorry.
"I don't know what name your honour is looking for—"
The young man had found the entry:
1720. Banns, Jan. 21, 28 and Feb. 4. Married, Feb. 26, Edgar Dellow of this parish and Barbara Pascoe of this parish, spinster; by Robert Fishlock Esq., in the presence of Thomas Cramer, F. St. Clair and others.
Shalford commanded himself sufficiently to carelessly turn over the leaves till he had come to the end of that year, in which there were but five marriages.
"No, the name isn't there. I thank you."
He left the little cottage and stood irresolute among the humble flowers of the garden; the sun was now shining brilliantly over the grey graves in the churchyard beyond, the fresh grass, the high elms behind the parsonage and a low flowering thorn by the sunken church porch.
THE clerk was regarding him with curiosity. Shalford became alarmed lest he should attract attention to his secret errand; he felt himself, despite his plain attire, conspicuous in this small place; here every stranger would be noticeable, especially a stranger who made inquiries; there might even be some one in Islington who would recognize him, for he was well known to many; it would be wiser to return to London at once. But he could not persuade himself to do this without visiting Philip Guise and endeavouring to ascertain how much that personage knew of his own origin and the tales of my lord and Mr. Ambler.
Shalford left the churchyard briskly and returned to the straggling street full of gardens, alleys and inns; but he had already decided not to see Philip Guise. He had an excellent excuse for this further postponement—the desire to investigate before intermeddling with this man, who was probably unconscious of any mystery attaching to his birth, or of the existence of himself, Shalford ... he had seen the entry in the parish register, but that might confirm the tale of either his father or Ambler.
The baker's house by the toll-gate at Hawbush Lane was easily found. It stood in a walled garden planted with plum and pear trees at the back, and in front laid out with simple flowers not yet in bloom. Shalford could see it as a desirable retreat, at once coquettish and modest, for Barbara Pascoe. The gate and the porticoed door stood wide open, and the panes of the two low windows showed loaves, gingerbread and jars of sugar-sticks; above were the flat windows, half-hidden by the small green leaves of a jasmine; there, no doubt, Philip Guise lived, and there Shalford resolved to allow him to live—-in peace.
The fellow seemed to have done well enough for himself; he was, or called himself, Captain; no doubt he had gotten some plunder out of the war and knew very well where to obtain a living. Then he had free lodging, the rent of the shop, the hundred a year....
"He is not on my conscience," thought Shalford, "unless I find out more than I know already."
There was an hour to the time he had appointed the hackney coach to meet him near the toll-gate. He avoided Upper Street, where he feared his quality might be guessed at, and walked far out of the little town along the country lanes, sweet with the fresh green of strong weeds and sprouts of hawthorn. Celandine, wake robin, dandelion, sorrel, clownswound wort, wild parsley and thyme showed their early leaves, clean, bright above the litter of last year's decay; the bittersweet of the briar was faintly pungent on the untainted air.
Shalford walked idly, and idly leant against the gate that opened on a field fallow between the pollard oaks.
His mind dwelt vaguely on Cecilia, on the difficult sonata by Paradisi that he had been practising and unable to play, on Ambler and Mignonette Luckett at Highgate, on Wraxham and the vaults there where his father lay silent, helpless at last.
"How foolish it is for me to concern myself with this—my life lies ahead, unimpeded; some vile conspiracy there was, some plot—but thirty years ago, and all in that are dead save this Philip Guise.... I wish that I could see him ... surely then I could tell if he were my father's or Ambler's son."
Shalford recalled that he himself resembled his mother's family and had been often sneered at by his father for his likeness to the merchant Purvis' stock.
He returned to the town conscious of many idle, curious glances from women and children at cottage doors, though the labourers plodding home from the fields were too weary to notice the elegant embarrassed stranger.
Drawn by curiosity he returned to the church. The sun was setting behind the squat Norman tower with the wooden steeple and glittering weathervane, the graves were in thin grey shadow, flights of birds chattered as they whirred from one newly-green tree to another, the sound of the organ flowed from the broken windows.
Shalford paused to listen; the playing was very skilful, the Purcell anthem rolled out with majesty and lightness. It was followed by an elegant and difficult piece by Rameau, well known to the surprised listener. The fallen door stood open; he entered the church curious to know who was playing so well in a village.
The organ, small, ornate and out of repair, stood in place of the rood-screen; the sun cast azure and scarlet shadows from the western windows across the pipes, flushing the gilding to a sombre and tawny brightness. Shalford approached; a grave-eyed boy was working the bellows. Seeing the stranger he ceased in surprise; the organist left his seat to discover the cause of this, and the complicated melody wailed on a rush of wind into silence.
Shalford stood looking up at the organist.
"It is most uncivil of me to interrupt you, sir, but your playing strangely attracted me. I startled the lad."
"It is no matter. My practice was at an end."
"You play with remarkable skill, sir."
"I am only a dilettante, self-taught."
The organist looked curiously at the stranger—a humorous stare—and descended the steps from the organ loft; the boy ran away into the last sunlight; as they stood alone in the church they could hear him shouting and leaping among the graves.
Shalford was as held by the personality of the organist as he had been by his playing; immediately and deeply interested by this man of about his own age, uncommonly handsome, assured, with an air noble and magnificent, yet carelessly, shabbily dressed in a peculiar worn scarlet coat from which the braiding appeared to have been ripped, a threadbare flowered waistcoat, old-fashioned in cut, a plain neckcloth and a faded ribbon tying his long, thick black hair away from his face. At first he appeared indifferent to Shalford's scrutiny, then amused, and, as Shalford continued to look at him without speaking, he laughed.
"Did ye come to speak to me?" he asked. "Perhaps when ye have considered me to your satisfaction I may ask your business?"
Shalford flushed, conscious of ill manners and of the impossibility of telling this man how extraordinary he found him, how deeply he was impressed by his beauty, his ease, his air of composure, his splendid figure, his musical skill. "He," thought Shalford, "has all the qualities I most lack and most envy."
Aloud he said:
"Sir, I fear I have no business here at all; I came on an aimless errand. I, too, am a dilettante in music—your playing attracted me, though your instrument is poor and you are, if ye will forgive me, not the man one expects to see at the organ in a decayed church."
Without either resentment or good nature the other replied:
"It suits my humour to play here sometimes. I detest idleness and often lack a more notable employment."
Shalford had no excuse for lingering; he knew he had already overpast his appointment with the hackney driver, and the sun had dropped so that no more rich light cast a lustre over the organ pipes, and the church was filled with a chilly grey shadow out of which, ghastly, loomed the dusty urns and cracked mural tablets of alabaster and marble.
"I am entrusted to lock up the church," said the organist with what Shalford felt to be a contemptuous accent, as if he despised the other's hesitation and reluctance to leave.
"Do you play the sonatas of Paradisi?" asked Shalford.
"Yes; but I assure you, sir, I am no musician. I have friends here whom I have taught a little—sometimes we make up a quartet or trio, but 'tis for pure diversion."
"I should like again to hear you play," said Shalford. "May I invite you to my house?"
"I do not keep fine company."
"How do ye know that I do?"
"One can see ye are a man of quality."
"I should have said the same of you," the young lord smiled. "My name is Shalford."
"I fear that means nothing to me. I am ignorant of the great world. My name is Philip Guise."
And the organist pulled out his keys indifferently and turned to the door.
Shalford felt both trapped and struck, as if he had walked into a springe and, while it gripped him, been buffeted in the face; for a moment he was unable to use his wits and leant stupidly against the organ case. Philip Guise had gone towards the door and did not perceive this.
Shalford's first sensation was fury against Ambler. Why had not that sly knave told him what Philip Guise was? Why deceive him with a false description?
Even many years ago this splendid creature could never have been dwarfish, ill-conditioned ...
Shalford hastened into the porch, where the other was waiting to lock the door.
"I am the Earl of Shalford," he said earnestly, and peered into the face of Philip Guise to see if the name meant anything to him; but the serene handsome countenance did not change in the slightest degree.
"Well, my lord, I don't quite understand—d'ye see—"
Hurried away from all his preconceived resolutions and prudences, Shalford answered:
"It was you whom I came to Islington to see—could you give me a little of your time, sir?"
"Why, willingly." And Philip Guise laughed again. "Though what this may lead to I do not know."
"Nor I," replied Shalford grimly and truthfully; he had not decided what he should do or say, but he knew that he was impelled to this interview as he had seldom been impelled towards anything; "nor hardly how to express myself—"
They stood on the narrow path bordered by graves; the sky was pellucid behind the village street, the little birds wheeled and chattered, beyond the lych-gate the labourers tramped home.
Philip Guise was hatless; the rising evening breeze blew through his black hair. He was taller than Shalford, so could not avoid a downward glance as he gazed curiously at his strange visitor.
Shalford said earnestly:
"Will you think me less than a fool if I—nay, I mean not a gross impertinence—if I ask you to tell me something of yourself?"
"Before you disclose your errand, my lord?"
"I have no errand—only a little matter—all perhaps a mistake——"
"How did ye ever hear of me?" asked Philip Guise.
But Shalford insisted:
"Who are you? Your family—your position—your prospects?"
Philip Guise hesitated on the edge of anger, but the young man's distress and sincerity were obvious.
"Well, since it interests you, I am the grandson of the late minister here. His only child married a Huguenot refugee, Louis Guise; when he died she returned to Islington, and was carried off by the plague soon after, ye can see her grave here if your curiosity carries ye so far, and my grandfather brought me up. There's my simple tale, my Lord Shalford."
Philip Guise smiled again, but kept a sharp scrutiny on his companion's face.
Shalford thought rapidly: "Does he really believe that, or does he deceive me, or is it possibly true?"
"My grandfather bred me as a scholar and a musician," continued Philip Guise. "But I was for an active life and was off to the war as a trooper since I could not buy a commission."
"I am a soldier, too, and was in Austria."
"In the Guards, no doubt?"
"His Majesty's 2nd Dragoon Guards."
"Nothing of that for me, my lord—a man without money or birth finds promotion slow; my mother's people boasted gentility, but my father was a master silk weaver from Spitalfields. I tired of the ranks and volunteered for service on the Eastern frontiers under Prince Charles of Lorraine. I had no difficulty in soon attaining a captaincy—but the peace destroyed my hopes. I wandered about Europe on various adventures for a while, teaching music, teaching English, then returned here, where I have a house in which I can live; my grandfather also left me an annuity. Having no relatives or ties, I await events, probably I shall return to the East, where I hear there is further trouble with the Turks."
Philip Guise delivered this long speech rapidly, precisely, indifferently; at the conclusion of it he added briefly:
"Now, my lord, what is your reason for requiring this information?"
Shalford, ill-trained in subterfuge, caught at the first excuse that came into his mind.
"Your grandfather did some service to my grandfather—"
Philip Guise interrupted:
"Ah, then it was he to whom I owe my little fortune; my grandfather often told me that the sum invested for me came from a nobleman to whom he had been tutor."
Shalford snatched with grateful relief at that.
"My father told me to search out Philip Guise and do him what service I could—he feared he had not sufficiently honoured his ancient friendship."
"Friendship?" repeated Philip Guise. "Well, I never heard my grandfather mention Lord Shalford, and he seems not to have been nigh him for twenty-five years' or more at least—none here ever spoke the name to me."
Shalford felt himself involved in lies, and hardly knew if they were his own or those of the other man. He replied hastily:
"I did not know so much about my father's affairs, but, dying, he gave me this charge."
"'Tis confoundedly strange," remarked Philip Guise.
"Strange enough," replied Shalford.
"And you look distressed, my lord, is there some unpleasant matter behind this?"
"God help me, no!"
Neither knowing what more to say they took a turn round the graveyard, and Philip Guise pointed out his mother's name on an altar tomb: "Arabella Guise, widow of Louis Guise and daughter of Robert Fishlock, minister of this parish"; beneath some gloomy texts was her age, twenty-three, the date of her death, 1724.
"But a name to me," said Philip Guise. "And my father died before I was born; my grandfather said I favoured him, and abroad I was taken for a Frenchman."
Shalford thought: "How glib and ready he is! But whatever I hear on this matter I shall suspect of being concocted to deceive me."
He looked at Philip Guise to see if he could discover any likeness to the late Earl. Both dark, and so might my lord have flourished in his youth; the gift for music too, that was strange ...
"How can I serve you?" he asked. "There must be something you require."
"If there is, why should you give it to me? Your father appears to have acted handsomely—"
"Leave that. Say, I—I wish to do something, you would prefer to remain in England, I dare swear, and not return to the Turkish wars?"
Philip Guise smiled.
"My only philosophy has been to endeavour not to weary of life. At present I amuse myself quite well here, but I shall tire soon, no doubt." He paused, stared at the words "Arabella Guise" on the headstone, then added: "What can ye offer me?"
"Anything," said Shalford simply. "A commission in the Guards, for instance—"
He was checked by the laugh of Philip Guise, who cried:
"There is something behind this extravagance! Ye have known me five minutes, and your prodigality is lunatic."
"I have too much wealth, I think in high terms. Will ye not come to my house in a few days' time? Shalford House in Lincoln's Inn Fields."
"I'll come, sir," smiled Philip Guise.
By common consent they left the churchyard. The twilight lay pure over the town, the fields; in the lych-gate they made their appointment—twelve o'clock on the following Wednesday. Shalford watched Philip Guise walk away from him, the scarlet coat, that he knew for a foreign regimental stripped of braid and epaulettes, glowing through the dusk. He tormented himself with his own weakness: "He knows nothing—why did I not leave him alone? Let him go abroad—be slain—disappear—for possibly his story is true; if false it is at least skilfully contrived. And what shall I do with him? What offer him? I fancy him my superior in every quality I admire."
He found the hackney, the driver asleep on the box, and drove along the Upper Street, marking distractedly how soon the country was left behind and how the suburbs were spreading; past the New River Head at a sorry pace, through Mount Pleasant to Gray's Inn, where he dismounted and so returned, a weary man, to his large sombre mansion, empty save for servants.
The purple marble busts of the Caesars he had had removed, but he could not remove that small room where Edgar had destroyed himself nor resist looking into it as he passed and wondering if Edgar had been to Islington and seen that register in the keeping of the stupid parish clerk. He might have asked that ... had another stranger come inquiring?
He was engaged to Lady Anstice and Cecilia, but sent them a message of excuse; for he must immediately see Laurence Ambler and force that subtle creature to some direct answers to direct questions.
While he was jolting in his coach along Gray's Inn Lane, while Cecilia Torrance, with indifferent disappointment, was receiving his hasty scribbled regrets, Philip Guise was walking in the walled garden, under the fruit trees, with Polly the baker's daughter.
The pear trees, the first to blossom, were now bare of bloom and loaded with long greyish leaves and tiny hard fruit; to the plum trees still clung, here and there, a drift of wilted petals; smoke from the bakery rose straight into the dark vivid sky; the smell of new bread mingled with the perfume of mignonette. Polly was seventeen; her cloth bodice was unlaced on the calico that covered her bosom; she pulled at a string of blue glass beads round her throat; it broke. She and Philip Guise sought hopelessly in the grass for the beads; they laughed and their hands touched; he said he would find them in the morning.
"Or, perhaps, I can bring ye a finer fairing, Polly, for some great lord, whom I take also to be a great fool, has a mind to help me to a better fortune."
Polly did not want his fairings, but his kisses, not his kind words, but his embraces; she knew that her father wished her to marry her cousin Joe, who helped in the bakery, but Polly would rather have belonged to Philip Guise for an hour than to her cousin for a lifetime.
She was nearly as pretty and more impatient than Cecilia Torrance; often had she wept in bitter, raging disappointment because this handsome man took no heed of her beyond a pleasant tolerance; to be with him at all she had had to force herself to seem interested in music, of which she knew nothing.... What a waste of this dark secret hour, the exciting perfumes, the delicious loveliness of the walled orchard garden, the sparkling light of the rising moon, for them to walk sedately side by side while he told her, humorously, of a stupid meeting with a stranger in the church!
What did Polly care for that? She raged against his absorption in this new topic; she knew he could not remain for long in Islington—while he was there might he not acknowledge she was young, lovely and adored him? In her disappointment Polly felt old and despised; she ran in abruptly, lit her little rushlight and wondered at the discord that rendered life distasteful.
Philip Guise hardly noticed her going; he had decided to investigate his grandfather's affairs and endeavour to discover what the connexion with the Earl of Shalford had actually been. He was ambitious and in every direction had been hampered by humble birth and poverty, an easy temper and a whimsical turn of mind; the adventure in the church, therefore, had aroused hopes that he, at twenty-six, had believed dead.
Philip Guise continued musing in the garden long after the moon was high overhead and Polly had blown out her rushlight and sobbed herself to sleep.
That same moonlight, falling over his queer red coat as he walked beneath the pear trees, streamed into the grand bedchamber of Cecilia Torrance in St. James's Square, where the beautiful sleepless girl was half-disdainfully brooding on the futility of her solitary loveliness; she, too, was conscious of a waste, a discord in life.
SHALFORD related, with passion and eagerness, to Ambler, now cosy in his Highgate cottage, his journey to Islington and his interview with Philip Guise. He remembered precisely every point which told for and against the tales presented by my lord and by Mr. Ambler himself, and desired to know where exactly lay the foolery and the falsehood which must, in some instances, encumber the affair.
Laurence Ambler shrugged his shoulders and made nothing of any of this vehement expostulation.
"Philip Guise is my lord's son; Barbara Pascoe was his mother. However, sir, you torment yourself you cannot get away from that truth. As for the story the young man himself believes, why, it is what has always been told him; naturally there would be some contrivance of that. There was an Arabella, I do not doubt, who married a Huguenot refugee. Probably she had a child which she lost, and my lord's son was put in his place. All these affairs can be arranged, and often are so."
"Can I get no more out of it than this?" cried Shalford. "Believe me, I shall continue to investigate on my own initiative, and," he added with an air of moral grandeur that was far from being sincere, "it is my duty, look ye, to tell this Philip Guise all these circumstances and to ask his help in unravelling them."
"You will open up a hornets' nest for nothing," replied Mr. Ambler indifferently; "but if it is your good pleasure, my lord, so to torment yourself, I have nothing further to say."
Shalford stood at the open window and looked out into the garden. The lamplight fell across a bed of budding stock and attracted some ash-coloured night moths, which fluttered in and out of the yellowish beams. He felt weary and unable any longer to pursue a definite and passionate argument with Laurence Ambler. Whether the fellow dispensed truth or lies, it was plain he would not alter the tale he had already given him. With sullen vexation the young man attacked him on a minor point.
"Why did ye give me such a false description of the person of Philip Guise? He could never have been as ye described him. And it was odd that you should not have known he had been to the war and that he had this remarkable gift for music. I tell ye, he's extraordinary."
"I took no interest in him whatever," replied Laurence Ambler. "Why should I?"
Shalford sighed; he felt jarred in all his senses, discontented, dissatisfied.
"If it were not for my dead brother," he exclaimed, "on my word, I would let it all go—I would probe no further."
"And what has your brother Edgar got to do with it, sir?"
"Edgar must have been convinced," replied Shalford sullenly.
"It does not follow, my lord, that you should be convinced."
Shalford gazed at the moon, then so high above London. The events of the day already began to fade into the distance and, after he had talked of them with such eager passion, to lose importance. He was conscious of an invading apathy which made him consider as trivial all the affairs of men. Life seemed to him, in that moment of fatigue and dejection, shorn and empty of everything but futility and toys—what did it matter if Philip Guise were his half-brother or really the son of that Huguenot refugee? He would do something for the fellow because he admired him; yes, he would provide for Philip Guise handsomely enough, and he could do that without disturbance of either his leisure or his fortune; but there need be no further question of my lord's dying malice, or Ambler's fantastic tale—let both go into the confusion of the unclean past.
Seated at the table, with his books piled on the Indian cloth in the circle of lamplight, Ambler watched the young man and remarked quietly:
"I have my pension, and I shall ask for nothing more. Whatever you say, sir, will not be contradicted by me."
"Now, why?" said Shalford, turning on him at once sharply and wearily. "You seem, sir, extraordinarily amenable in this affair, and I cannot conceive why you do not endeavour to make more profit out of it."
Ambler, with a smile that did not dissipate the melancholy of his long, sallow face, replied:
"I have my books and my Greek, my garden, and am old enough to value the fact that I have strayed on peace."
Mrs. Luckett came in with the supper. The negress now wore European dress—a neat sprigged dimity and a muslin cap which destroyed her beauty and rendered her at once respectable and grotesque.
Shalford did not know what her relations were with Ambler—she seemed to take the part of housekeeper or servant of the better sort; but he was glad that the poor creature was provided for without any effort of his own. Her manner was timid and submissive.
While her dark hands fingered the blue and white china as she placed on the table jars painted with sprays of prune blossom filled with ginger and candied orange, Shalford thought idly of the places she had come from: Yucatan, the old fort facing Cuba, and the Coromantee or Caffree negroes brought there from Africa to work and fight; of Meriga Progresso and Botul rising, in his imagination, as piles of pale hard masonry into a sky for ever blazing with sunshine. He thought of Omoah, protecting the indigo trade, where everybody would be drowsy and sleepy with fever, and the water would be greenish and stagnant from the long drought and where, behind flat green lattices, the traders would endeavour to get a little repose in the heat of midday, while on the hot waters of the Spanish Main the ships would lie sullenly waiting for their cargoes.
Shalford's mind, ever too prone to day-dreaming and introspection, dwelt on this theme evoked for him by the sight of Mignonette Luckett, and forgot Philip Guise and his own problems. He began to play with the idea of getting away from England, from his responsibilities, doubts and suspicions, and leading a life entirely new and free in those strange and peculiar lands that he had never seen, but which had so fired his idle mind, which shrank away from so many of the realities of every-day.
Laurence Ambler cleared away his books and returned them precisely to the shelves round the small room.
"Sir, what is this Philip Guise in his person?" he asked indifferently.
Shalford, recalled sharply to the heart of his troubles, described the man he had met in the Islington church, exaggerating, in half-defiance of his own uneasiness, the man's remarkable appearance, his beauty, assurance and musical skill.
"Sir, let him be; he is of a type like to be dangerous," advised Laurence Ambler, and he spoke with an earnestness unusual to him. "Let him go to his Turkish war or where he will. He is provided for, and by your father's bounty. If he is as extraordinary and as gifted as ye say he should make his own way without any assistance."
"Ye know," replied Shalford curtly, "that that is impossible for a man of obscure and doubtful birth, such as he—reputed to be half French and penniless, save for that miserable annuity."
"Leave him where he is," advised Laurence Ambler, and his voice had almost a warning accent. "Let him work out his own destiny as you must work out yours."
"But ye tell me he is my half-brother," insisted Shalford.
"Why, so I do, and so he is; but ye have no obligation towards him."
"He is coming to see me on Wednesday."
Ambler fingered his cravat. His eyes were sharp and lively.
"And to what end, my lord?"
"That I have not thought out yet. I shall endeavour to do him some service. I intend in time," he added, "to inform him who he is, and shall call upon you, Mr. Ambler, as witness of what I say."
"Ye may call on me, my lord, when ye will; I have only the one tale to tell, and I have told it."
Mignonette Luckett brought in the tea, Laurence Ambler drank his dishes of tea at all hours and always with relish. In spite of her trim English costume Shalford thought he could discern a faint perfume from the negress which was peculiar and exotic. He refused to remain and share the offered refreshment and returned, drowsy, discontented, in his heavy coach to the mansion in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
Shalford did nothing to elucidate the three different tales he had been told. He was much in the company of Cecilia Torrance, but found little comfort in the girl's society, although she was always gentle, docile and good-humoured. He looked forward to the coming of her parents, her removal from the sombre residence of his aunt to the more cheerful mansion in Queen's Square.
The betrothed lovers visited this house together, and she was pleased with the small rooms shaded by the trees in the square, so that they appeared full of greenish light, almost as if they belonged to a palace built under water. She liked the staircase with the low treads, and the small garden at the back. It all seemed to him on a very minute scale, yet in some ways fitting for Cecilia. He went with her to the upholsterer's and haberdasher's, and bought several odd trifles to beautify the little house, and yet he thought it a waste of time to take so much pains since they would be so soon married and he would take her away to Wraxham.
In the intervals of his business and his attendance on Cecilia, Shalford endeavoured to play over the Paradisi sonata, but with each attempt his execution was more feeble. There was something in the music that eluded him completely and yet tormented him with an impossible elusive rapture, and he felt that his failure with the music was only symbolical of his failure with life.
But, while Shalford thus delayed and idled, Philip Guise made energetically and immediately every possible attempt to discover if there was any connexion between his own family and that of the Earls of Shalford. He went to the bankers in Lombard Street from whom he drew his annuity, but discovered nothing. The sum of money, the fruits of which he enjoyed, had been invested by his grandfather the year of his birth. No other name was connected with this capital sum; there was no mystery there. Philip Guise also took down and searched over certain boxes of papers and books with family inscriptions in them. All was straightforward and simple, and each fact fitted one into the other: the modest history of his grandfather, Robert Fishlock, of his father, Louis Guise, who had come from Nantes in 1690 as a child in the company of strangers (his father having been sent to the galleys and his mother having disappeared during the dragonnades), was plain and commonplace enough. In his grandfather's large Bible with the silver clasp, which the old man had given him on his death-bed five years ago, were all these entries of births and deaths in a fine Italian hand; he, Philip Guise, had been baptized (one of the entries said) in the Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Islington, where his mother was buried, and might any day see that entry for himself, but did not take the trouble.
Philip Guise had always felt himself rather differently placed from most of the men he met, inasmuch as his father had been a foreigner and a refugee, and he knew little of that father's family and had no near relation; thus he had always been isolated and might readily believe in some mystery. But now his keen and patient researches (limited in scope as they were, he had made them thoroughly) revealed nothing beyond the simple history he had always known, and no connexion whatever with the family of the Earls of Shalford.
Therefore, when Philip Guise waited on my lord in the great sombre mansion at the corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields, he was asking himself with his usual quizzical humour, which was too apt to colour his mood at serious moments, what possible interest the young noble should have in him? For, even if the story that his grandfather had been my late lord's tutor was true (and Philip Guise, having found no reference to it anywhere, did not believe it was true) that did not seem sufficient to account for the curious and extravagant action of my young lord.
Philip Guise had taken pains to pretty well acquaint himself with the circumstances of the Earl of Shalford; without any difficulty he had discovered the young man's history; his merchant descent on the mother's side, his enormous fortune, carefully garnered for him by the prudence of his grandfather; the scandalous character of my late lord, and the present peer's reputable military service in Austria and in Ireland.
Philip Guise had heard, too, of the tragic suicide of the elder brother, and of the betrothal of Shalford with the young Irish lady, Cecilia Torrance.
Half-amused, half-expectant, he waited in the room where Shalford had had his last interview with his father. The poplar trees were then almost in full leaf, and stirred and glittered in the sun. By the roadway posts a group of beggars dozed in their rags, and an old woman whose eyes were concealed by black spectacles shrilled out a song.
Philip Guise, standing at the window, noticed these details, as he had a habit of noticing any details of the life about him. He was keenly interested in everything without being very much concerned with anything.
He had discarded his scarlet defaced regimentals and wore neat but common clothes, plain but clean linen; for all that meagre attire Heslop, on admitting him, had glanced at him more than once. The servant had wondered who this gentleman could be whose air was in so ill accordance with his appointments.
Tired of staring out of the window, Philip Guise walked about the room, fingered the long silk and gold tapestries, the vases of gleaming dark blue which stood on fine fluted pillars of alabaster either side the ornate mantelpiece, and passed his hand over the stiff, dull, rose-coloured brocade on the gilt chairs. He admired all splendour and could value the richness of the objects in the large dark room. The taste that had furnished it seemed to him cold and formal, and he turned over in his mind how differently he would have expended money in achieving splendour and beauty.
Shalford entered. His greeting was embarrassed, that of Philip Guise cool enough to put the other at his ease. As soon as Shalford saw this man again he knew that he could not easily part from him; for some reason which he did not understand he wanted Philip Guise close to him, under his minute observation. Whether this was admiration or dread he did not know, but it was an emotion too strong to be denied, and he voiced almost immediately a project which had come into his mind but been dismissed as too fantastic. After the briefest formal conversation he said:
"I require another steward or bailiff for my affairs—a secretary; if you will ..."
Without further preamble he offered this post, which appeared vague in its scope and duties (the only definite thing about it being that it attached Philip Guise to his own person), to this amused and astonished stranger.
"Sir, I have no credentials for such work," said Philip Guise, "nor, I believe, any aptitude."
Shalford, becoming nervous and embarrassed, suddenly put all that aside and insisted on its acceptance, and added that Philip Guise might make his own terms.
The two young men considered each other very curiously.
Philip Guise did not refuse the fantastic offer, not only because it was the most splendid chance that had come his way, but because he was whimsically curious to discover what lay behind this extravagance ... he said he must have time to consider ... a courteous, a smiling excuse.
Abruptly, Shalford pointed to the rich harpsichord in the corner and asked Guise to play over the Paradisi sonata, the music of which lay scattered over the gleaming painted surface of the instrument.
Philip Guise, with ready assent, immediately sat down, praised the harpsichord and executed the piece as Shalford had always known it should be executed, easily and in a manner that Shalford had never been able to achieve himself. As he listened to Philip Guise indifferently dismissing the difficulties which had tormented him, he was conscious of a further melancholy and a deeper distraction.
And a strong fascination that kept him gazing at the splendid shabbily-dressed man brilliantly playing the Paradisi sonata.
"'Tis not so difficult," remarked Philip Guise courteously, "yet I dare say I do it poor justice."
"Play it again," said Shalford.
As Philip Guise obeyed without comment the young lord, so rich, so fortunate, continued to gaze at him, and mused: "In all he is the man I would have wished to have been—in appearance, in air, in talents ..."
Philip Guise, full of humour at himself, took his problem to Polly.
"What sayest thou, chuck? I am to be this young lord's led captain, or his gentleman usher—well, I've done worse for a livelihood."
Polly was instantly hot against the amazing plan, but generous enough to admit it might hold some promise for Philip Guise.
"I suppose," she conceded sullenly, "you'd like to be with the fine folk; but 'tis a sudden whimsey on his part."
"Hark ye, Polly; I've whimseys too, but not the money like he has to indulge 'em. He is not disagreeable to me, Polly—childish somewhat for a man who has been on active service, and full of starts and chances, like one who thinks Fortune lies at catch for him," Philip Guise mused, "but honest, I think; not, at least, overbearing and insolent, which is what I could never abide."
"But why does he want you, sir?" insisted Polly jealously.
"I can't come at that," the young man laughed candidly. "His air was odd when I met him in the church; maybe there's some story behind it—that's one reason for going to him; I might find out."
"But 'tis no post for a genman."
Philip Guise glanced tenderly at Polly, touched by her loyal desire to exalt him. He shared her opinion, but he was easy-going, too prone to take the first thing that offered. Curious, too, as to what was behind Shalford's offer; inclined—he knew not why—to have a half-compassionate affection for the unstable young lord.
"I'd never stay, Polly," he smiled. "It would be but a few weeks; maybe I'd earn a few pounds beyond my expenses. When I was coming home from Hungary I took some such posts abroad, teaching and playing."
"I'd sooner see thee at the wars," sulked Polly with a cloudy glance, "than being ape to this fool of quality."
"But an agreeable life, for a space, Polly, to see how these great ones live. He hath a real love for music"—Philip Guise teased the cross girl—"and some fine instruments that 'ud be a pleasure for me. I'd get a horse too. Oh, là, child, what is't to thee?"
"You asked me, Captain Guise, but you shan't provoke me—"
"We'll toss for it, Polly. The King. I'll go—"
He had a heavy copper piece out of his pocket and flung it on the stone by the back door of the bakehouse, where they argued in the cool, lovely evening. The coin spun and settled; they bent eagerly over it, and Philip Guise laughed in triumph as he gazed down at the laurelled and authoritative features of His Majesty.
CECILIA TORRANCE had moved into the little house in Queen's Square. Her father continued to delay his coming from Ireland—probably he would not arrive till the eve of her wedding; her stepmother kept her company.
The girl would sit for hours at the long straight window looking on to the trees in the Square. Then in full summer leafage about a stone statue of a robed and crowned queen standing on the smooth grass plot and showing immobile through the moving shadows. Would sit there with her needlework or her book on her lap, or talking to a caged yellow bird and nursing a white kitten; she became with every day more passive.
Her stepmother observed that her lover's visits appeared to give her little pleasure, and both she and Lady Anstice, uneasy at the girl's listlessness, were for urging on the marriage. But Cecilia begged for delay; as her excuse she fell back on that of caprice, which covers, with youth, so many serious impulses. She wished, she said, to be married on her birthday, and that was not until the middle of July. Shalford could not endure to thwart Cecilia, and he hoped that, perhaps, the longer he waited the better she might come to understand him and his fortunes.
Lady Anstice shook her head over his slow and delicate wooing, but Shalford did not heed her disapproval; he believed that he and Cecilia were of the same temperament and would soon understand each other's silences, reserves and delicacies very well. He encouraged Cecilia more and more in withdrawing from society (which Lady Anstice and Mrs. Torrance thought so unnatural) and in occupying herself with her dreams, her needlework, her pets and her drawings of flowers.
Cecilia was at her window looking on the trees and the stone statue of the queen, immobile under the changing shadows, when she saw, for the first time, Philip Guise.
Cecilia had asked Shalford for a piece of embroidery worked by his mother which she had seen on a screen in Shalford House, and he had had it dismounted and sent to her by Philip Guise. She leant on the sun-warmed window-sill and saw him coming along the hot pavement on the far side of the Square, then into the shadow of the great trees. She remembered that, months ago, she had said to one of her maiden friends in Dublin: "Oh, my Betty, this is not the man!"—had said it of Edmund Wraxham on the night she had given her consent to marry him; laughing, teasing herself and her friends, in accents of fearful truth she had said: "Oh, my Betty, this is not the man!" She recalled this trivial incident, which she believed she had entirely forgotten, as she watched Philip Guise.
Although he was a stranger to her, she would have been utterly surprised if he had not come to her house; without amaze and with satisfaction she watched him mount the few steps which led to her porticoed door, and withdrew behind the long green curtains that he might not see her watching him.
Mrs. Torrance was abroad, but, as the messenger came from Shalford, he was admitted at once into Cecilia's room. She rose up to greet him in the most natural way in the world, and he saluted her without embarrassment and unrolled from a fold of muslin the embroidery for which she had asked.
The room was very still in that greenish shadow cast by the summer trees, and further darkened by a sun-blind which projected into the street. The lassitude and languor of early summer was an enchantment in the air. A bowl of the last roses that Cecilia had been too indolent to change dropped wilted brownish petals on to the satinwood table between them, and through their sweetness came the faintest scent of decay.
Philip Guise laid the piece of embroidery over the back of a chair, and she admired again that wreath of lilies, harebells, roses and jasmine, so patiently designed, so exactly worked. Then she looked at the bearer of this gift.
"You are Mr. Philip Guise?" she smiled.
She had often heard of him; it was strange that he had been some weeks with my lord and that they had not met before. She asked him to sit down, and they talked a little gravely and on indifferent matters. Cecilia was very interesting to Philip Guise; since he had first heard of her existence he had been eager, in his lively, half-whimsical way, to see for himself what manner of woman this fortunate young lord, his patron, in a way his master, had chosen. Shalford was able, he considered, to choose any woman in the world; he had the youth, the rank, the money to make him most fastidious and difficult, and he had chosen this young Irish girl, of no particular birth and reputed to be, though a beauty, indolent, passive and of no great intelligence. So Philip Guise had volunteered on this errand, and he was thinking: "Had I been in Shalford's place, should I have chosen her?"
He admitted at once her beauty, but he saw that it was a beauty which might easily be overlooked unless she was put forward and resolutely acclaimed by some powerful master. So soft, so yielding, so delicate was she, so entirely without coquetry or sparkle or any of the devices by which all the women whom Philip Guise had ever known (including even Polly, the baker's daughter) had endeavoured to set off their charm.
She spoke to him about Ireland, where he had never been, and he told her of those strange places (strange, at least, to her) where he had fought the Turk in the East, and these distant countries, unknown the one to the other, mingled between them into a phantasmagoria.
They made between them a gorgeous faery-tale, hardly knowing what they said; a sentence from him, a sentence from her, a look, a laugh ...
She thought that Edmund had been to all these places, and yet had never spoken of them like that, though he had amused her once with tales of the war.
She looked at Philip Guise once keenly: his straight profile, his fine figure, the quantity of dark, rippling, unpowdered hair, the level brows, the arched lip, the look, the air, amused, alert ... and then turned away not to glance at him again, save furtively and obliquely when she believed his attention was elsewhere. She fingered the square of needlework taken from the screen and with her small fingers traced the petals and the stamens of the drooping wreath. In the summer-shadowed room, in the stillness of this hot afternoon, enclosed in this intimacy with this stranger, she felt isolated from the entire world.
When he rose to leave she marked how much taller he was than Edmund—why, it might be half a head.... He looked at her viola di gamba, her harpsichord, and she learnt that, like Edmund, he was enamoured of music. She, too, stood up. Her lovely gown flowed from a golden ribbon tied under her bosom; her brown hair fell over her shoulders. She asked him:
"Will you come to Wraxham when we are married?"
He answered: "Indeed, I do not know."
She said: "I have never been there; they say it is a noble place, but, I fear, too large for me."
"My lord has so many houses, ye need not stay long at one."
"It is strange to have so much wealth," said Cecilia simply; "I do not think he realizes it, neither do I. One can do a great deal with money, can one not?"
Philip Guise assented smilingly, thinking how much my lord had done with his money already in regard to himself, bought him almost, interrupted his life, changed it and attached him with a peculiar tenacity, which seemed half dislike, half admiration, to his own person. Yes, one could do a great deal with money.
He left her, and Cecilia was frightened at her own sense of loss; she wanted to leave the shadowed room, to go out upon the hot steps and run after him; yet she did not even dare to go to the window and watch his departure. Never had she felt lost when Edmund had left her. Now her melancholy passivity was broken into a lively torment. She knew nothing of him save what Shalford had casually told her; she resented his coming and his going. She raged against his introduction into her life; she began immediately to plan and scheme how, when and where she could see him again, and to warn herself that she must conceal completely from Edmund, from Mrs. Torrance, Lady Anstice, the servants and her acquaintances how immediately and violently she had been interested in Philip Guise.
But the sincerity of her immense impulse towards this man was clouded over by worldly considerations; pride, and even vanity, at once warned her that this was a stranger, a dependant, almost a servant, reminded her that she had kept herself aloof and secluded for a great and noble match, that she would be despised as well as condemned by anyone who guessed at her interest in this nobody, this Philip Guise.
The room which had been like a sanctuary now became like a prison. In a disgust she threw down her needlework and walked about the narrow space; the scent of the rotting roses offended her; before he came she had not noticed this. She rang the bell and bade the maid take them away, even scolded her for her neglect in not having done so before. The woman was amazed, for Miss Cecilia was usually as indifferent as she was sweet-tempered about all these details, and inclined in her indolence to be slovenly.
Shalford waited on Cecilia that evening. The girl was in her room. In bed, Mrs. Torrance said, with a sudden headache; she had been out walking in the sun, hatless; it was foolish in the heat. Mrs. Torrance showed impatience in her voice and manner. She found Cecilia wearisome, and these weeks before the marriage dragging and tiresome. She was angry with Shalford, even a little contemptuous of Shalford for suffering all these delays and not sweeping the girl off her feet with a sharper display of ardour. She knew nothing of the visit of Philip Guise and accepted the ancient fiction of the headache, especially as, when she entered the girl's room, she found her stretched on her bed, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright.
Shalford, too, found this interval becoming tedious, and returned discontented to Shalford House, where Philip Guise was copying music. The Earl told his secretary that Miss Torrance was ill.
Philip Guise did not raise his head from the sheet of paper on which he was carefully ruling lines.
In his heart he thought: "I could take her away from him if I wished"; and he was pleased at this sense of power over the other man, to whom he owed everything.
And, since he had seen Cecilia, he decided to suspend his resolution of telling my lord that he would leave his service and go, after all, to the war on the Eastern frontiers. That still, soft loveliness had made some impression on Philip Guise; he was turning over the thought of an opportunity of seeing her again while he quietly and exactly copied the music. Shalford paced up and down the magnificent room.
The young Earl had by this time discovered the truth of all the information which Laurence Ambler had given him; he had been to the Buckinghamshire village and seen the baptismal entry of Philip Guise as "Philip, son to Edgar Dellow and Barbara Pascoe of Islington, 1721...."
The following evening Philip Guise, with that half-indifferent and half-mocking deference to the Earl which Shalford both admired and resented, asked if he might return to Islington to fetch some of his effects.
When he had obtained this permission he asked, still easily, if, when my lord was married, he would expect him to come to Wraxham; and Shalford said yes, he wished to keep him near him, for he had found him considerate of his ways and easy as to his moods, and his skill with music gave him great pleasure.
Philip Guise smiled to himself at the ingenuousness of the other man who, for all his soldiering and his year in Ireland, seemed to have but little experience of human nature and human affairs.... Why, he could not even see that Cecilia Torrance did not love him, and yet this fact had been clear to Guise in one short interview with the lady....
He was about to leave for Islington when Cecilia Torrance drove up to Shalford's house. She insisted on seeing the mansion which her lover had always told her she would dislike, and must enter the house with her troop of friends and make a colour and a lustre on the large dark stairway, and so, with the other ladies laughing and pulling at each other's hands, go from room to room, exclaiming at the gloom and the drabness, the heaviness of the vases and curtains, the old-fashioned designs of the tapestries, and the general lack of conveniences and commodities....
Never had Shalford seen her so animated and brilliant, never had her beauty seemed so definite; he thought exultantly, "If she were always so she would indeed brighten life and enrapture my heart."
In her fairness and her laughter, in her costly adornment (for she had taken exceptional care with her lavender-colour taffeta, her falls of lace, her azure plumes) he must go from room to room until she came into that devoted to music, where Philip Guise sat.
He had finished his daily task of transcribing and was putting away his portfolio, intending to take the evening coach to Islington, when Cecilia flung open his door and, like one who has come to the end of a search, paused, at once triumphant and abashed.
He had his back to her, and their eyes met in a long mirror; her glance dared him to forget yesterday. He was forced to remember her, to consider her as she stood there with her smiles, gaiety and extravagance. Only a few weeks ago such a high-bred, faultless beauty as she was not likely to have come his way even for a casual word; now he felt her suddenly almost in his power. The pretty girls behind were staring at him and chattering, laughing and giggling together. Philip Guise laughed also and fingered his music. She gave him innocently the full glow of the beauty that she had carefully prepared for him. He thought she was ingenuous and simple indeed, and very likely would be unable to resist her first impulse to yield to her first love; she had not those defences which are proof of experience.
Philip Guise knew that if Shalford had not won this ardent heart it had been more by his own awkwardness than by any particular virtue on the part of Cecilia Torrance; she was made for love. He had been half prepared to throw up this experimental venture and, when he had got to Islington, not to return ...
But as Cecilia stood near him and he laughed into her face he knew that he would come back to Shalford House.
He left her to her lover and her friends, her luxuries and her diversions, but he knew that he had left her heart empty. The image of this flowering, sparkling girl, whom he had seemed to rouse from torpor and a drowsy melancholy, was with him all his journey to Islington, and with him in his room above the baker's shop, where he began distractedly to put together his books and papers. He detested indecision. It was not so easy for him to keep to his resolution of returning to the service of my lord.
"Why," he thought with impatience, "cannot we let each other alone? Why must the young man come here and attach me, a stranger, to his person and his affairs?"
Polly was under the pear trees; her eyes were salty and clouded. When she heard him moving in his room her head turned eagerly upwards; she could not forgive him for being what he was, and his return seemed a greater offence towards her tranquillity, for it robbed her of a little sullen peace she had desperately acquired.
Philip Guise had heard love described often enough as a mere illusion of the senses, and passion as a transitory state, only powerful because humanity is so feeble; he looked through the jasmine creeper and saw Polly beneath the pear trees, shelling early peas into a yellow bowl, and he thought: "If it is indeed all illusion, why will not Polly serve my turn as well as Cecilia Torrance?"
He mused on: "One has to be very adroit in an affair of this sort; it were better if I let her alone with her pleasant young amateur of music ... let her be his dull châtelaine and preside at his dilettante chamber concerts."
His mood turned in whimsical fashion, and he laughed to himself: "Well, a fellow would have to be a very stupid sort of rascal not to be able to manage an affair like this...."
PHILIP GUISE permitted Polly, the baker's daughter, to help him sort his books. It was an idle occupation, but it gave his hands something to do while his mind was busy with Shalford and Cecilia Torrance.
Polly asked if he was leaving Islington for that career of a mercenary, which was the life that pleased him best.
In that foreign soldiering he had learnt at least the authority and dignity which had finely tempered the grace and ease which were his naturally, and which had been emphasized by the scholarly education given him by his grandfather. Though he was not too self-confident of these qualities he was aware that his character did not fit him to be at the service of the Earl of Shalford, and he was aware, too, that it were wiser for him not again to see Cecilia Torrance, who had challenged him with such daring gaiety in the mirror at Shalford House.
Therefore he packed his books with vague intention, meaning this to be a farewell, if not to London or Islington, at least to this brief romantic phase in his life which yet he could not himself understand. His days had been full of farewells and exits, of moving from place to place. Even the minister's house, even these rooms had scarcely ever seemed to Philip Guise, a landless man, like home.
Polly, seated on the floor, handed him the books from the shelves, and he put them into a chest. These volumes did not greatly interest him, they had belonged to his grandfather and were classics, heavily bound in dun leather skins; all dealt with matters that seemed to Philip Guise useless, long-forgotten erudition that was out of date; wisdom that had been disproved and religions that were as dead as the languages in which they were written.
The jasmine was in full bloom against the open window; the white and starry flowers showed sharply against the dark green leaves. Polly wore the necklace of blue beads, but she had not been able to find them all in the long grass under the pear trees and the back of her brown neck was crossed by a bare string as the glass roundels slipped round to her throat. Philip Guise, with a heavy tome on his knee, glancing at her, thought of Cecilia Torrance and the fine pearls which had lain across her fine bosom. She was Irish, and he recalled an old Irish song, so old that it might be called immortal—"The Snowy-breasted Pearl." That was like Cecilia Torrance—a snowy-breasted pearl.
In mock at himself and his own circumstances, he also recalled that never had he spoken so familiarly to a lady so high-bred as that young creature, so little, if any, older than Polly, so different from Polly and yet, with a deeper irony he reflected to himself, staring at the girl kneeling on the floor before him, quite as easy to attain as Polly. Their voices were different in accent and quality, but both had the same soft, amorous note.
He wondered if anyone had told Cecilia what a beautiful voice she had, if she had been assured how dangerously exquisite she was, how enchanting her smile, and, if (as he felt sure) no one had told her these things, how she, poor child, found life bearable.... "Shalford, I dare swear, has taken her for granted; probably he loves her, and has told her so, but he will never persuade her of it—not even when they have had three or four children."
Polly could no longer endure his absorption.
"These books are heavy and covered with dust," she said. "Why do you want to move them? Are ye really going away? And, if ye are, ye might leave them here, for surely ye will come back?"
"Why, I don't know that I am constrained to come back to Islington, Polly."
"But it's your house."
"That is no reason why I should live in it."
He smiled at her, withdrawn into his musings again, considering the magic of the great world, the life that Shalford and Cecilia Torrance lived.
Philip Guise was neither jealous nor bitter, but he did not care to contrast their fortunes with his own; he would rather not live in a great house if he could not be master of it; he would rather not mix with fine ladies if he could not possess one; he would rather not be in the company of great gentlemen unless they treated him as their equal....
Putting Livy, Tacitus and Cicero into the chest, he thought to himself: "I'll only stay a few weeks, perhaps days, longer; I'll get a little more profit and amusement out of the adventure "—and he smiled on the consideration, which he did not even put into a definite thought, that he would enjoy a little longer the sense of power that he received in the presence of Cecilia Torrance, knowing himself able to command her senses and agitate her heart whenever he wished. If she had been a coquette there would have been no pleasure in this, but Philip Guise was tolerably sure with women, and knew her for the candid, innocent, inexperienced creature that she was.
Polly rose, pouted and flung to the window.
"I'll not do any more, Captain Guise, my arms ache. All those dull books! I should burn them. They ain't even Christian; some of 'em, I doubt not, are full of sorcery and witchcraft."
"I wish they were," smiled Philip Guise; "nothing would please me better than to weave spells and raise the devil. Consider how one is always thwarted by one's own inadequacy, Polly, and how delicious it would be to have one's own weakness supported by the strength of some gallant fiend—"
Polly did not understand what he meant, but she was delighted he spoke to her so pleasantly.
"But you're mistaken in the character of these books, my dear; this "—and he touched the one he held on his knee—"is a Bible, though it is in Greek. I remember my grandfather particularly recommending me the care of this, though why, as I can't read Greek, I don't know."
He turned over the thick dry leaves, which crackled under his touch. There was a beauty and a nobility about the book which pleased him; he wished he had not been too impatient to learn Greek, which his grandfather had wished to teach him, but they had got no further than the alphabet. There was a folded paper inside in his grandfather's handwriting—notes, he supposed. He knew the old man's ink and paper, his cramped way of making his figures; at the bottom was his signature in English: Robert Fishlock, October 1722. The paper had been carefully preserved, and was attached by a small red seal and a short length of red ribbon to the cover.
Sullen and stormy, Polly pulled at the jasmine, and the frail white starry petals fell through the dark foliage on to the floor of the old room.
"Are ye going back to London?" she asked abruptly.
"Yes, for a while I'm going back, Polly."
"It seems to me ill work for a gentleman what ye do."
Philip Guise laughed.
"But you don't know what I do, Polly, and you've no idea what is work for a gentleman. Indeed," he added indifferently, "I believe my gentility is in question, my father being no more, as I make it, than a small tradesman, and his pride on every possible occasion to insist on this; he would make no pretences that were not generally allowed."
Polly was angered; she wished always to exalt him; he seemed to her not only a gentleman, but a great scholar and a fine soldier. Because he was magnificent to look at she exaggerated and embellished his personality.
As he paid no attention to her sulks, she turned reluctantly to assist him. They placed all the books into two chests which were set beneath the windows, leaving only the Greek Bible on the shelf above Philip's bed. He had a certain respect and friendliness for the book, and looked on it in the light of a companion. He then gave his keys to Polly, and half a guinea to buy a toy at the great fair that was coming on the green next week.... There was the parcel of linen, he suggested which she was washing and starching for him; was it ready?
The knowing girl said slyly that it was not ready; she would call with it at the great house in London. He, indifferent, said she might if she would, not troubling to guess at the curiosity which she could scarce conceal. Ever since he had been in London she had wanted to see Shalford House, and here was a fine excuse to get permission, and even her coach fare, from her father for such an errand and see this fine mansion where so unaccountably Philip Guise had gone to live; perhaps she might see the nobleman who employed him, and possibly (this was deepest in Polly's heart) see some sweet lady going in or out who might have too many kind smiles and inviting glances for Philip Guise.
She tried to detain him now, to keep him in the shop with the bow windows; in the garden packed with sweetness—late stock, early roses, gilliflowers, clove pinks and mignonette; at the gate, where grew great bushes of southernwood, rosemary and lavender ... she tried to keep him, with real pain at her inadequacy to make him notice her; in re-arranging her hair she purposely allowed the pin to drop, and her locks fell round her shoulders. She was not mistaken in thinking that she looked desirable in the twilight against this sweet and homely background; but she must endure these inexpressible torments, no one to notice, no one to see, and the odious Joe, with his loutish courtship ... Philip Guise was gone, kind, smiling, indifferent.
Philip Guise rode rapidly back from the "Pied Bull," where he had left his horse (an unaccustomed luxury), to Lincoln's Inn. He knew that my lord was abroad with friends, so went, idle and yawning, into the great room overlooking the Fields, which Heslop had only lit with two clusters of candles. The windows were open. Philip Guise flung himself into one of the long chairs in front of one of these open windows. It was, though he did not know it, that which had been made for my late lord in the days of his invalidism. A thin voice greeting him told him he was not alone. From the far end of the room advanced a man in dark clothes, with a humble and melancholy aspect.
"Sir, I do suppose you are Mr. Philip Guise?" said this person.
"I am he. My lord is abroad; I suppose you wait for him?"
"Yes, I have something of importance for my lord."
"Sir, can ye tell it to me?" asked Philip Guise, rising. "I am his secretary, or may be taken as such."
"I can tell it only to my lord. My name is Laurence Ambler. I used to live in this house in something of the capacity you now hold; for a great many years I was attached to my late lord."
"Well, sir," smiled Philip Guise, "I shall not be here for a great many years, or even, I think, for a great many months or weeks."
"It is curious," said Laurence Ambler, "that you should be here at all."
"Well, sir, so I think," said Philip Guise, pleased at this frankness. "It was a whimsical action on the part of my lord, and based on no more than that his father had obligations to my grandfather, who had at one time been his tutor." He said this with shrewd intention to draw the other.
But Ambler was silent, stroking his chin.
Guise therefore added boldly: "And have you, sir, with your long connexion with my late lord, ever heard of that? That my grandfather, Robert Fishlock, was once his tutor?"
"You've been told that?" queried Ambler.
"Yes. I can find no confirmation of it. Yet it is impossible to suppose that my lord should have invented this tale."
"Sir, impossible to suppose," repeated Ambler; "we must leave it at that."
"Ye mean, of course, that ye won't tell me what you know about the matter?"
"Why should I?" smiled Ambler. "Besides, I was not in all the affairs of my late lord; I do not know who may have been his tutor."
"Ye could find out," remarked Philip Guise shrewdly.
"Why, if you please?" Ambler shrugged his shoulders. "But it seems life is to be looked at forward, not backward. Believe what my lord says without question, and enjoy his favour and bounty."
"That is exactly," said Guise, "what I will take from no man."
"Ah, ye have one of those bitter doubting hearts that finds a canker in any sort of favour."
"I have a mind," replied Guise, "that cannot accept extravagances blindly. I take Lord Shalford to be but a whimsical young lordling with too many fancies and caprices, and too much money for indulging them."
Ambler turned on him with a sharpness that the other found strange.
"And are not ye also of a whimsical turn of mind, Mr. Guise?"
At this moment Shalford entered with a domino on his shoulders, a mask in his hand, with weariness on his face. He had been to a masquerade with Cecilia which had brought him little pleasure. Cecilia had been brilliant, full of voluptuous fascination which heightened the charm of her candid innocence. In this audacious purity of the beautiful young woman was an almost intolerable attraction; yet (and here was the sting) towards him she had been distant, no more than kind, and her air, the lustre of her eyes, the sparkle of her words, the change in her which all noted, were not, he was convinced, for him.
He was surprised and displeased to see Ambler. The sight of this man heightened his weariness; he remarked that the hour was late—could not the matter wait until the morning? But he knew well enough by the fact of Ambler being there that the matter could not wait.
Philip Guise, of whom neither took any notice, left them with no more than a look at Shalford ... that young man had been with Cecilia Torrance all the evening and appeared weary and dissatisfied. Philip Guise smiled to himself as he left the room.
"What do ye here so late, Ambler, so insistent?"
"You thought your business with me finished, my lord. Well, so did I. But some matters it is difficult to be finished with."
"So it seems," said Shalford in a dejected tone, casting his domino and mask on a chair.
"So that's your Philip Guise?" smiled Ambler. "He is indeed remarkable. He will not stay with you; he is restless, impatient, scornful of a civilian life."
"I'll make it worth his while to stay," said Shalford hurriedly. "Did he complain to you on so short an acquaintance?"
"He made no complaint," replied Ambler; "but he will not stay."
"I will keep him."
"For conscience' sake, or because you admire him?"
"Oh, leave it," replied Shalford indifferently and impatiently. "What have ye come for?"
Ambler replied with that brief directness which he could, on occasion, use so effectively.
"A man whom I believed dead is alive. His existence is of some importance to you. It is Mr. Thomas Cramer, who was witness at that wedding in the Islington church. He was always scandalous and a fool; he went abroad and, as I heard, was killed in a brawl at Madrid; but instead, it seems, he intermeddled with the Pretender's Court and was concerned in the '45. He has, however, the courage now to return to London, and I met him in a tavern that used to be well known to both of us—"
"What has this to do with me?"
"Well, Cramer is discredited and in hiding; if he were to appear both the Government and the bailiffs would be upon him. Politics and debts.... He thinks you might make it worth his while not to speak what he knows."
"Blackmail at last!" cried Shalford disdainfully and furiously. "And ye in it, I suppose?"
"I have no concern with this fellow; I merely came to warn you that he is in London. He talked over the affair with me. Why, it is only natural, seeing you have come into the title, the honours and so much money."
"Only natural for a rogue, I suppose," flung out Shalford, pale with anger, disgust and fatigue. "What has he to say?—nothing that can harm me if your story is true."
"He will not admit my story to be true," said Ambler. "He will say"—he approached the young Earl and lowered his voice very carefully—"he will say that Philip Guise is the legitimate son of your father, that there was no substitution at the wedding. Well, he will say this if you do not shut his mouth.... As for me, I have nothing to do with the affair."
Ambler lifted melancholy eyes and with a cold glance emphasized his words.
"Nothing whatever to do with the affair; I have my money and I am content. I did not like Barbara Pascoe, and I do not care for her son. I have no wish to see him in your place. I thought that by telling you Cramer was in London I was doing you a service."
"Why, so you are, as I may suppose," replied Shalford, "but I am distracted and bewildered. For aught I know Guise may be who he thinks he is."
"You have seen the entry in the register of that Islington church," smiled Ambler, "and that other in Buckinghamshire."
Shalford walked up and down.
"I'll see this Cramer, I'll listen to his story; I won't be blackmailed, he'll not get a penny from me. After all, whatever he has to say, who would believe him, a discredited man? I'm difficult to dislodge, Ambler; I have some power, and you and this other creature have none."
"I believe that he is aware of that," replied the melancholy man indifferently.
Before he left he wrote down the name of the tavern where Mr. Thomas Cramer (now calling himself James Frampton) was to be found.
Shalford was alone with this new vexation. His first impulse was to go up to Philip Guise and unburden himself to him of the whole miserable complication, but he did not do so; instead he endeavoured to put the whole affair out of his mind and to resist the temptation of discovering if this man Cramer had really thought of disturbing his peace by reviving this old and bottomless scandal of the Islington marriage.
In the chill morning he took his coach for Wraxham, where an accumulation of business awaited him; through some deep sensitiveness he would not take Philip Guise with him to Wraxham, having a dislike of seeing him in this place where my lord was buried, this house which he felt peculiarly his own, this estate which he deeply loved. As therefore there was very little to employ him in London, he gave him the post of waiting upon Cecilia Torrance, with the copying of music which they had mutually admired, with gifts of flowers, with any service that she might demand. The lady had men of her own rank for her escort whenever she wished to go abroad, but Philip Guise was to be at her command, Shalford said, to do the humblest or the most difficult of her bidding. He intended to be away only two or three days, and he found nothing peculiar in thus leaving Philip Guise as his deputy—Music was a chain that bound them all.
Shalford wrote to Cecilia and asked her to be kind and generous to Philip Guise, for, "though he is scarce a gentleman, he is well-bred, and I have some tenderness for him."
Cecilia flushed when she read the letter, and tore it up with a haughty gesture.
PHILIP GUISE carried the music books to the house in Queen's Square, but did not find much attention paid to him or to his errand. The small establishment was in a turmoil. One of Mrs. Torrance's children was ill—only a slight ailment, but she had been long fretting at her seemingly futile attendance on Cecilia and was eager for an excuse to return to Ireland; back she must go at once, and said that Cecilia must shift again to the gloomy mansion of Lady Anstice; but Cecilia preferred the little hired house in the pleasant square, and Lady Anstice had agreeably declared that she would move there and save the girl from changing her lodging so shortly before her wedding.
So the matter was arranged in eager feminine consultation, in high-voiced talking and cross-arguments, every one speaking at once, and through it all, somehow, a note of impatience flung at Cecilia as if she were being difficult and tiresome, and the whole bottom of the trouble was her insistent delay about the wedding. "She should have been married by now," was her stepmother's complaint; Lady Anstice thought so too. The preparations were complete, her clothes were finished, her maids engaged, the attorneys had done with the settlements ... Philip Guise got the gist of all this from Mrs. Torrance. The news had only come that morning, Shalford did not yet know; there seemed a maze of confusion and excitement over what amounted, in a man's mind, to very little. Philip Guise laid the music on the harpsichord in the little front room behind the sun-blinds where he had first met Cecilia. The little elegant instrument, Shalford's gift, was glittering with gold, and across it lay her long, fine gloves and swansdown muff trimmed with rose-coloured ribbons. These women, these great ladies, had had from the first a flicker of a glance of amazement for his handsome presence—a resentful glance from Mrs. Torrance it had been, and one of discomfiture from Lady Anstice, and one of amusement from the other lady present. Was this the friend of both bride and groom, the chosen companion for Cecilia's future life?
This acknowledgment of his uncommon gifts of person had been merged in the women's recognition of his most inferior position. He was, as Shalford, all unconscious of offence, had said, "scarce a gentleman." He found himself dismissed as a mere messenger and was leaving when Cecilia herself, radiant and elate, came down the small stairway. She stopped him even while his hand was on the outer door. She must write a letter to Shalford at once, and would he take it? Philip Guise answered:
"Lord Shalford is at Wraxham, and the letter had best go by the post."
But Cecilia would have none of that; she must write it and he return with her to the little drawing-room while she wrote. So he followed her back to the exact place of their first meeting, and they were alone.
Cecilia appeared in no hurry to begin her letter. She found the new music on the harpsichord, and must open it and turn it over. She called Philip Guise up to her to explain several passages she did not understand, and by asking him to play it to her. This he did, and Cecilia listened with a rapture she did not endeavour to conceal. When Shalford had played with earnestness and rather blundering care, repeating a passage again and again, labouring to be sure of it, she had found music tedious; but when Philip Guise played smoothly and lightly she was enchanted.
When he had finished the music, playing exactly what she asked for and no more, he demanded her letter, and she went to her little desk in the corner and began to write, while he returned to the window and looked out at that rich greenery in the Square.
He supposed that the other women must have left the house, for all was silence after the chattering, the light-footed steps up and down the stairs, the little shouted commands.
None of them had concerned themselves with him, whether he was or was not alone with Cecilia Torrance, for no doubt they regarded him, he thought, as little better than a footman.
He watched Cecilia while she wrote as he had watched Polly sitting among the dusty books on the sloping floor of his little room in Islington. Cecilia's rich hair was tied up with narrow pale azure ribbon which ran through her curls on to her shoulders; her dress was the finest muslin through which he could see her shoulders and arms. She wore little yellow slippers, and a little embroidered bag hanging by straight cords from her waist which emphasized the curving outline of her limbs.
Philip Guise waited.
It was very peaceful in the small room, crowded with foolish bric-à-brac, with little paintings and small gilt chairs, with tiny embroidered objects and minute figures in porcelain and silver; over all was the tawny shadow of the sun, which, though excluded by the sun-blinds, yet gilded the shade. Under these blinds he could see the trees and the stone statue of the Queen, over which the shade flickered; and he allowed his thoughts to dwell on that country they had evolved between them when he had been there before, which was neither England nor Ireland (her country), nor those lands that he had travelled abroad, but a region of faery-tale where they met as equals. It seemed a long time to him while she bent over her letter, but she turned at last with it ready in her hand, but not folded up.
"I have written it," she smiled, looking at him, "but you must not take it, Mr. Guise."
Because her challenge appeared to provoke only one inevitable reply, he would not make it to her, so did not ask why, but merely said:
"Why, then, I am relieved of my waiting and will take my departure."
Cecilia laughed, still gazing at him.
"Oh, I have written a love-letter, and for the first time, and I will not send it to Lord Shalford, for he will not understand it."
She leant across the back of her small gilt chair with the open sheet, on which was the yet wet ink, in her hand; she had forced him to look at her and, gazing at him eagerly, even earnestly, saw that expression come into his eyes which she noted in the eyes of that young soldier at the viceregal court in Dublin a year or so ago.
Then Mrs. Torrance had said to her that she must not heed men who looked at her like that; that "a gentlewoman must always be respected"; but when she again saw that glance of candid, almost brutal appraisal of her beauty, she felt nothing but a pure delight to be valued at last, to be recognized for the beautiful thing she was, to have these transient hours of loveliness prized....
"Do you know I am very lonely? I have a most melancholy disposition."
"It would be difficult to find one with more acquaintances than yourself, Miss Torrance, or one, to all seeming, more fortunate."
"But, you know," replied Cecilia in the same tones, "all that makes no difference."
"As for that, Miss Torrance, no doubt we are all lonely."
"I dream so much too," she replied quickly; "I live largely in a dream, and largely a melancholy dream." She folded up the letter and put it in her bosom. "Every one has gone out; they have forgotten me, they are so absorbed in their own concerns."
"You don't wish me to wait for the letter?"
"I shall not give you the letter, but I wish you to wait." She added: "I expect you dislike this room; it is like a box of children's toys. Shall we go outside and walk in the little garden of the Square?"
He accepted her invitation; no one interfered with them.
They went down the hot, sunny steps and crossed the deserted square and entered the garden, where the trees rose high above the houses into the summer sky. It was all summer shade, like dim gold; the houses were almost hidden from them by the leaves, but here and there they could see a high-set window with a sun-blind, or a bowl of flowers on the sill wilting in the sun.
Cecilia thought of nothing but this present moment, which seemed sheltered and hedged away from all the other moments in the world, but he thought of many things besides this idle afternoon.
With soft words and brilliant looks, she talked vividly as they walked up and down the smooth gravel path.
He had been a soldier she had heard—where? she wondered. She wanted to know about that, and he told her a few stories such as he thought suited to her age and sex, and these gave her a very different impression from anything that she had heard from Shalford ... he spoke of the strangeness of his meeting with her lover, his playing the organ in the church and Shalford listening outside, standing amongst the tombs.
"You know, Mr. Guise, everything that has happened to me seems to be associated with graves."
"Happened to you?" he smiled. "You were not and it did not concern you, Miss Torrance."
"Oh, did it not?" She glanced at him in candid wonder. "You know, I should like to see your room in Islington—you have a house there."
He asked her if she had got this information from Iford, and she said yes.
"Lord Shalford is very concerned with you, interested, fond of you, Mr. Guise."
He replied with a remark that took them from their present enchantment with a leap into the future.
"I shall not remain with my lord; I intend for foreign service again, Miss Torrance."
"Proud and fair as the day"—this expression, favoured by the old poets, came into his mind as he looked at her. Why, so she was as she turned and faced him; she had a little delicate air that was entirely carefree, laughing, joking, teasing.
"Two who have met as strangely as you and Lord Shalford cannot easily part."
"I cannot," he said, "easily remain."
There was a stone seat beneath the stone Queen; the shadows moved across it with a gentle lulling motion. He suggested that he should leave her, and waited to see what excuses she would make to induce him to remain ... but, without that, they looked at each other suddenly and sat down on the stone seat.
Philip Guise thought of the remark he had once made to another pretty woman: "Let us live this sunny day as if there were never going to be another."
He did not repeat this to Cecilia; he was ashamed of its staleness before her freshness of voice, of look, of gesture.
She clasped her hands round her knee. The sun fell through the leaves and made one sparkling point on the sapphire ring, Shalford's marriage pledge, which she wore on her small finger. They were as alone on that sunny summer afternoon in the green square in the middle of the great city as if they had been deep in a forest—no one disturbed them, no one pryed on them; birds whirled and chattered around them; the shadows waved to and fro with a gentle lulling motion.
Philip Guise took her clasped hands, released them one from the other and held them in his own, and boldly praised her, while she listened enthralled; he told her of her beauty and what her beauty meant to him. He asked her if Shalford, her lawful lover, or any other had ever told her how enchanting, how exquisite, how uncommon she was. And Cecilia, turning towards him as a flower to the sun, said:
"All my life I have been waiting to hear this ..."
Philip Guise had not intended this wooing, but it only meant an end a little sooner than he had anticipated; now that he had spoken to Cecilia he must not go back to Shalford's house—and what did that matter? Another life, other adventures lay before him. There was irony but no remorse in his heart as he half tenderly, half sadly gave this beautiful creature the praises she had always longed for ... she found herself confessing everything in an ecstasy of surrender—her drowsy reluctance to her engagement with Shalford, her moody indifference to please any other man, her neglect by her relatives, the brooding melancholy of that cold London spring, her desire to put off her marriage, and the sudden summons to life and gaiety she had seemed to have felt when she first met him ...
"Did you not see me in the mirror the other night at Shalford House—how I looked at you? It was for you that I had put on those fine clothes."
Her sincerity startled him into realizing the truth of their relations.
"You know this is only make-believe," he said, not too steadily, for she was uncommonly lovely and uncommonly frank in her surrender, and with both uncommonly sweet and innocent. "You know this is a game of make-believe we play with each other, for I am nothing and you are pledged to my lord."
"What is that?" she said. "I do not care for him—I do not want ever to see him again."
For a second Philip Guise played with the impossible.
"Would you leave him and come with me—would you marry me—of no family—landless?"
Then, quick and shrewd as he was, he saw her instantly draw back with a resentment of one startled from a delicious dream, chilled even in the midst of her aroused passion at his bold suggestion, which had reminded her who she was and who he was. And so he revealed the flaw in her love. He spared her the confession of her weakness.
"Of course you would not," he added quietly. "Did I not tell you that this was a make-believe? You are in every way fitted to be a fine great lady, and I am hardly able to support a wife, even were she a woman of no pretensions."
"You speak cruelly," whispered Cecilia, paling and at the same moment leaning towards him.
"Perhaps." He tried to laugh. "But we're not to be entangled"—he tried to free himself that way—"this has been so sudden that it may be as easily forgotten as it was begun."
He rose from the stone bench, and Cecilia was immediately behind him and had caught his sleeve with the innate terror of the woman losing a lover before he has sufficiently declared himself for her to be sure of his final capture.
"Don't go; don't leave me."
"It were lunacy to remain—some one will come to look for you. You may have been spied upon from the house."
He turned away resolutely, though it was difficult to leave such a garden and such a girl.
Cecilia summoned a manner of fainting dignity; she looked at him wistfully, and all her beauty appeared to have wilted like the roses he had observed in the room on the first day he had seen her. She put her hand to her bosom and drew out the letter she had written in his presence half an hour or so ago and gave it to him.
"For you," she said, and it was she who turned away now and walked through the warm shade, flecked with the vivid gold of the sun, and so back to the house.
He glanced at her letter before he furtively concealed it—a scrawl of passionate protestations of love and devotion, childish in their outspoken intensity, mature in the note of their eternal sincerity of love, love just awakened and believed by its victim to be immortal.
Philip Guise was moved, startled, angered at his fate; there was nothing to be done but to leave her; neither expediency nor honour nor common sense would permit him to see her again.
He blamed his destiny as men will blame destiny for the hard knocks they get, reserving to themselves the merit of good fortune. Roused, angry and bitter with self-contempt and the meanness and meagreness of his situation, he walked about the streets till sunset, whimsically purchasing a small necklace of silver beads and crosses, pleasing himself with the fiction that this was for Cecilia.
Towards sunset he fetched his horse and rode to Islington. At his whistle Polly came from the bakehouse, wiping the dough from her hands. He gave her the silver necklace, and observed with compassion her flush of joy. The air was heavy with the rich perfume of spiced cakes; an angry sunset flushed the sky with vermilion and streaks of saffron; the early roses had opened crimson petals on flame-coloured and orange coronals. Polly ran up to his room to try on the necklace. She said his great round mirror was far finer than hers, which was small and cracked. He followed her upstairs walking heavily, thinking of Cecilia. She had pulled open her bodice and was trying the necklace round her throat, first holding up and then letting down her hair ...
What sort of substitute was she for Cecilia Torrance? young, as fair perhaps, but so different.
Philip Guise flung down his sword, his hat, his gloves; he hated this decent drab civilian attire and regretted the old red regimentals he had so lately to discard. His dark, handsome face was flushed, and he was at once weary and restless, tormented by the thought of Cecilia, and even more tormented by the thought of the future.
He had shut the door. Polly turned to him with expectant eager eyes, hoping her moment had come. She sat down on one of the chests of books as if her limbs could no longer support her and asked him to clasp the silver beads round her neck, as her fingers were clumsy on the buckle.
He knew that device—as good as another!—and laughed at her. He sat on the chest beside her, put his hands to her neck—but to unclasp the necklace, take it off and cast it away. Warm, eager and half-sobbing, Polly was in his arms—if he closed his eyes, might he deceive his senses sufficiently to think that this was Cecilia Torrance he kissed? Polly was an ardent lover, young and sweet. She sobbed out her long, her deep, her insistent love. He had always disregarded that word, used by women so lightly, but now, while he held Polly, he believed that he had found the meaning of it, and that he really loved Cecilia Torrance.
A late bee droned in the jasmine, the little room was full of dusky shade; as the vermilion and scarlet and orange receded from the sky the long grey leaves of the pear trees and the long hard fruit showed in a dark outline against the pale east. Polly shuddered for joy, thinking that Philip Guise was hers—if not for always at least for that long space of time which is a lover's night. And he gazed over her head at the ineffable pallor of the paling sky, the black tracery of the jasmine leaves, and tried to keep her with him, with no thought of her at all, but merely as an anodyne for his disappointment and his sense of failure, so bitter, so contemptuous, so unappeasable ... but could not, and put her from him, poor sobbing, affectionate child, who understood nothing at all.
"Keep this love of thine, Polly, for one who can give thee a better exchange." His tenderness saved her from the worst of pain; she crept away with tears not wholly sorrowful ... for she sensed that he held her too good to be a substitute.
SHALFORD took a pair of oars from the Temple Stairs to the Horseferry Stairs (in the heat it was pleasanter travelling on the water) and, landing, made his way through Tothill Fields and discovered, after much straying of his steps, a small, mean inn at the sign of the "Truss of Hay," which appeared to be mainly frequented by carters on their way from Chelsea to London.
Here, under an assumed name, lodged Mr. Thomas Cramer. Shalford, waiting in the sanded, beer-smelling parlour, wrote a note and had it sent up to this gentleman, not disclosing his own name. He could not acquit himself of a certain folly in thus meddling with a man who would not, he believed, have dared to meddle with him; yet he had not been able to resist the temptation of seeing this Thomas Cramer face to face and discovering what he knew or what version he would give of the tormenting past.
The frowsy chambermaid asked Shalford to come upstairs. He found Thomas Cramer at his ease in a small room that looked over the back garden, full of hollyhocks and beehives, which enclosed a view of fields sweeping to Neat House.
This Mr. Cramer was a jovial purple-faced man, whose countenance bore every mark of fatigue and dissipation, but yet retained a certain genial comeliness. Though it was well past noon he still wore a dirty flowered dimity bed-gown, a night-cap and slippers. He was smoking a short pipe, and the remains of a meal stood in the window-seat; but his manners were easy and spoke of an easy breeding. After one glance at him and his surroundings, Shalford could well credit that this man had once been his father's close associate.
Cramer affected to believe that the young Earl had come to seek him out on some political business, and asked him, with a certain good-natured bravado, if he had any loyal messages to send to the Court at Bar-le-Duc; but Shalford came at once to his own affairs, without, however, disclosing what was in his mind.
"Sir, you were my father's friend, and Laurence Ambler, who believed you dead, told me that you had returned to London and was making inquiries about me. I felt myself therefore in duty constrained to wait on you."
Cramer laughed, showing broken and discoloured teeth, and fidgeted with his neckcloth.
"It was convenient to me to have it noised abroad that I was dead," he admitted, "for I have been engaged in dangerous business—"
"Which is no concern of mine," interrupted Shalford. "Mr. Ambler told me that ye desired to have speech with me, and here I am."
Cramer laughed again. He appeared, above all things, easy and good-humoured; in his youth he must have been gay, a pleasant companion, and even now, buffeted about by misfortune and his own fault as he was, there was still a charm about the big, coarse fellow.
"Well, since ye want it put bluntly, I suppose ye know that I was one of the witnesses at your father's marriage?"
"I have heard a certain wild fiction to that effect."
"'Tis no fiction," replied the other, but added at once with frankness, and even kindness: "but you're quite safe; it can never be proved. Parish registers are not so well kept and can be easily tampered with, and, if I would, I dare not 'split' on you, for I may not come into the light, as I dare say you well know. And I rather wonder," added the big man pleasantly, "why you have given yourself the trouble, my lord, to come as far as Tothill Fields to see me."
"Curiosity—nothing more than that, sir. I have heard a tale, and then another tale, and then a third—and each of the three has some likelihood about it. I believe none—"
"Or, rather," interrupted the other shrewdly, "you believe what it is to your interest to believe—eh?"
"I believe what my common sense bids me believe. I think there have been some malice and chicanery at work."
"No doubt," admitted Mr. Cramer cheerfully; "at the same time there is no doubt whatever that your father was married to Barbara Pascoe in the year 1720 in the Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Islington. I was there and saw the register, and the parish clerk, if he be not a rogue, will have it still."
"I have seen it," replied Shalford briefly. He then told Cramer the tale that Laurence Ambler had told him, but could proceed very little in it by reason of the other's laughter.
"Ambler's a romantical old dog, able to invent some damned pretty tales—a parrot's wound, a bandaged face and a mock rescue! There are some extravagances for ye! No, no, sir, I can assure you that is indeed all fiction; it was your father who came to that church and married Barbara Pascoe! She was then living with some manner of duenna in a little house by the toll-gate at Hawbush Lane; she was a very beautiful creature, but why your father should marry her I never could understand. However, the shrewdest of rogues have their lapses." He looked up cunningly at Shalford and, with a knowing wink, added: "And the fair Barbara didn't die till '25, after my lord's second marriage, and when you was born, eh?"
"I've no proof of that."
"Ambler has, hasn't he?"
"Why, he has a copy of some paper they gave him in France, but I take it is of no value."
"Why, it's none of it of any value," admitted the other frankly. "These things are on a man's conscience. It can't be proved, as I believe my lord knew, and if it could be proved to a private person's satisfaction it could not be made to stand in a court of law. Why, you're quite safe, my lord." The thick, cheerful voice was full of mockery. "You've the money, the titles and the honours; why, I wonder ye give the matter a second thought!"
Shalford did not speak.
Cramer added cunningly, fingering the dirty cuffs of his flowered gown: "There was a child, one Philip Guise, he was called, your father told me as much. Ambler says that ye have taken him into your household. That is generous of you, sir, but an odd action too."
"Philip Guise, and this is largely what I came to tell you, is nothing to do with my father. He is the grandson of the minister of the parish of Islington; his father was a French Huguenot refugee...."
"Ye mean," replied Cramer, "that he hath not the least suspicion who he really is. And ye have come here to entreat me not to enlighten him."
"Nothing of the kind!"
"He is the rightful Earl," added Cramer; "there's never a doubt of that in my mind, or in the mind of Laurence Ambler, whatever story he may choose to tell you. The old minister's daughter did marry a Louis Guise, and had a child which died; it was out at nurse. It was easy to substitute my lord's child by Barbara Pascoe."
"Ye will have to prove that, and I do not believe it; look ye, sir, I don't believe it."
"As ye wish, but I know it for a fact; I was my lord's confidant in the whole affair—"
Shalford interrupted: "You ask me to credit an absurdity. Why should this woman have been silent; why should she have consented to be robbed of all her rights?"
Cramer chuckled. "For a good many reasons. For one thing she was no match for my lord in lies and shifts, subterfuge and subtleties; she was a simple creature after all; and then, again, she was not so virtuous as she had made herself out to be; she, too, had her favourites, and I was one of them.... My lord found out too much; her character was not such as to bear investigation. The valet and the dresser were bribed or put out of the way—I forget which. In brief, the poor woman could rely on no one, so she thought it best to take what she could and be silent."
Shalford smiled grimly. "That is all very glib; but can you explain to me why Laurence Ambler should have told me his romantic faery tale—that he had taken my lord's place at the wedding—if it were not to his advantage to do so?"
"That's Ambler's story, and you must get him to tell it to you himself," said Cramer with another knowing and genial wink. "He and the fair Barbara quarrelled; they were too fond at one time, then came to a great dislike of one another; they both drank. I think he would not care to see her son enjoying the Shalford honours. Besides, too, it might gratify him to make the generous gesture, knowing that even if he threatened you he could not prove his case; generosity would pay, in his case, better than blackmail." The stout man added sharply: "And in mine too, I suppose, my lord. I have lain all my cards on the table and shown that none is dirty or marked. I can prove nothing, I have no interest in this Philip Guise; he seems to be very well off as he is, but I dare say you would just as soon that I did not whisper a word in his ear—"
"You would like, after all, sir, some hush money?
"You, perhaps," put in Mr. Cramer, "would like to assist your father's old friend, who has sacrificed his interest to his duty, his ease to his Prince, his leisure to his friend?"
Mr. Cramer rose and bowed with something of a grand flourish.
Shalford had in his pocket a bill on his bankers for five hundred pounds. He took it out and laid it on the table. Mr. Cramer glanced at it but did not pouch it, putting instead a brass candlestick on the end to keep it secure.
Laughing again, he ignored this frank action, save for a quick glance at Shalford and at the same time stroking his purple, rough cheek.
"Well, I'll give you a bit of advice, my lord; a bit of a warning too, perhaps: Get rid of that young man; don't keep him hanging about your house; one never knows—a word, a joke; besides, I should think there's a likeness, isn't there?"
"No likeness in the least," replied Shalford firmly, "between the son of Louis Guise and myself."
"Outface it as you will," smiled Mr. Cramer; "it's no matter to me. I shall be leaving England soon, when I have done my errand. Dare say you won't hear from me again. Ambler seems solely in your interest, and there's no one else to fear."
Shalford caught at that last stinging word.
"Fear? I fear nobody. Everything is clear and open. Philip Guise is with me because I like him. He has a gift for music."
"It's not because you like to keep him under your own eye, eh? Well, well, I can understand the kind of feeling ye have, but I think it would be wiser to let him go abroad. I understand he's anxious for soldiering—let him go back to that ... or, at the Chevalier's Court there's work enough for a likely young man.... Send him where there are a few bullets looking for a lodging."
Shalford was not listening. His errand was completed; he had heard what Cramer had to say, and he had paid him what he had intended to pay him because he was his father's friend.
The young man was sickened and yet relieved; he would not face the sequence of his own action; if he had given this fat, greasy rogue money it had not been to stop his mouth. No, Shalford would not admit that, nor that he had been impressed by what Cramer had said, nor that he ought, at least, in simple honour, to acquaint Philip Guise with all he knew of this involved mystery.
Shalford closed his mind to all this and turned away heavily, downcast and silent, his pride giving an impressive air to his suffering.
Mr. Cramer remarked suddenly: "You're young for all this trouble. Well, don't think of it again."
Shalford was about to reply with some term of defiance or arrogance, but, looking at that worldly, battered face, those keen eyes which seemed to understand and judge mankind so shrewdly, said nothing, but left the room and the inn and took the path across the fields to the Chelsea road, following it till it struck into the lane to Charing Cross, past Buckingham House, across the Tyburn road, and so into the footways to St. Martin's. He all the while walking idly, switching with his cane at the hedgerow flowers, languidly watching the haymakers busy with the sober-coloured grasses, rich with the vermilion flare of poppies and the hard white of ox-eyed daisies. He did not see how much further he could go with his investigations; every direction in which he probed he appeared to be met by a different tale, a different set of facts. If Cramer were to be believed—and his story appealed more to Shalford's common sense than that offered by Ambler—Philip Guise was indeed the rightful Earl, and he himself a nameless as well as a landless man. For if the story were proved it would mean the forfeiture of his mother; estate; but, as Cramer had jovially admitted, it could not be proved, either to anyone's private satisfaction or so that it would hold in a court of law. It would be quite impossible for Philip Guise, as far as Shalford could see, to demonstrate that he was the son of that first marriage. The date of Barbara Pascoe's death also rested entirely upon Ambler's word—how easy to fabricate all these particulars!
Shalford admitted to himself bitterly, as he wandered through those dusty summer lanes, that step by step he could begin to understand how Edgar, if he had gone as deep into this affair as he had himself, had been driven to destroy himself ... he longed to go to Cecilia Torrance for comfort, but hesitated to do this.
Only that morning she had pleaded for a further delay to their marriage, and under some futile excuse. Shalford was too sensitive to wish to force Cecilia's inclinations, but the girl's reluctance to their wedding gave him cloudy thoughts. He sat on a stile and envied the haymakers.
"Heavens, what dangerous hazards it is for a man to leave the paths of honour and dignity!"
Never before had he lingered in the fields outside London; his days had always been full of business, pleasure and regulated affairs.
This mystery was changing all his life and the conduct of his hours ... he lingered there in idleness under the hawthorn tree, watching the rustics, who paused now and then to stare at the curious sight of a gentleman contemplating their humble labours.
And at that very hour Cecilia Torrance and Philip Guise were again pacing the little garden in Queen's Square. He was exclaiming, stormy and bitter:
"I can give you nothing, and it is but a ridiculous reason to suppose that, though you have taken this fancy for me, you can share my meagre fortune, there being what there is offered you!"
"It is offered me," she cried, "but I am under no obligation to take it!—"
She looked at him, seeing him as both beloved and formidable; she thought not at all of pride or safety, and she cried:
"If I might have had but a bridge of gold to turn back from what I have done, I could not cross it!"
"If all our circumstances are laid together," said Philip Guise, "they admit of no hope and, since you are very young, my love, as I take it, but have a very brave and noble spirit, you will, once I am gone, forget me. It takes some courage to live, we not knowing how God may dispose of us. Though in our youth we may count on happiness, yet when we come to a few more years we know it is not so."
She turned away, seeming as cold as stone and dead with fear. Her countenance altered and her head sank, and, though he had made this parting, yet at the sight of her he was forced to call a stay and to return to where she stood under the tall plane tree, wholly in warm shadow.
"It is useless for me to speak," he said, "since I have no great hope of mending matters. I believe you are resolved to go on with your marriage. In these last weeks my mind and spirit are over-toiled and almost spent, but if even now you could cast it all aside—is it possible, Cecilia, that you could do so and come with me? Is it possible that you love me? Nay, how is it possible?"
She did not speak. To him this silence seemed to make the moment mean and trifling. She had no courage, and he despised himself for expecting it of her; she turned away from him and sank down on to the stone seat beneath the stone statue, where they had sat on their first walking in this pleasant garden, sunk her face in her hands.
This he took to be his final dismissal, and turned away. They never had very long together, only a few snatched minutes from all the dreary waiting hours of the long days and sleepless nights; there was always some one present, save for these few odd moments when, under the excuse of a service or an errand, he might seek her company, or when she might pace in the little garden under the high trees. Now there were friends coming who had already been to the house seeking her. They came in at the gate laughing, and Philip Guise took another way out of the garden so that he should not meet them. Cecilia heard the laughter and dropped her hands, and when her friends reached her she was composed.
But she could not forbear many backward glances along the way he must have gone.
"LADY ANSTICE is ill," said Cecilia. Her look, her voice, her gesture, were full of reproach. "You should have allowed her to go to Bath. You tie us here in London, yet we see very little of you; you are abroad on your own hurries and entertainments."
Shalford was amazed at these rebukes, since he had always found it difficult and sometimes impossible to persuade Cecilia to share any diversions or amusements he offered her, or to induce her to come abroad in the company of his friends; and so much he told her tenderly, yet a little hurt at her reproaches, which were as vehement as sudden.
He had never known Cecilia less than amiable; now she appeared almost violent and sullen; her rich hair was neglected and carelessly knotted with a crumpled ribbon, her muslin gown was dishevelled, she nervously knotted and unknotted the ends of her lace shawl. The day was sultry, and Shalford suggested they should walk in the little garden of the Square. This she most fiercely opposed, declaring she detested the garden, the house, London and England ...
Amazed and hurt at her passion Shalford replied: "Make an end of these delays and marry me immediately—everything is in train, and we could be in Wraxham within the week."
"No, I'll not be hurried. If you cannot come except to flurry and tease me—"
"Oh, Cecilia, you did not use to be so unkind I—"
"Nor you so ill-natured," she retorted, "to abuse me on the least occasion."
She sat by the window, where the coming storm cast a dun light over the trees without, which were motionless in the still, hot atmosphere. It was plain she was suffering, and Shalford suffered also to see her silent pain. He knew that this distress of hers had nothing whatever to do with his own secret anguish, with his late interview with Thomas Cramer, his knowledge of who Philip Guise might be, and yet both their discomforts seemed to spring from a common source, as if some evil had been evoked which was gradually drawing both of them into its power. Nay, not only both, but all of them, for Shalford felt as if Philip Guise too had been enticed into this subtle web of misfortune. He nervously fingered the trivial and brittle ornaments on the mantelshelf: she would not marry him, she resisted his love-making, gentle as it was; she seemed on every possible occasion to turn from him; her looks of greeting were impatient, her looks of farewell full of relief.
He walked up to her and sat by the window, and asked:
"Cecilia, have you met some other man that you prefer?"
Her breast heaved, the colour crept into her face, and she would not look at him.
"That is coarsely put," she murmured.
"I cannot do otherwise than say it plainly, Cecilia," he answered desperately; "we must at least try for some frankness. I have never cared for you so much as during these last few days, and you, I fancy, never so little."
Never cared so much! She looked at him now, stirred by the flash of passion in his words.
"But you do not make me feel that, Edmund."
"You have never allowed me to do so," he replied with some bitterness.
"You are so occupied; you are always away; you have your friends and your entertainments and your business—"
"Cecilia!" He was amazed at the wild unreasonableness of this. "You will never accompany me; you dislike all diversions."
"You should make me like them," she answered.
Shalford smiled at this illogical feminine argument, and with pain and weariness brought her back to the first point.
"Is there anyone else, Cecilia?"
"Who could there be?" she parried. "I meet no one."
"But you have been to several routs and masquerades, the play and the opera—it is possible that you have seen some man whom you prefer.... Nay, Cecilia, you need not frown at me; there is no crime in it, and there is yet time to loosen all our engagements."
She tapped her foot with what he considered a most unreasonable impatience, for he was offering her what he believed would be her happiness at the cost of his own. She said:
"Do you care so little for me that you seek an excuse to let me go?"
He was whipped into saying: "At least I do not wish to marry a woman whose heart belongs to another man."
He was astonished to observe how Cecilia, who had always in her carriage and discourse been so humble, obliging, of an easy, affable temper, turned on him in a high-spirited and imperious manner.
"This other man! What is in your mind, Edmund, when you keep insisting on this point which I have already dismissed? I am not well; I have been in attendance on your aunt; the weather is sultry. Take what excuse you will, take, perhaps, the truth—of late you have not pleased me; you have been absent too much, too distracted when here. Perhaps you ha%-e changed in your liking and would put the defection on to me!"
Shalford revolted at this quarrel (for she had made it no less) and withdrew into a hardness and dignity unbecoming in a lover.
"I am at your disposal, Cecilia, when you think to require me; but I commend to your good sense some decision, for these delays and humours are ridiculous."
Nothing could have embittered her more than this formal speech. She was exasperated by his lack of emotion, by his melancholy gravity, by his acceptance of the fact that there might be the possibility she preferred some one else. In brief, for his reducing to a commonplace matter all that to her was so unimaginably-wild and romantic and awful.
She let him go, and he, returning to Shalford House, was met by Philip Guise, who declared that he wished to leave my lord's service immediately.
Shalford could not suffer this; for his conscience' sake, for his own spiritual ease, he wanted to keep Philip Guise close ...
"Why do you want to leave me?" he asked to gain time. "We have done very well together, and I hope your duties have not been difficult or tiresome."
"I have no duties," smiled Philip Guise; "that is partially my complaint. My position here is a sinecure. I am too active to be a gentleman usher. Look, my lord, in your great mansions and among your town friends—"
"You can go to Wraxham," smiled Shalford. "If the life of a country gentleman suits you, you may have it there. Why should you be so concerned to leave me?"
"And why," asked Philip Guise quickly, "should you be so concerned to attach me to your person, my lord?" The trees in the Fields shivered in the breeze that was the herald of the storm, lightning struck and thunder rumbled in the distance, and large drops of rain splashed on the hot, dry flags of the courtyard.
The dreary beggars, drowsing round the street posts, picked themselves up, muttering and flapping in their rags, and hobbled off to places of shelter. Coachmen, with their beavers pulled over their eyes and their coat collars turned up, rattled over the cobbles with passengers who feared the coming storm.
Shalford stared out at this sombre scene and found it detestable. He irked at the whole circumstances of his life and fortunes. At that moment he would willingly have turned to the other man, who was standing there so quietly with an air of awaiting his pleasure, and said to him: "This is all yours; you are the Earl and the master of this wealth; take it and let me go in peace."
This was his simple natural impulse; a thousand considerations blurred and checked it ... first, he must be more sure, must entirely satisfy himself.... Grasping the curtain he turned again to Philip Guise.
"I must earnestly, seriously beg you to remain with me. I will go so far as to say that some day—soon—I hope to tell you the urgent reason for this I require."
"I am a plain man, sir," replied Philip Guise, "and have no stomach for mysteries, and I have a wish to be away; it was in but a whim that you asked me to your house, in but a whim that I accepted. I believe we have something, sir "—here he smiled—"the same turn of temper—capricious and inquisitive. Well, this is over now. I shall leave for the East as soon as I may, and I dare say we shall not meet again."
On hearing this decision, spoken in a firm tone, Shalford began to urge and plead, putting forward all the reasons of which he could think to induce Guise to remain with him, becoming extravagant in his promises and protestations, insisting always there was a reason, nay, a good, nay, a vital reason why he should remain with him. If he would not be in his service, why, let him stay as a friend—a companion. Music was a sufficient excuse...
The storm darkened down over the city. Shalford's distracted mind ran to Cecilia, close by in the little house looking on the Square. There, too, were trouble, confusion, distress and discomfort. He put his hand before his aching eyes.
"Before God, I assure you there is a reason you should remain with me."
Philip Guise had been walking up and down the darkening room, then so full of shadows that it seemed of limitless extent. He had been all along far the more controlled of the two, but his firmness seemed to break under the other's nervous insistence.
"Before God," he declared, "there is a reason I should go."
Shalford dropped his hand from his eyes and looked at this other man—handsome, formidable, gifted, with his air of scarce held-in audacity, too large for the narrow life of town ...
A rumble of thunder, a thin stroke of lightning, a gush of rain, and Philip Guise stepped forward to pull together the curtain of the window nearest to him. In the second that he did so Shalford saw that livid, unnatural light across his face and thought, as if it had been supernaturally revealed to him: "Why, this is the man—Cecilia's choice."
He pulled out his handkerchief, pressed it to his mouth and stood silent. Philip Guise thought he was somewhat abashed and sickened with the storm, and said nothing.
Shalford was sickened indeed, but with a spiritual nausea. "Have I not said from the first: This man is my superior in everything; he has all that I have always envied? It is no wonder that she should prefer him; and they mean to keep it secret from me, they mean to deceive me. He is going away, she will force herself to marry me. Of all things I cannot endure that they should deceive me."
"Sir," said Philip Guise, "if you will move from the window, I will pull the other curtain; the lightning is fierce, the menace disagreeable."
"I was not thinking of the lightning," replied Shalford. "I wish you to come with me at once."
"Come with you, sir?"
"Yes, and on a desperate errand. Don't refuse me this, Guise, for indeed it is vital for all of us."
"If you make such a point of it—"
The two men were out in the street, which the storm had emptied. The dun-coloured clouds were low over the dark houses; the trees shivered before the threat of the thunder and the thrust of the lightning. They walked quickly, Shalford leading the way, and as they turned across Holborn in the direction of Queen's Square, Philip Guise guessed what was in his companion's mind. "She has said something, or he has discovered something for himself; he means to give her her choice. He's exalted—this will be the better way."
Philip Guise was by nature audacious and detested deceit; for him to have to conceal anything was a thrust at his pride. He therefore walked briskly by Shalford and entered firmly the small room in which Cecilia Torrance still drooped in the window-place, over which she had, with a careless hand, pulled the shutter.
From the hasty arrival of the two men, one of whom had left her so recently, and from their faces she saw that this was some serious matter, and took up at once a feminine standpoint of agitation and evasion. She would not see them, she could not see them; this was an intrusion, the storm had disturbed them all; she begged that they would leave her....
Shalford was too much in earnest to be put off by any such girlish subterfuge. He believed that this was a moment from which might emerge sorrow and tragedy. He caught Cecilia's wrist and cried:
"I'll not be deceived—you do owe me that, not to deceive me. I have brought Guise here."
"And why?" she asked, wrenching her hand away. "Why?"
"Because I believe that it is he whom you prefer, and I was infatuate not to know this sooner. You have been seeing him; I myself have sent him to you, there has been chance enough."
"How light you make me!" she cried indignantly, clasping her hands on her breast. "And how impossible and outrageous is this accusation!"
His deep sincerity overrode her pretences.
"Oh, Cecilia, take me seriously. I have brought this man here to ask you which you choose between us. He is insistent on going away, you make delays about our marriage; seeing him and knowing him, I think it is very likely that you have preferred him in your heart if you have not acknowledged as much with your lips."
"What has he said?" she asked, cowering away a little.
Philip Guise answered this.
"I have said nothing, Miss Torrance, nor have I been asked anything. I take it that this is a matter which hangs in the balance of your decision—not in mine."
"You've said nothing?" she repeated.
"What could he have said?" asked Shalford impatiently. "I come here driven by my own thoughts, by my own convictions. Cecilia, I attach no fault to you nor to him. Dear, I only ask of you not to deceive me."
The girl took refuge in meaningless protestations.
"I do not understand, I will not be importuned; this is astonishing—"
Shalford broke through this with his earnest—"Cecilia, if you care for this man—"
"Why should you think I do, Edmund?"
"It is clear that you care very little for me, for you are distracted and, as I take it, your heart and thoughts are with some other."
He turned desperately to Philip Guise and said: "Say what is in your mind to say to her, persuade her, even before my eyes—anything as long as you do not deceive me."
But, even before this urgency, the other man replied:
"Honour and expediency hold me silent. Let Miss Torrance speak."
Cecilia looked from one to the other of them. She sat down in her old place by the window, in the shrouding shade of the curtains, and looked at them again; then began to laugh.
"You are less than yourself to-day, Edmund, to come to me with this fantasy."
"Fantasy!" he repeated angrily. "Will you tell me to my face that it is no more than that?"
She replied with a harshness that he had not believed one so young and gently-bred could have expressed:
"Mr. Guise is no more to me than some one in your establishment. He has come to me on your errands, and I have taken no more heed of him than I would of any messenger."
At this Philip Guise smiled and said: "I hope, sir, you are satisfied," and, opening the door, went out into passage, closing it behind him.
"Must I believe that?" asked the young man, baffled and troubled. "You are not speaking out of fear or shame, Cecilia? Remember, there is no one to blame or reproach you—the man is more admirable than I."
"I have not noticed it," said Cecilia bitterly. "You are inspired by a whimsical jealousy." She rose and added passionately: "If I loved this man should I, for any consideration, conceal and deny it?"
He was almost convinced by that. It was certainly almost inconceivable that, given she loved Philip Guise, she should lose this opportunity of honourably declaring so.
"I must, then, have been mistaken," said Shalford wearily. "I acted on an impulse, not of jealousy, I believe, but of generosity. I would have set you both free from your separate engagements and obligations; I would have raised him and made all as easy as possible for you, for your parents and friends; I would have helped you without scandal or distress to what you most greatly desire. But, since you deny it, you torment yourself for nothing, Cecilia."
"You have done an intolerable thing! I can never look this man in the face again."
"He is leaving me," said Shalford heavily, "and going far abroad. It is not likely you will ever see him again."
At that she turned round abruptly and cried out; she had an excuse, for the thunder broke out overhead, and the lightning pierced between the two heavy curtains.
"So you will be rid of him," said Shalford, "and, as for me, if you are deeply offended—"
"Leave me now," said Cecilia, "but come back. Edmund, I have cared for you ..." She gave him her hand and burst into tears, and when he would comfort this sobbing she put him away. "Leave me, you have shocked and hurt me."
"I am in every way a blundering fool," he passionately accused himself. "Will you forgive me, can you forgive me, Cecilia?"
But she took this as a last exasperation and most tearfully entreated him to leave her ... oh, to leave her!
Driven from her presence, he encountered Guise in the hall.
"I hope, sir, you are satisfied," said that gentleman with ironical kindness and, taking him by the elbow, conducted him from the house out into the splashing streams of rain. "It's best, my lord, not to try these downright methods with a woman."
He was sincerely sorry for his companion. After all, the young Earl had behaved like a boy, like a fool perhaps, but with an impulsive and noble generosity which Philip Guise could value. As for the girl ... he looked back at the narrow, prim house, half blotted out by the streams of rain through which they hurried, and he thought again: "A hussy, after all, and so I'll treat her. No love there, but a bold lie, and a hard pride; no better than poor Polly ... not so generous as poor Polly ... and as easy gotten."
"IT is true that I have never realized any of my dreams, but, in the hope of attaining them, there are some things I have avoided."
To these words of Philip Guise Shalford replied sombrely:
"You are lucky even if you have seen the face of your chimera, exceedingly fortunate if it bent towards you even for half a moment."
"You are young, my lord, for such sour wisdom."
"There is not much difference," replied the young Earl, "between us, either in years or experience."
"But there is this difference," replied Philip Guise: "you have the power which goes with wealth, and I the freedom which goes with poverty."
Shalford fingered the music on the beautiful harpsichord; he detested all these efforts at beauty, all these attempts at realizing men's aspirations; though they had so often brought him comfort now they seemed to him futile, empty, even irritating—a few marks of ink on paper, a few tinkles of sound from a keyboard—why, it was nothing! He was embittered with himself for approaching that state of mind which Philip Guise had declared he had always avoided when he said: "My only philosophy is not to lose interest in life."
Shalford felt himself thus losing interest in life; even his extreme youth could not solace him; that, indeed, seemed an added grievance, making the years ahead as long as arid. Towards Philip Guise he felt stubborn and ruthless; he wished to put him in the wrong, to abuse him, to quarrel with him. He had nothing against him, except the persistence of Guise in leaving him. Shalford felt now that his taking Guise through the storm on that desperate impulse to face Cecilia had been intolerable, almost an outrage, but it had been sincere; if it could not be forgotten, at least it might be passed over in silence, he thought; so much tribute he might exact from the genuine emotion which had prompted his action.
To Cecilia he had said: "It seemed to me most likely that you loved the fellow; there was nothing for me to do but to give you the opportunity to prove it." She had answered in the hottest indignation: "To bring that man here; a lackey, a servant!" She had emphasized, she had exaggerated the position of Guise—his poverty, his dependence, his obscurity—she had flung all at Shalford as if she were abusing him ...
With energy and resolution he had protested against what she declared a finished insult on the part of her betrothed husband, and she had ended in a passion of tears which had left Shalford bewildered and remorseful. He would not have believed that her character could have produced such surprises; she had seemed so light, even vaporous; now she had proved herself strong and passionate, even, it seemed to Shalford, hard.
He remembered when he had walked in the woods of Wraxham on the day of his father's funeral and imagined Cecilia wandering beside him through those airy groves, a very Diana, almost invisible, a goddess of the spring and the trees, half sylph, half angel, impalpable, for ever virginal. And he remembered, too, that he had thought to himself: "It is, perhaps, dangerous to treat Cecilia as if I had forgotten she was a woman."
In these latter days she had been very woman, with her eyes swollen from weeping, her lips humid, her cheeks flushed, her air of fever and of haste, her quick, angry words, her trembling gestures; the gossamer celestial creature whom he had thought moved in a dream that it would be difficult to keep on the earth had proved herself not only human but uncontrolled, unreasonable and violent. And Philip Guise, though neither uncontrolled nor violent, was, in Shalford's opinion, unreasonable; he insisted on taking his departure from Wraxham House and from Shalford's life, and on the instant—no bribes nor entreaties nor dignified remonstrances would serve to stay him, and Shalford was the more irritated because Guise, though resolute, remained good-humoured. He even affected to make nothing of the scene which Cecilia had taken so desperately in earnest; he appeared to wish to pass completely out of Shalford's life, and remarked casually that, since they meant nothing to each other, and they had met in the oddest and most out-of-the-way fashion, there would be nothing strange in their easily parting and never seeing each other again.
But Shalford's conscience made it impossible for him to thus lose sight of Philip Guise. He wished to continue indefinitely to keep this man near him, placating him and treating him with high generosity as a substitution for what might be his rights; some day he meant to put before him the whole story—its convolutions, doubts and enigmas; some day, not now.
But Philip Guise must be always there, near him when the moment arrived.
Therefore the young Earl stood moody and angry by the harpsichord, detesting his own life and his own disposition, and bringing himself also to detest Philip Guise. Turning over the pile of music with nervous fingers the young Earl again urged him to reconsider his decision.
"There are some follies one does not commit twice."
Philip Guise spoke quietly, with good nature, and Shalford was secretly enraged by a certain majesty in his demeanour; therefore began to talk angrily and use a tone of authority, one that came naturally to him, since he had so often dealt with inferiors, with soldiers, with servants and those who were dependent on his goodwill.
Philip Guise, standing near the door, waited, listening, in a manner that seemed both interested and amused; yet he had the air of taking none of the other's speech seriously.
The summer was of extraordinary heat, and that seemed to make a difference to everything. Life in the town appeared abnormal; every one was nervous, irritated; many were languid and overwrought. The thunderstorms rolled up in the evening and disappeared during the night, and Shalford, standing by the harpsichord, could see the trees in the Fields, already yellow and shaking steadily small fragments of the colours of autumn on to the parched grass. The rain was needed, often promised by the gathering clouds, but never falling, save for that one fierce storm.
The young Earl continued to speak more and more angrily. He felt reckless and wayward, he could not control his words or his voice; all his secret horror at himself, the hidden story that was always gnawing at his mind, broke out in the things that he said to Philip Guise.
"Look ye, I can give ye every possible chance and opportunity, and ye had neither till I met ye; ye were nobody; what is it to be a volunteer in the Imperialist ranks? I have seen something of that. Talk of servitude here! That is real slavery. I made a mistake in regard to Miss Torrance, and ye impress it on everyone's mind by leaving like this.... It is nothing; it is over. If she and I forget it, ye must."
When he mentioned Cecilia's name an agony of regret contracted his heart, remembering how he had last left her, and how impossible it seemed that their relations would ever be what once they had been, far less what he hoped they might be in the future.
Philip Guise listened in silence, looking him up and down, wondering at this distress, this agitation, and finally, when Shalford came to a pause, saying:
"D'ye know, sir, that I can understand nothing of this? There is something behind it all, but what it is I believe you are resolved not to tell me."
"If that is so," retorted Shalford indignantly, "if you have indeed sensed the truth, would it not be more generous in you to do as I ask you and remain with me until I am able to speak to you straightly?"
"Well," replied Guise coolly, "the reason for that is that it may be a great matter to thee; but it's no matter at all to me, and prithee make truce with thy long-winded, tedious speech."
"You persist in talking as if we were strangers!" cried Shalford, furious, with a look of emphatic malice.
"Oh, my good lord," cried Philip Guise, "I take us to be no more, and, as I'm a plain man, I'll not attempt any flourishes, but begone!"
He was leaving, and had his hand on the door; to check a further outburst from Shalford he added with some sternness:
"My lord, thou showst an unmanly folly in thus endeavouring to force me to remain."
Shalford fired at that, believing he saw a secret insult.
"If you mean Miss Torrance "—he struggled over the name, over all he would have said.
"Is it not a matter of common sense," replied Philip Guise dryly, "' that I might mean Miss Torrance? Ye have put us both in a confoundedly awkward position."
"Sir, since there is nothing in what I said," cried Shalford, "there should be no awkwardness!"
"Well," smiled Philip Guise, "you put it into our minds; and, whatever you do or say, my lord, I am resolved to free myself from your affairs, so be silent, now pray do."
Shalford, struggling not to speak words which would have been of a cruelty degrading to himself, replied:
"I expected more civility than this, Mr. Guise, seeing that I endeavoured to do a kindness to one whom I believed to be in need of it, one whose merits I recognized and would have rewarded."
He was meanly gratified to see Philip Guise frown.
"My lord, you have indeed mistaken me; I never could endure any man's patronage, least of all that of a man whom I consider my inferior."
"Your inferior?" stammered Shalford, knowing this to be the truth, but hardly believing that Guise would have ventured to say as much.
"Certainly my inferior, Lord Shalford, since you admit yourself you are in some confusion with your own affairs and I am tolerably well able to manage mine."
With the carriage of one who has stayed a brawl he left the room and went slowly down the wide stairs. He had first, in a fashion, liked Shalford, then, in a fashion, pitied him. Now he rather despised him as an unstable and forward youth, unfitted for the charges of his high position. He was, too, half-contemptuously angered by Shalford's treatment of him; the young Earl had seemed to make a point of letting him know he considered him scarce a gentleman, almost a lackey; he had seemed to make a struggle to maintain his good breeding, as if it had been his desire to humiliate and degrade him, Philip Guise, as if he had brought him from his obscurity en purpose first to pamper and then insult him.
Philip Guise, descending the stairs, shrugged his shoulders; he could understand none of these wayward caprices; he was vexed that he had allowed himself to be—even for a short space, the object of the humours of this whimsical young man, and in the vestibule he laughed with real humour as he drew from his wide cuff a little folded billet.
A billet from Cecilia Torrance that had been given him by the hand of a maid with a parcel of music. It was the appeal of an ardent woman violently in love. She humbled herself at his feet, she begged his pardon for her repudiation of him: "You must have seen that I was overborne—but what else could I do? I was frightened!" She said that her whole life and her heart were his; the one burden of the letter was that he must see her again, he must by no means depart without seeing her again; she could not believe that he could remain in the service of Shalford, but, oh, he must not leave her; they must meet secretly of course, but, oh, they must meet!
Philip Guise twisted up the note; the tenor of it was very familiar to him—not love, perhaps, but the devil of it was that, however much one might be familiar with these feminine effusions, one could not evade the fact that the writers generally meant what they wrote. Oh, only for a while, perhaps—but while it lasted....
Cecilia Torrance—he lingered over that name—cherished and pampered as she was, he believed to be no more than a handsome hussy, like the poor baker's daughter; he despised her for her lies before Shalford, and her cowardly refusal to take advantage of that offer.
His generous and passionate nature scorned all such mean subterfuges as Cecilia had fallen back upon; he believed that if she had taken him then he would have been faithful to her all her life, and contrived for them both a destiny that would not have made her regret her choice ... but she meant to keep her position, her money, Shalford's name and honours.... How far did she mean this coquetry to go? Guise did not know. He guessed she was not too fastidious; she had lied so readily, even so eagerly ...
At the corner of the Fields he tore up her letter into minute fragments and let them float away down the gutter.
Philip Guise hesitated; a hot breeze stirred the tawny-coloured poplar leaves in the Fields.
The dirty coaches with the jaded horses drove wearily past, the beggars beside the pavement posts played dice in the sun, nursed their sores, dozed and quarrelled. Philip Guise was wrapped in a sense of loneliness, as if a sudden flame had leapt about him, separating him from the rest of the world. He wondered bitterly why human beings must always walk apart from each other in perpetual solitude. Shalford just now had spoken of dreams, the chimera, the ignis fatuus—just to touch the hem of the robe, just to glimpse the face ... not even that for many of them! Why in human relationship must there always be that profound discord? He, that young man and this girl complicated in these jarring emotions ... if she had really loved him how simple it would have been.
Philip Guise smiled to himself, looked back at the blank windows of the large mansion he had left and wondered what Shalford was doing at that moment, then turned and walked slowly in the direction of Queen's Square.
Cecilia Torrance was on the watch for him, as he had known she would be, leaning from under the sun-blind, with her hand clasping the hot stone. When she saw him she went instantly to the door with her fingers to her lips.... So accomplished already, he thought ... were women born thus equipped with the nicest instinct for intrigue?
But he was a little moved by the look of suffering on her face; she seemed a drooping September rose, pallid and wilted ... half her beauty tarnished.
"'Hush," she whispered cautiously. "I can get out in a moment or two. Go to the corner of the Square and wait."
"Why should you want to see me?" he asked in a low voice. "I have destroyed your letter; shall I not destroy all thought of what was in it?"
She shook her head gravely.
"I want to see you; will you not wait for me? I can come without difficulty or scandal. It all lies here"—she touched her heart. "I don't expect you to forgive me, I don't indeed—but you might be kind; now pray do be kind."
He turned and walked slowly away towards the end of the Square. Cecilia Torrance went back into the house, cautiously closing the door.
Lady Anstice was dozing in an upper room. Cecilia tiptoed in and woke her with a kiss.
"I have an appointment with a mantua-maker and a milliner—not far—it will not take me long. Maybe I shall buy some ribands, raspberry-coloured sarcenet, and gold lace slippers." Then she might go to the perfumers. She would, of course, take her maid with her. Lady Anstice must not be displeased if she were gone an hour or so ... Lady Anstice was delighted to see the girl calm and happy....
Cecilia tiptoed away again, put on her hood and mantle of light silk, called to Jane, the maid, and whispered to her that she might now, if she wished, go abroad for an hour or so and amuse herself. The girl was grateful for the holiday; she, too, had a lover not far away; she, too, quickly found her hood and mantle.
"You must walk with me, child," said Cecilia, pressing her hand, "as far as the end of the Square, so if Lady Anstice looks from the window she may think we go together, for I have a mind to be alone to-day, and if you say nothing of it to Lady Anstice I will give you my cameo Roman bracelet which you have so often admired."
The town girl readily assented. She was an experienced bedchamber woman already, and liked a mistress who had secrets.
The two strolled sedately to the end of the Square, and Lady Anstice, glancing from the window, was pleased to see them go; she thought it would be better if they had had chairs or a coach, but perhaps it had not been necessary, as the shops were only a few paces away, in Holborn. When they were out of sight of the house the cunning maid slipped away, going with light feet on her own eager errand. Cecilia Torrance walked to where Philip Guise waited, leaning on a wayside post on the St. Pancras road.
The young man smiled at her, prepared to meet a petulant and wayward child. But Cecilia looked at him with the serious eyes of a woman; she was dignified, in earnest, her distress controlled.
"Where shall I take you? What do you want to do, or where do you want to go? We run some peril," he said; "the scandal would overbear you if you are seen—and the affair is not worth it, madam."
"Take me anywhere—I want to speak to you. You must know that I am desperate."
He knew at least that she would make a point of appearing so; he did not trust her, a sly, contriving jade... he was sorry she looked so innocent.
The street was empty on the late, hot afternoon. They walked aimlessly in the direction of St. Pancras Church. There Philip Guise stopped a hackney; they entered it and drove in the direction of Highgate, which, from his residence at Islington, was well known to him; he had often idled away half an hour at the "Black Dog" skittle gardens.... The coach lumbered to Battle Bridge and turned up Maiden Lane. They did not speak to each other; much as he scorned her feebleness and fickleness, he was touched by her air of entire submission to his will.
THE object of the flight of Philip Guise and Cecilia Torrance was that of all lovers, secret or acknowledged, sad or gay: Where shall we go to be alone? How shall we hide ourselves to be secret enough?
She was relieved even by so much privacy as the shabby hackney afforded ... with the worn leathers down they were shrouded from the world. The jaded horse drew them slowly through the sun-filled streets. She had begged him to take her to Richmond that they might be near the river where it ran into the cool reaches far from the town. Highgate she did not know, all London was strange to her; but the river-—she would like the river ... But that, of course, was folly; they must not go as far even as Chelsea. He remonstrated with her, smiling; useless to reproach her—too well he knew her folly and her cowardice. He asked her instead if she had ever been in a hackney before. She answered no indifferently, caring nothing what he said as long as he spoke to her.
"Thou must not be gone so long away as it will take us to get to Richmond, as I believe I have helped thee commit a folly. Shall I not take thee back immediately?"
She shook her head, with a look of tragedy.
"It is the first ease I have had for several days and nights. Let me be alone with you, pray do! Oh, if you knew..."
He could not but smile again with pity at the thought of Shalford—how soon this fine lady, whom my lord had thought too exquisite almost to touch, was at his feet, subservient to him, trembling before him, grateful for the least kindness. Shalford's Diana had very willingly become the wench of Philip Guise; she had evaporated from my lord's celestial brightness into a most human creature....
"This is a strange reverse of fortune," he said to himself and, leaning from the window of the slow-moving, heavy vehicle, bade the driver stop at the "Six Beehives," where was a tea-garden. Half in whim, half to please himself, and wholly out of a desire to evade his own loneliness, he intended to enjoy a snatched hour with Cecilia Torrance in some innocent pastime.
They might perhaps for this afternoon forget who they were; he could not be prudent and send her back, he could not be pragmatical and return her innocent love contemptuously. Beneath his shrewdness and his experience he had the native simplicity of all good-natured men; not out of a desire to slight Shalford or humble her, though he believed he had good reason to desire to do both, but out of agreement with the lightness of the chance minute did he take Cecilia Torrance with him to the inn in Maiden Lane.
"Well, if thou wilt be wilful," he smiled at Cecilia, "we will have this little pleasure together, for I know not when I shall see thee again. Thou wilt be Lady Shalford, my dear, and I dare say thou wilt play that part very well."
He spoke with a careless air and a sarcastical turn in Us countenance, but with good humour beneath.
She bade him speak words of good omen, but he insisted and teased her, saying:
"Dost thou not then intend to be Lady Shalford? I believe so; it is certain thou dost not intend to be Mistress Guise."
"This afternoon," said Cecilia Torrance, "is my one chance of happiness; do not meddle with it, now pray don't."
He had seated himself opposite her in the hackney—he wished to look at her. In his presence she had become radiant again: the defacement of her tears and trouble had disappeared, save for a heavy-lidded languor about the eyes and the deep rose-coloured flush in the cheeks. Her looks were dark with passion, with reverie; there was an immeasurable sadness in the quiver of her full lips; she had an eager atmosphere of romance and enthusiasm... it seemed to Philip Guise that it would be difficult to resist this ardent creature from another world than his own, who so candidly placed herself in his power. Cowardly and sly as she had proved herself, she appeared to Philip Guise to be generous and easy, a woman incapable of hiding her heart. Well, he would take her as she appeared to be, for this hour at least ... to-morrow they would go their several ways.
The hackney drew up at the "Six Beehives," an inn that had the appearance of a farmhouse and stood a little way back from the road on the side of the fields stretching to Holloway. There was a small garden in the front, filled by tall seeding sunflowers, with drooping, coarse, ragged green leaves and scrolled-up, angry-coloured yellow petals; either side was an orchard, where plums, apples and pears began to redden among the shrivelling foliage. At the back was a tea-garden; beyond, a cow-shed and a barn, a bowling green and another strip of orchard sloping to cornfields.
Philip Guise and Cecilia Torrance entered this garden and sat at one of the tables, ordered curds and cream, cake and beer. They chose a table near the herb or sweeting garden, where there grew borage and thyme, rosemary and sage, tarragon, chevril and lavender. Without speaking, they looked beyond the garden to the cornfields. The last loads were being pitched on to the wagon; as they watched the final sheaf was taken from under the shadow of a rusty-coloured elm and placed on the cart. The violence of summer appeared to have entered into the colour of all they beheld. There was vermilion in the yellow of the garnered corn, violet in the blue of the sky, tawny ochre in the fading leaves, the flowers in the garden were large and richly coloured. Banks of brilliant-hued clouds—violet, orange and purple—gathered about the sun, then sinking behind the cornfields and the elms.
"There will be a storm," said Philip Guise.
Cecilia did not reply; she was happy and indifferent to storms; her spirit felt, without reason, at ease. She delighted in this place; it seemed at once homely and secret; that view of the harvest, even with the angry sunset—all was dear to her unsteady heart.
In the inn parlour there were people laughing. There had been a wedding; a young farmer and a farmer's daughter had come from Hampstead to celebrate with a rustic feast at this famous inn. The party trooped out of the house, down the orchard and into the large barn beyond the cow-shed, and began to dance; the labourers who had been taking in the harvest and the women who had been gleaning behind the wagon joined them. It is with a sense of pleasure and relief that the harvest had been got in before the rain came, and only by a few moments, for even as the gleaming horses drew away the last load the brilliant clouds darkened down into a universal dun and large drops of rain began to fall. The storm was as violent as sudden.
Philip Guise and Cecilia rose. He wished to take her back. It was as if an enchantment had been on them, for they had not spoken at all, and of this she reminded him when he suggested their return.
"Wilt thou not go into the inn?"
She said no, that was small, cramped and smelt of beer: she'd rather go into the barn where the revellers were. He was surprised at her choice, yet reflected that perhaps she, like himself, wished entirely to lose her identity and try to believe herself one of this simple crowd with which she wished to mingle.... So might people act under a spell.
They entered the barn, which was of oak and fine red bricks, a beautiful building, open at one side. The merrymakers, wearing their best clothes and decorated with fairings, garlanded with flowers and carrying bouquets, and the labourers, in their quilted smocks, were beginning to dance to the melodies played by a stout old fiddler. The chambermaid handed round glasses of beer and dishes of whey. Cecilia laughed loud and hysterically. She said that she too wished to dance ... so she had joined rustic merrymakings in Ireland, on her father's estate.
The rain poured down swiftly. The drenched and beaten herbs in the sweeting garden gave out a powerful mingled perfume, the overgrown white roses shed their last wilted petals; penetrating and exciting was the smell of the wet earth after the long drought; every one began to laugh, to talk, to exclaim: "The rain! At last the rain!"
The merrymakers welcomed the two young strangers, not taking them for a moment to be anything but lovers. At first they paid an uneasy respect to the rich simplicity of Cecilia's silk dress, her quilted hood and cloak, her fine shoes; but her wild gaiety soon removed this discomfort. She laughed and applauded the dances, drank the health of bride and bridegroom and set one of the white wedding favours in her flowing brown curls. Shalford would scarcely have recognized this beautiful, boisterous young woman as the fantastic and ideally perfect Cecilia Torrance of his imagination.
A fierce wind that seemed as wayward and eccentric as their mood blew across the garden and lashed the rain into the barn; the dancers, laughing and shrieking with pleasure, felt themselves drenched by the stinging shower.
Cecilia was pressed in Philip Guise's arms in the whirling dance. He was almost disquieted by her enthusiastic delight in the performance; there seemed something in her access of emotion that nearly menaced life or sanity; he felt her fragile, taut body throbbing with an intense passion of joy of life, of joy in the moment, of joy in him, and he thought of some of the stories he had heard from Irish soldiers abroad: of the Shee and the women of the Shee, who briefly visit mortal men for their undoing. He thought: "Can you be in love with me—in love—in love?"
The fiddler was exhausted, he could play no more; but the dancers, as if urged by some invisible master, would have swung round and round and up and down for ever, it seemed. There were laments and complaints.
Philip Guise took the fiddle and began to play. Cecilia sank on a load of hay at his side. He gave the rustics those English country dances familiar to him from his youth, with which he had often beguiled the monotony of the camp in the frozen marshes of Hungary. Without knowing his skill, they were inspired by his playing—the hobnailed boots, the latchet shoes thundered on the boards of the barn floor. Like a revel of nymphs and satyrs, with flushed cheeks and flying hair, open bosoms and damp red hands clasping warm waists, laughing faces, panting breaths, hose and shirts to which still hung fragments of corn, broken stems and loose ears, they danced to the sound of the fiddle and the rain. One girl was crowned by drooping poppies, already dead in the heat, which hung among her black locks on to her shoulders. Another had made herself a wreath of bindweed, the leaves stained purple, as if by a deep bench of wine. The orchard trees bowed before the rain; the unripe fruit was dashed to the ground, into brown dry grass which would soon lie flat by the onslaught of the water it had lacked so long; the grey spikes of the sage, the lavender and rosemary swayed and fell. The storm rushed over the whole landscape; the stubbled fields were blotted out with vaporous net veils; swirls of rain came into the barn, where Cecilia sat by Philip Guise. She had taken off her quilted coat, nor troubled to replace it; she liked the feel of the rain splashing through her thin muslin dress.
This was life; she had never lived before. The past was but a grey dimness, the future a golden uncertainty.
To her the rain-filled air was shimmering with haloes of the most exquisite romance; in her exuberant joy at this moment she did not even regret the ending of their brief privacy. She liked to see Philip Guise commanding all these people by his music, to see them dancing to his melody; she rejoiced in his brilliant playing, so true, so firm; in his noble bearing, his charming head and good-natured look. She saw how all the women contrived to glance at him, not daring to admire him, but wishing to do so. One of them (the girl with the poppies) sat down beside her, breathless with the dance, and asked if he were her husband.
Cecilia let it be understood that it was so; she wished to claim him by every possible tie. Then the girl with the poppies, who was the innkeeper's daughter, reminded her how wet she was becoming, and asked her to move into shelter.... As Cecilia did so, rising from the sweet bundle of hay bound with a grass rope, Philip Guise dropped his fiddle, and noticed her state.... The dance came to an end, and the wet dancers, laughing and shouting, began to squeeze the water from their clothes and shake the drops from their battered hats and wreaths. Philip Guise told her she must dry her soaking dress before the kitchen fire. She cared nothing for any of this; she was not even shivering. But he insisted, and she liked his air of a master, liked to obey him. Hand in hand with the poppy-wreathed girl she ran across the orchard and the sweeting garden and into the inn, and during that short flight the pelt of the rain was sufficient to completely drench through her snatched-up frail quilted mantle.
There was a room upstairs she might have, humble for a lady, but sweet and clean.... The girl eagerly preceded her up the narrow stairs. The rain splashed at the window of the small room. It had white dimity curtains, strawberry leaves lying in a china bowl to give a fragrance to the air, and a narrow bed with sprigs of lavender under the pillow—prepared for a guest who was to arrive to-night; but there were hours yet; the lady might have it undisturbed.
Cecilia pulled off her shoes and stockings, her quilted coat, her muslin dress and cast herself into the twill bedgown given by the innkeeper's poppy-wreathed daughter, who was also laughing as if this were, too, to her the adventure of her life.... Cecilia, alone, went to the window and looked through the creepers driven by the rain on to the pane. Philip Guise was coming up through the garden; lovable and delightful she thought him, his face at once mocking and tender, the dark, good-natured, sparkling eyes, bright hair; always easy, whimsical, yet masterful—her master at least.... She threw open the window, allowing the rain to strike into the room. He heard the swing-back of the casement and glanced up; she held the dimity gown high under her chin.
"Come up," she said; "at least we can talk a little together."
It was she now who was imperious, and he humble. When she beckoned to him he appeared abashed. When he entered the inn the little maid, who had pulled the poppies out of her unruly hair, said that madam his wife was upstairs ... she would take up her clothes when she had dried them by the kitchen fire....
"My wife, eh?" So she would have in fiction what she could not face in reality. She might be his wife to these rustics, but in the city she was Shalford's betrothed, and he little better than a lackey.
Philip Guise went upstairs. His grey coat was no more than sparkled with rain, there were a few drops in his hair; he was smiling, amused, elated.
They were alone in the little room, with the darkened evening and the beating rain outside. She had lit a small rushlight she had found, as Polly had lit the rushlight in the little room in Islington.
"So ye told them you was my wife? Now, prithee, what was that tale for?"
"I let them think so—what else?"
"It don't matter. Thou hast a strange manner of courage," he teased her. "These are great ladies' ways, eh?"
"I have no courage at all; don't mock me, now, pray don't—"
"I must take ye back as soon as your clothes are dry."
She looked at him with an ineffable sweet gravity, appearing no more than a child with her plain dimity gown and bare feet.
Was it possible that this was the sumptuous Cecilia Torrance, who should be Countess of Shalford?... Impossible indeed, yet Cecilia Torrance was the heroine of this crazy adventure! He knew that she was caught in the trap of her own devising; if he had wished to set her free he could hardly have done so, for what held her was beyond his control.
"It had been better," he said gravely, "that ye had come with me the other day than that we should arrive at this."
"At what?" she asked. "What art thou going to do with me? I can think of nothing; when I am with thee everything seems easy."
"My charming child," he replied ruefully, "I do not know when things will ever be easy for thee and me."
"It was in a storm that we met last," mused Cecilia. "The only two storms of this dry year—and we together in them."
"The rain is already passing," he answered. "We may soon go home," he added tenderly and carefully. "Ye wish to go home, do ye not, Cecilia?"
He meant: "You are still of the mind you were the other day, when you denied me before Shalford?" And so she understood him.
She still would not be brought to deny the impulse of her pride; it seemed impossible to her to admit this secret love, and equally impossible to forgo it; she could not face her parents, her relatives, her friends, Shalford himself ... the amaze ... the mockery ... the scorn.
"Ah, if I had not been hurried into that first denial!" She tried to excuse herself with such protestations as these. "I was taken by surprise, and I know not what I did... I spoke on an instinct of fear."
"Leave it," he said; "it is not worth a waste of words."
Well he understood her fears and her indecision. Useless indeed, he knew, were words either of entreaty or expostulation, reason or command.
Cecilia sat on the edge of the narrow bed, seriously awaiting his decision; they were forgotten by the people drinking and laughing below, hurrying about on their own errands and pleasures. Philip Guise left her, went downstairs and fetched up from the noisy kitchen her half-dried clothes.
"Thou must put them on, Cecilia; I'll wait for thee below and find a hackney—"
She noticed nothing of this, save that he had used her name, but, seeing him resolutely at the door again, she softly called him back.
"Don't leave me—nothing is decided, nothing spoken of even—"
Guise crossed to the table, where she had placed the rushlight, and looked away from her out of the window; the swift, fierce storm had passed, and the violent twilight was flushed with the tawny glow that crept behind the departing clouds.
"Look ye, my dear, prithee do—I'm nothing, and less maybe than ye think—while ye are in the blossom of your fortunes—ye would dazzle the eyes of any man; but I must not think of that. This was to be but a diversion, and so we must let it end—"
She hardly heard what he said for the joy of looking at him; there was some alchemy in his presence that changed the world for Cecilia. Why, with him life went differently—the way he had of making all agreeable, of gaiety and laughter, of easiness and kindness, his spirit and vivacity; all this, as well as his dark handsomeness, held enchantment for Cecilia; whether he spoke or was silent, she knew him for the best company in the world.
"Now the Lord forbid," continued Guise good-naturedly, "that the tears should stand in your eyes because of this frolic—"
"Frolic!" cried Cecilia, rising. "I'd throw all to the winds for thee!"
Philip Guise ventured to regard her. She was lovely in her extravagance, and he must save her, lest she, with her high birth and her rich future, should be no better than a ruined foolishness, like little Polly, the baker's daughter, might have been.
"Hark ye, sweet love: I'm but a poor man who lives for a year on what ye'll spend on fallals in a month; my father was a tradesman, a poor French refugee, and no kin have ever vexed themselves with me. I've no money or interest, and my temper's not easy at flattering—so I'll never be but what I am, and you'd never marry me, my darling—and I could hardly put it on my conscience to take a wife—least of all a wife of your quality—"
"What has this to do with us?" asked Cecilia.
"You would never marry a man like me, Cecilia—you're not so deep in love—great ladies may have their fancies, but they keep 'em at fancies. And you are right—'tis the other man for you."
"How can you speak so coldly? I was not thinking of marriage, or bargains—Shalford is like a shadow to me, and you must know it. Why don't you speak to me like you spoke in the garden? Don't I still please you?"
She came close to him, the dimity gown open over her bosom, her hands clasped on her heart. He pulled the curtains across the despoiled rose boughs that beat against the window; she noted with delight that he was flushed and his hand shook a little.
"Art not thou afraid of me, Cecilia? Should I begin to tell thee how thou pleasest me?"
"Afraid? No, I'm not afraid. Can't we forget all these discomforts? Ah, I can't reason—don't put me off—now, pray don't."
She took her hands from her bosom to place them on the lapels of his coat, and rested her head against his breast like a tired child come home.
It was easy for Philip Guise to put his arms about her, to give her the words of endearment and encouragement that came so readily to his lips; but he did not understand her, for he could not get out of his mind her quality and her destiny. But she was without reserves, defences or fears.
"Wilt thou have me love thee, sweet? Nay, if thou wilt not, thou must let me begone—"
"I cannot; without thee all is noisome—"
"Then, if thou wilt keep me, 'tis hereafter as may be—"
"Nay, don't put me off; nay, don't." Cecilia, sparkling with gladness, flung her arms round his neck and clasped her fingers over his black hair; her brilliant Irish eyes were eager and lustrous; she drew his head down to her face. Even before he kissed her he thought: "What expedient—what contrivance—to put this right?" and yet knew that they were past expedients and contrivances.
"Philip, you could not leave me?"
"Nay, were I to be damned for it, I could not leave thee now—without first I showed thee how I love thee."
As he embraced her all her weakness vanished, as if absorbed in his strength.
"Never have I felt so happy, never so at peace; prithee, Philip, what charm is this that thou hast for me?"
"Is it a charm thou never knew before?"
Resigning all solution of their discomfort, they solaced each other and for a brief space were enraptured. He was satisfied that this was all the beauty he had ever hoped to know. Caught up into ecstasy, they held each other; the rushlight nickered out into an enchanted darkness, and the sound of music and laughter in the inn parlour became transmuted into magic cadences.
PHILIP GUISE sat in the "Black Bull," Holborn, and played cards with a distracted air unfamiliar to him, for he usually put enthusiasm into all he did. The adventure of that afternoon in the little bedroom at the "Six Beehives" had been nothing uncommon to him; none of his amorous adventures had ever had a different climax, but neither had any of these adventures left behind either regret, amaze or remorse, and it was difficult for him to think of Cecilia Torrance without a mingling of these sentiments.
So easy and so fine! Yet now he could no longer doubt that he had been her first lover. And yet with what passion and pure ardour she had given herself; though he was not used to difficulties with women, he remained surprised at the ease of this conquest.
"As if one saw a rich peach—and touched it in no more than curiosity—and then 'twas in one's hand and one's fingers clasped on it—leaving it bruised—and ruined for another's pleasure—and where is one's fault?—though one must pay the price of it—"
"Eh, Guise, look ye, thy mind is not on the play—what takes thy fancy and throws thee into this musing?"
Guise smiled without replying, yawned, stretched and threw down the cards.
It was past midnight, but the wide, low room was still full of a company whom Guise regarded with good-humoured scorn: disbanded soldiers like himself, cursing the peace, nursing their wounds; a few loutish squires up from the country; a few shabby jackals and ruined political agents; some tradespeople of the better sort, and an officer or two still fortunate enough to be wearing the King's uniform.
Philip Guise did not often come to the "Black Bull," but when he did he usually found familiar faces: old companions-in-arms from the war, old loiterers from taverns; good fellows, whom he tolerated. He looked round the smoke-hazed atmosphere; he was the superior of all these men. A pity.
"Damn ye, Guise, wilt thou play or not?" urged his companion.
Guise threw the dice, and was indifferent that it went against him. How many years before he became as these?—a led captain, earning a few shillings by shouting at an election, or playing cully to a booby....
"I'm off to Hungary, Hopton," he said. "London's a damnable place for an idle man—"
"But did ye not fiddle yourself into favour with some great lord?"
"That's over."
"Well, ye were never one to keep either place or woman long. If it's the war again, I'm with ye."
Guise pushed his fine hand into the black curls that, half untied, had fallen over his brow, and rested his elbow on the table. If he had been a man of position, now, easy to marry her; but as he was—good Lord! a wife! He could foresee a debtor's prison—Bridewell or the Marshalsea—for both of them; her relations, Lord Shalford and his relations would do their best to ruin him, no doubt.... Nor did he want a wife; a casual mistress had always suited him better—but this, a lady of breeding...
What was she doing now?
His mind dwelt on her standing by the narrow bed, smoothing (with what instinct of feminine prudence!) the pressed pillows, putting up her hair, slipping into her gown, turning to him again and again to entreat: "Kiss me—kiss me!"
Then the drive back in the hackney, and she leaning against his shoulder as if asleep.... Happy she had seemed; no tears, no doubts nor reproaches. He had left her in the St. Pancras road, and she had bolted through the darkness like a hare to its form.... Well, no doubt she knew how to contrive some excuses.
Heedless of his companion's grumblings, Philip Guise flung out the cards with his right hand.... Love?—he turned over the word—had he ever been in love in a high-flown romantical way? No, and was not now, or he would not consider Cecilia with good-natured compassion. "I must be a hard, gross fellow not to love her—maybe 'tis love she hath for me—yet if I never saw the pretty plague again I should not die of it...."
And yet, and yet very willingly would he continue to possess Cecilia ... and maybe, in time, love might grow out of desire and kindness and pity.
Guise sighed and frowned; his companion mocked his long face and scraped up the modest winnings, for the two played for humble stakes.
"Hark ye, Guise, I'm cleaned out. Have ye any more money? What I've won I owe twice over."
"Only enough to pay for my lodging—I've no mind to return to Islington to-night."
Hopton rose and rolled off, intent on trying his luck elsewhere, and as he idly watched him go Philip Guise remembered that he had money with him; in his worn pocket-book was the bill for fifty guineas that Shalford had given him—an extravagant wage for that short sojourn with the moody young lord.
Guise had carried this money about with him since yesterday, half reluctant to keep it, half intending to cash it when he went to Lombard Street to draw his quarter's annuity; now he knew that he could not accept it—"I can't take his money."
He considered returning it, but feared that might draw attention to the truth; he pulled it out and turned it over, and frowned at the signature, "Shalford"; he was not sure if he had wronged that whimsical young man or not. Honourably had Shalford behaved when he had offered to release Cecilia. His offer had been refused, and she had been taken behind his back. "But 'twas the woman involved us in that—I should have left her for a cowardly love-sick piece—yet how was I to know she'd be so easy? Had she held off but a little I swear she had been no worse for me. Well, 'tis done, and no doubt but I must pay for it; but she's not his wife, and he's lost little but a creature who can't abide him ..."
Philip Guise was roused by a stranger sitting down heavily in the chair opposite to him, and leaning his arms on the table over the scattered cards, while he stared between the candles with a half-mocking curiosity.
"Who the devil are ye, sir?" demanded Guise, affronted at this familiarity and disliking the appearance of the new-comer, who was heavy, slovenly, elderly, with a countenance inflamed by brandy and a greasy wig of an old-fashioned design pulled over his shaggy brows; a waistcoat spotted with dirt and stained with snuff, a coat with torn braiding and slit seams set off the corpulent figure of this personage, whom Guise shrewdly suspected to be partially disguised, for he wore thick spectacles and had a large patch on his cheek, as if, Guise thought, to conceal the cast of his countenance.
"I've been here often enough," remarked the stranger genially, "looking for ye, Captain Guise."
"So ye know me? But not that I'm seldom at the 'Black Bull.'—"
"I knew nowhere else to search," smiled the other. "I heard ye came here, or so several brave fellows told me. I am aware ye have lodgings at Islington, but I could not go there to make a pother."
"A pother?" asked Guise negligently, thinking this some odd chance companion of the wars wishing to beg for a loan. "Well, I don't know ye, sir."
"Maybe—but I believe I was your father's friend."
At this Guise was startled; his father had been so obscure a foreigner, had died so long ago; so friendless too. Why, his grandfather had often told him that his mother had only met the poor Spitalfields weaver by chance, on a mission of mercy to the unhappy refugees.... Never had Philip Guise expected to come upon anyone who knew his father.
"You knew Louis Guise?" he asked curiously.
"I knew your father," chuckled the stranger.
"'Tis mighty strange, and no doubt mighty well," replied Guise; "but what's the bottom of it, eh?"
The two men considered each other inquisitively; the large inn parlour was emptying; a yawning drawer was snuffing some of the candles, putting others out; a slipshod youth was carrying away tankards and pots; wreaths of smoke hung heavy in the stagnant air. Thomas Cramer called for a pot of cider and, while he sipped this, gazed at Philip Guise, turning many things over in his mind.
"What's your business?" asked the young man good-humouredly.
"It'll keep," smiled Cramer.
Philip Guise yawned, stretched and lost interest in his strange companion, whom he took to be half drunk or half crazy; he felt drowsy yet tormented, and his thoughts went to Cecilia Torrance, while in his right hand he twisted up Shalford's bill for fifty guineas, which somehow must be got rid of ...
"A handsome, likely young dog," mused Cramer, "worth a troop of my peevish, pious lordling. I wonder what he'd do if he knew what he'd missed? 'Tis too late, 'twould never stand now. Why, Shalford's attorneys could destroy every proof in a few hours; Ambler's word would go for nothing, and I daren't come forward. 'Twas a clever piece of work."
So clever that Cramer himself might have doubted this to be anyone but the son of Louis Guise had it not been for his likeness to a woman once very familiar to Cramer—the bold, brilliant, dark hussy, Barbara Pascoe.
Because of that likeness he had come straight to the young man's table, without asking his name, and as he studied the musing face before him, on which the candlelight fell fitfully, an odd clutch of pity and remorse touched a heart cynic and rough from years of bitter, fierce living.
"If I have any judgment left, 'tis her son—the line of the cheek and chin—that rich warmth of colour, those thick black locks, the way he turns his head—and yet I might be deceived; this might be a French weaver's son—'tis many years ago. A pity St. Clair was transported—he'd have known something—and that the hag Duchene must die of the pox."
Philip Guise roused himself.
"Well, sir, if you're to sit mumchance, I'll to bed."
"'Tis early yet, Captain Guise—and maybe I've something to tell ye."
To give him a hint?—to ask him to glance at the parish register at the Islington church and see if his birth was entered there, to rouse his suspicions as to Shalford's interest in him?—to stir and prick him into some knowledge of whom he might be?
Cramer hesitated; his impulse of shame and compassion was gone, he was thinking entirely of his own interests. If he had been able to openly declare himself it might have been worth while putting forward this handsome young man as claimant to the honours and wealth of Lord Shalford; but he, Cramer, was proscribed and, after that damned folly of a few years ago, the '45, had to live in close secrecy ... he might work through an agent, but even then—was it worth it?
Possession is nine points of the law, and it's a rare lawsuit that the wealthy man doesn't win.... "Shall I give him a hint, shall I?"
Philip Guise rose and yawned, then smiled good-naturedly.
"Sir, I give ye good night."
Cramer pleaded for another moment; he noted the young man's shabbiness, his worn coat and mended linen ... and he noted again his beauty, which was at once noble and agreeable. "God, what he has missed!—and the other glutted with wealth. Well, I'll make him pay ..."
That was the safe, the easy way, to bleed Shalford. Cramer's secret admiration of, and sympathy for, Philip Guise, in an odd fashion strengthened a certain contempt and dislike he had for Shalford, and made him resolve to make that fortunate young noble "pay."
"What is five hundred as hush money? Bah!"
"Well, Captain Guise, I knew your father, and liked him, and was in a way his companion—so, for the sake of that, give me a little of your company."
Philip Guise sat down again; he asked the stranger's name and what he could recall of his father ... he could himself remember nothing of his parent, save the house in Brick Lane where he had lived and the grave in St. Botolph's, Aldgate, where he was buried....
With his good-humoured, easy air, Cramer evaded him, told a few non-committal lies and challenged the young man to a game of cards. Philip Guise, still sunk and disturbed in his spirits, refused, and was turning away when he noticed the bill still clasped in his hand.
"I'll throw ye the dice for this!" he cried on an impatient impulse.
Cramer peered at the bill, studied the signature and broke into rough laughter.
"Prithee, why so eager to lose money? That's the signature of one of the richest men in England—good for fifty guineas—"
"I know—and freely given in exchange for some services paltry enough. Hark ye, I won't keep it, having a scorn to be paid so well for a little fiddling—and as ye, sir, seem needy enough, ye may, if ye will, toss for it."
This seemed an excellent jest to Cramer; he wondered why Guise had left Shalford—a quarrel?—but on what matter?—and what affront made this young man desire to throw away his wage?
He accepted the reckless offer; the greasy wig and the bright black locks were bent over the table, the dice were shaken in a goatskin case. Indifferently Guise threw, and lost.
Cramer fingered the note ... similar to that other he had had not so long ago.
"Will ye sign it, Captain Guise?"
The sleepy drawer brought quill and ink horn. Philip Guise wrote his name on the bill, shook sand on it, gave it to Cramer and, asking the drawer for a bed, left the inn parlour not thinking more of Shalford's money that he had so neatly disposed of, but of the letter he must write to Cecilia Torrance.
"D'YE think because a man is on his death-bed he will tell ye the truth?"
Ambler was irritable and peevish; for several days he had been in a low fever. There was much sickness abroad that hot, dry summer, broken only by the two violent storms that had brought damage, not relief, and the fever had spread from the foul cells and corridors of the Fleet and Bridewell to the court and populace. The waters of the rivers that ran through London, the Fleet and the West Bourne and the High Bourne, were stagnant and gave off an even more than usually noisome odour, causing a vile miasma to hang over the town; all the city trees were shrivelled and dry; in Ambler's little Highgate garden insects gathered on the rotting flowers and bushes. Ambler himself had lost his usual melancholy passivity, and was exasperated and impatient; he openly resented Shalford's visit, and at first had bitterly refused to be drawn into any discussion as to my late lord's supposed first marriage as he lounged by the window endeavouring to get what air there might be, his fingers in a book, his cravat unknotted, his slippers falling away from his wrinkled stockings.
Shalford, detesting him, felt that he could less than ever believe anything the man said, and yet he must come up here on this humiliating journey to endeavour to squeeze some truth out of one in whom no truth, he thought, could be.
"I've asked nothing from ye, sir," grumbled Ambler. "I am content here—why cannot ye leave me alone? Why must ye meddle with Philip Guise, for instance? Why with Cramer? There was no need for ye to give him money."
"He told you of that?" asked Shalford, startled.
"Of course he did. He saw you was frightened—"
"Frightened! What do ye mean by that?"
"Well, ye came for the truth," sneered Ambler, "so I am using truthful terms. Cramer thought you was frightened, my lord, and so you was. No man pays money unless he is—in a case like yours. If Cramer were not afraid of his neck you would have to pay him a great deal more before you got him out of the country."
Struggling to retain his serenity, Shalford replied:
"Cramer himself knows and admitted that what he says cannot be proved."
"I dare say," replied Ambler at once. "I could have told ye that, my lord, from the first—none of it can be proved; at the same time, if Cramer was to drop a hint to Philip Guise, ye might have some trouble with that young man."
"Philip Guise has left me," muttered Shalford sombrely; "with all my endeavours I could not retain him."
"Left ye! Where hath he gone?"
"To Islington, as I suppose; and after that, to the Eastern war."
"If he hath gone," asked Ambler, still more petulantly, "why concern yourself any longer about the affair?"
"Why, man, for conscience' sake," replied Shalford sullenly.
Ambler laughed long and shrilly.
"Conscience!—conscience!" The word interspersed his dry cackles.
Shalford loathed this man, and loathed this cramped cottage in Highgate which, on his first seeing of it, had seemed sweet enough in the freshness of spring, but in the heat of summer foul and city-tainted. Sickness, too, had changed Ambler; instead of a melancholy scholar he was a fretful, restless old man.
Refusing to dwell any longer on my lord's concern, he began to complain of Mignonette Luckett, the negress. She was a slattern, he grumbled, her housekeeping was lamentable; he disliked, too, her habit of furtive greed. She refused food when it was offered to her openly, but liked to steal dainties from the larder, even from the table, secreting cakes, sweets and fruits in the bosom of her gown.... She was idle also, and dropped asleep in the middle of working hours, and she quarrelled with tradesmen and whatever servants he had in his house....
"Get rid of her," advised Shalford wearily, annoyed that he should be drawn into such a discussion. But Ambler asked angrily:
"How am I to get rid of Mignonette Luckett—who is to take her and where is she to go? Don't tell me her faults are those I should have expected. I know that; it don't make it easier for me to put up with her."
He flicked a soiled handkerchief at a beau-pot full of decayed flowers, complaining that Mrs. Luckett had not changed the water, and that it was attracting the flies.... Lord, what a summer for flies!
"Sir, why don't ye end your discomforts and miseries by getting married?" he added. "Miss Torrance lingers in town in this heat, and it must be disagreeable to her.... For God's sake, my lord, get married and away to Wraxham."
"Leave my marriage alone—Miss Torrance hath been ill—and if thou hast nothing to say of the concern on which I came—"
His speech was broken by the abrupt entry of Mr. Thomas Cramer (the most unwelcome person in the world in the eyes of Shalford), who, with his dress soiled, his wig awry, his face bloated and pimpled, his breath smelling of brandy, greeted the young lord in a voice of good humour hard to endure and winked knowingly at Ambler, as if they were all three bound together in the bonds of some shameful secret.
Shalford forced himself to linger in this disagreeable company; he could not control his curiosity; now that these two men were together surely it was his chance in some way to inveigle from them the truth?
He seated himself at the table and looked from one to the other with as much sternness as his youth and agitation would permit; he believed they were both secretly laughing at him, and this flushed his cheek with mortification.
Cramer began to talk in a half-hearted way about the shabby politics in which he was engaged. Shalford believed nothing of what he said; it seemed impossible that the Pretender, however reduced, would have used such an agent as this. But Cramer at least had all the catchwords of a ruined and a furtive cause ... he mentioned the taverns, the Roman Catholic priests in disguise, the signs, the passwords, and all the futile and ignoble trickery to which these desperate men were reduced; he spoke of the rendezvous of brave loyal fellows at the "Black Bull" in Holborn.
"'Tis curious to me, Mr. Cramer," interrupted the young Earl at last, "that you, at your age, still take an interest in these affairs. It's all exceedingly futile."
"I agree with ye," smiled Cramer, licking his loose lips. "'Tis strange, however, that ye should have come to such a conclusion at your years; as to me, why, I have come to regard everything humorously."
"Humorously!" cackled Laurence Ambler, again making a flick at the flies round the decayed flowers.
"Aye, indeed." Cramer settled himself comfortably, his sunken, blood-injected eyes, from which he had just removed his spectacles, glanced from one to the other.
"People begin to drop out, and that's amusing, ain't it? One day I meet an old fellow with a grievance, complaining of this or that—his estates gone, or his health ruined, or his daughter run away, or his son shot himself; he's full of the matter and loud in lamentations. Then for a bit ye do not see him at all; then ye hear he's gone—dead! There's a jest for ye!"
"Dead," repeated Shalford dully.
Laurence Ambler, with another laugh, echoed:
"Dead."
"That's the joke," cried Cramer loudly, "that's the damned joke of it all! We take ourselves far too seriously, and when ye come to my years ye begin to notice it. What does this, that or t'other matter? Why do we concern ourselves so strongly about what we call great affairs when we shall all be soon six feet underground, if anyone should take so much trouble with our carcasses?"
"There is something more in it than that," protested Shalford, with a shudder, "or life would be the sorriest cheat."
"And who is to prove that it ain't?" smiled Cramer. "If life ain't a cheat why do people drink and go mad and invent God? Why, you drink to make you forget, and you go mad because you can't forget, and you invent God in an attempt to throw the blame on somebody else."
He stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat and laughed aloud.
"Why, you, my lord, you, my young sir, sitting there in your perplexity and your discomfort, with a long face and a lowering brow, and why? Merely because ye are not quite sure whether ye are the rightful Earl of Shalford."
And Cramer laughed again, a sour merriment in which Laurence Ambler joined; the small parlour was full of the cackling of ancient men.
Shalford sprang to his feet, narrow-eyed and narrow-lipped, his fair face flushed.
"Fie, take it easily!" advised Cramer. "Two old fellows like us are at liberty to say something, I suppose, to a young fellow like you, sir. Haven't I told ye just now that none of it matters at all? What's the hair's difference one way or the other whether—ye are the Earl or not, as long as every one thinks ye are, eh?"
"Sir, ye make no ado with conscience," said Shalford coldly. "If I really believed—"
"If ye really believed! But ye do really believe," mocked Cramer, suddenly leaning forward. "In your heart you've always believed, from the moment your father told ye."
"I had Mr. Ambler's tale," replied Shalford fiercely.
"But ye never credited it; it didn't lift that weight from your soul for a single moment," said Cramer with emphasis. "But ye chose to protest, ye snatched at the subterfuge ... like we all do, my dear sir, like we all do.... Who's honest with his own soul?"
"What does all this mean?" cried Shalford, flaring up, as the best relief for his tormented spirit, into an open spurt of flaring anger. "Do ye want money, do ye intend to bleed me?"
"There's no reason why I shouldn't," smiled Cramer. "Ambler dealt with ye very gently, eh?"
"Nothing that either of ye could say, nor any witness whom ye could trump up, nor any paper that ye could produce would be the least use in a court of law."
"Court of law!" mocked Cramer, with a knowing wink at Ambler, "but you was talking just now, my lord, of conscience. My late lord left the matter to your honour, I believe, and Mr. Ambler left it to your honour, too, to reward him for that very pretty and ingenious lie he told you, to save your face to yourself. Where is Philip Guise?" he added abruptly.
"Gone," replied Shalford sullenly. "He is no longer an affair of mine. After to-day I do not intend to open my lips on this matter. I do not know why I have dallied with it so long. It was only—" and he checked himself.
But Ambler did not hesitate to complete the tragic sentence:
"It was only the suicide of your brother, my lord, was it not, that made ye think there must be something in the confounded story?"
Cramer rose, cumbrously and with groans, from his sunken chair with arms.
He had moved from Tothill Fields, which was too near the prison, he declared, to be a pleasant residence, and taken up his abode at a tavern—the "Eagle's Child"—at Highgate; his real reason was that he wished to be near Ambler and torment him with his company. On returning home from one of his secret and devious journeys to the city he had seen the young Earl at the open window, and that had caused him to stop his chair and come panting into the house. As he spoke he stood smiling cunningly from one to the other, and tapping his pocket with a meaning gesture.
"The 'Eagle's Child' will always find me, my lord, when you're disposed to be generous. I intend to delay my departure, for I believe I have struck on good business in London."
He said this as if he meant his royal master's affairs, but Shalford knew that he referred to his "hold"—as he considered it—on himself, Shalford.
"Remember," added the stout, debauched, red-faced man, "that none of it matters. When you get to my age and see all the old fellows drop out, complaining bitterly, as if they was going to live to a thousand, then dropping out—ye understand?"
Shalford stood twisting the lace at his wrist so viciously: he tore it from the shirt-sleeve.
"What of the lackey, St. Clair?" he asked. "Is he alive or dead?"
"It don't matter. My late lord had him transported on a trumped-up charge of thievery; a man of spirit can always get rid of a servant who knows too much."
Shalford turned to Ambler with an emphasis of reproach.
"Ye told me the rascal was dead!"
"As good as dead—I take it ye'll not go to the plantations to look for him?"
Stung by these sneers Shalford stood at bay.
"I see I am on a fool's errand when I come here to search for truth," he declared hotly, "so good day to the pair of ye."
"A moment, my lord."
Shalford paused at the door as Cramer spoke.
"I've no time for you, Mr. Cramer."
"'Tis not your time I want, my lord—I'm in need of money and am sure that you will be glad to supply me."
Shalford was confounded at the insolence of this sudden demand.
"You had five hundred guineas—"
"Spent. Contributed to His Majesty's cause—and d'ye think I got the value of that bill? D'ye suppose I durst show my face across the counters of a damned Whig banker's shop in Lombard Street? I had to discount your confounded paper in Amsterdam—at a high loss."
"You'll have no more, sir. That was a gift to one who affected to be my father's friend. D'ye think I'll pay ye hush money?"
"Before God, I think ye will," retorted Cramer, noisily stamping the stick he leaned on. "I know something—proof or no proof—I'd make it plaguy hard for ye to show ye were born the right side of the sheets."
Shalford was inflamed beyond control; he turned violently on his tormentor; and Ambler, recovering his good humour at the sight, chuckled with the rapt interest of one in a front seat at a bear baiting.
"Rascal, take care how you handle me—I'll pay nothing—d'ye hear?—nothing! Threatening me, a peer of the realm, ye with no right to show your face outside Newgate! Not a penny to save ye from the gallows ye deserve!"
Cramer was surprised as angered at his violent resistance, which he had not, from his observation of the young man's character, expected; his chuckling good nature vanished into a hard malice.
"Oh, ye won't, won't ye?" he muttered slowly.
"I trust I am tolerably firm—I were less than a fool if I were intimidated by you—and beware pestering me or menacing me, sir, or I may be driven to deliver you to the Government you boast of injuring."
Ambler applauded this show of spirit on the part of the young lord; the acid, scholarly, quiet man loathed the noisy, genial, ruffling bully.
"There's for ye, Tom!" he cried. "This cockerel will crow, as you say in your own sweet lingo. And now begone; as the poet saith, 'This is a poor place, but mine own.'—"
Cramer shrewdly studied the flushed and resolute features of Shalford, who surveyed him with a bold contempt.... He'd mistaken his man—he'd gone too far... in his bitterness he ventured on a stinging sneer:
"You are generous, sir—I believe your rent roll is forty thousand a year—damned generous, my lord!"
Shalford, for reply, turned his back on him, and Cramer, receiving no encouragement from Ambler, and being at a loss, took his departure.
He was not beaten, only baffled; the young man would have other humours in which he could be frightened, squeezed. Cramer thought of something in has pocket-book and broke out laughing.... Why, he'd do it; there'd be no risk ... Shalford would never dare to squeal; it 'ud be something to go on with ... a few pounds of the young niggard's money, eh?
"Why has he paused to laugh as if he had the better of me?" asked Shalford, who had stepped to the window to watch his enemy's departure. He turned to Ambler, still huddled in the big chair. "Ye might as well tell me the truth," he muttered, and sideways he looked again out of the open window and saw Thomas Cramer hobbling down the path past the ruined and rotting flowers. "I shall find it out for myself, and there is no sense in thus tormenting me."
"Tormenting ye!" retorted Ambler. "I endeavoured to save ye torment. Why don't ye go and enjoy your kingdom—marry your wife—do all that ye would have done if your father had never spoken?"
"Because I have the other man before my mind always. Suppose Cramer's tale is true? I have then cheated him out of name, rank, a rich inheritance."
"'Tis for you to believe Cramer's tale if ye wish."
"I don't believe it," cried Shalford, gaining strength from his own denial. "I believe he is what he claims to be—the son of Arabella and Louis Guise—and all the rest is a concoction between my late lord and his company to torment me; even that entry in the register could have been forged. You, Ambler, have lied to me again and again."
Laurence Ambler keenly stared at the agitated, angry man.
"So you think I've bed from first to last—and that Philip Guise is the grandson of the minister at Islington?"
"I do—I will cut through all these lies—"
Ambler interrupted:
"Open that cabinet behind you and fetch me the case you shall discover in the bottom drawer."
Shalford did so; the case was of red leather, worn at the corners and clasped handsomely with silver.
"Sir, open it," added Ambler, still lounging in his place by the window.
Shalford found inside the pocket-book a large-sized miniature of a young woman in the dress of thirty years before; the tight formal bodice of white satin, the hair drawn severely away from the forehead and falling in two long curls on to the narrow shoulders, the dark, handsome, lively face, short, warm coloured, with beautiful deep grey eyes, was exactly the face of Philip Guise.
"That's Barbara Pascoe," smiled Laurence Ambler. Without a word Shalford put the miniature back into the case.
"She was a beautiful little hussy," sighed Laurence Ambler; "I was much involved with her once. She treated me vilely, she treated me like a dog; so did Shalford, and I had to take it from 'em; he was born the bully, and I was born the toady. But I resolved I'd spoil his revenge, anyway, and prevent her son, the jade, from coming into the honours...."
Shalford stood with his back to the cabinet from which he had taken the miniature. He leant against it, for he felt a weakness in all his limbs.
"What does this mean exactly?" he asked faintly.
Ambler sighed impatiently and wearily.
"You've tormented me long enough with your presence, my lord; you'll get nothing more out of me, if you will not accept what I told you, well, make up your own faery story for yourself."
"I never believed your tale—"
"Ah," Ambler caught him up quickly. "Never believed it? But you affected to believe it."
"I did not believe my lord's tale either," replied Shalford, talking more and more hotly, giving himself a false strength and courage from the mere sound and hurry of his own words. "I believed none of it. You try to make me your prey."
Ambler maintained an obstinate silence. Shalford demanded in a tone of agony:
"How comes her portrait in your hands?"
"Barbara Pascoe was something to me once. That famous virtue of hers proved frail enough, I'll warrant ye; when my lord refused to acknowledge her, she fell to his friends, in the usual manner of it—she bewitched Cramer too. Oh, I tell ye, she was common, the hell-fire saucy—"
"And she my lord's wife!"
"Did I say so? I stick to the tale she was mine," snarled Ambler, who now seemed soured by old evil memories. "No doubt she tried to prove the marriage—but she'd been too bold—he might have had her carted or in Bridewell, and would have done so had she dared—"
Shalford held up his hand, imploring silence. The old man sat muttering petulantly to himself; the flies droned in and out of the window; from the back came the low, half-wailing tones of Mignonette Luckett quarrelling with the slatternly serving woman.
"Where is one to find peace?" grumbled Ambler, turning a vexed glance on his visitor. "Can ye help me to one of your curacies, my lord, in Hertford, if I'm at the pains to enter Holy Orders?"
Shalford picked up his gloves, cane and hat; he decided in that hot moment to leave Laurence Ambler and never to see him again; he had done with him, with all of them—with Cramer, with Philip Guise, with Ambler; but at the door he could not resist one more question, and there was supplication in his tone:
"Before God, before your soul and conscience, before whatever ye hold sacred—is Philip Guise the rightful Earl?"
"Of course he is, and be damned to ye!" snarled Laurence Ambler.
ON that sentence my lord had closed the door and left the house at Highgate.... Mrs. Luckett was coming along the passage, her eyes red from weeping, a bottle and a glass on a slopped tray, her feet shuffling to keep on her loose untidy slippers. He had left the room as if he had not heard Ambler's last words, which, after all, only confirmed what in his heart and conscience he knew.
Letters from Ireland did not increase his peace of mind. The Torrances wished to know the reason for the continued delay of his marriage.... Surely he, in the position he was, was not showing himself so ductile to the caprices of a moody girl? He had deferred to Cecilia's whimseys beyond the limits of patience, nay, of dignity, Mrs. Torrance hinted ... friends and relatives were beginning to whisper and comment, and before they knew where they were scandal would be in the air.
Shalford met Cecilia on formal occasions—at the rout, the masquerade, at the play; he thought her changed; she seemed to alternate between brooding sullenness and a hectic gaiety. Sometimes, when she did not think he was looking at her, he caught her eyes sparkling behind the carved ribs of her chicken-skin fan, gleaming almost with malice, he thought; then, again, her gaze would seem to be that of one rapt in a drowsy day-dream.
Philip Guise had written to Cecilia by the threepenny post and, by luck, she had contrived to receive the letter unseen.
This longed-for epistle did not contain those protestations of love she burned to receive, but merely a dry statement that he was at her service and wished to know her commands.
Cecilia had not answered the letter, for she did not know what to say; she alternated between terror and ecstasy; sometimes she felt so degraded that she could hardly hold up her head, sometimes she felt intoxicated with joy. She drugged herself against both shame and joy by rehearsing over and over again in her own mind the one afternoon they had spent together, by closing her eyes and imagining she again lay in his arms, pressed against his breast, and felt his kisses on her cheek, her neck, her bosom.... These overpowering remembrances were almost sufficient pleasure for Cecilia.... She had never before needed to make an important decision ... she kept her betrothed husband at arm's length, telling herself: "I cannot marry him; of course I can marry no one but Philip."
Yet she dreaded making a confession of the love she knew many would regard as a crime, of profaning a secret half beautiful, half terrible, like a sword with a diamond hilt. Instinctively, eagerly and skilfully she played a part, deceiving every one.
Philip Guise wrote to her three times, but always in the same strain. She blushed and bridled under the imperative words, which were almost those of a master. She put the papers on which he had written in her bosom and did not answer, though he begged for a reply to be sent to the "Black Bull." She believed that by her surrender she was sure of him and could afford to make him wait ... then, without forewarning, he appeared in the little withdrawing room that looked on the square of dry and yellow trees.
Cecilia, in a bright blue dress with saffron ribbons, was seated at the harpsichord singing the song that she had sung so often to Shalford:
"Solitary and musing I idled
Through the most lonely meadows
With slow and mournful steps—"
Lady Anstice, dallying with her knitting, was seated in the window-place when the dark, handsome, impetuous man was suddenly in the midst of them, immediately following the maid who announced him.
He had an excuse for his coming—some music that he had copied for Cecilia: the sonata by Paradisi that Shalford had found difficult, but which Philip Guise had easily transposed for Cecilia's harp, and which, by error, he had taken from Shalford House.
Lady Anstice was surprised and uneasy at this visit; she had never been able to understand quite who he was, or why he was in Edmund's household, nor why he had left that service so suddenly.
His beauty, his ease and air of audacity distressed the old gentlewoman; she had not known how to deal with him; when she saw him she felt jealous for Shalford.
She watched Cecilia sharply, and Cecilia, conscious of this scrutiny, again denied her lover; through cowardice and perversity she refused the chance that he gave her; she treated him coldly, almost insolently, and when he looked at her steadily across the painted surface of the harpsichord she gave him a cold glance that denied all recollection of their last meeting.
She saw that he was angry: she had not answered his letters, she would not give him a smile now. She tried over his music carelessly and tried to find a fault in it; he stood waiting (she was sure) for her to contrive some opportunity for private speech, but, though his mere presence so overwhelmed her she could hardly maintain her calm, she would not do this, because of the sharp eyes of Lady Anstice on her. He should not have come without her permission and put her into this embarrassment.
On the inner leaf of the music he had faintly pencilled: "I must see you soon, or know that you never desire to see me again. I intend soon for abroad."
Cecilia was angry that there were no loving protestations added to this; and when she glanced at him she saw that he looked stern and thoughtful, not as he had looked when he had kissed her in the little room at the "Six Beehives"—what a dry business he made of what to her was nothing but rapture!...
Receiving no encouragement from her, and rebuffed by the icy courtesy of Lady Anstice, Philip Guise left, and Cecilia mused with passionate delight over every detail of his appearance and dress, feeling so sure of him that she believed that she could afford this desperate play.
But that evening, her heart on fire, she contrived to slip out, and found him waiting beneath the dusk of the fading trees.
He was neither angry nor impatient, and his serenity vexed Cecilia.
"Why didst thou come to-day, Philip?"
"Why didst thou receive me so unkindly, dear?"
"Oh, I am a prisoner in that hateful house; that tedious old woman watches me—I am afraid of her—"
"Why?" he demanded. "Wilt thou marry Shalford after all? Why were my letters not answered?"
"They were so cold!—"
"Listen—this is difficult for me—I wish to make amends."
"Amends? What is there to repent of?"
"I use the language of the world, maybe not known to thee! but thou knowest thou canst not in honour marry Shalford—"
Cecilia, yearning for love, was disheartened at this, which she took to be a rebuke.
"I can if I will," she replied foolishly. "But put that aside—surely thou hast yearned for me?"
"I may not put it aside. I'll not endure this long deceit, this long concealment. I have no shame in taking thee, aye, and the hate of all thy people, I can keep a wife who has a high heart and will share a soldier's fortune; if thou wilt marry me and come abroad, Cecilia, we may be satisfied with each other yet—"
Philip Guise spoke earnestly, rapidly; he was offering a considerable sacrifice and undertaking a burden for which his fortunes were not fitted; but the wayward, passionate girl to whom he spoke did not value this; she put her arm in his and laughed into his serious face.
"How sombre, my Philip! Let all these grave matters go. Wilt thou meet me, I could contrive it, one day when I go to the perfumer's—"
"Nay, I'll not. Openly we meet, or we part."
"What air is this?" demanded Cecilia, with flushing cheeks and sparkling eyes. "Dost thou seek to command me?"
"It seems I must direct thee if thou art so light and easy. Prithee, bethink thee how we stand. I'll not be for ever denied. Yon ancient gentlewoman treated me like a lackey; though my birth is mean I have commanded men, and been servile to none."
She was estranged by this quiet pride, and cried petulantly:
"If thou art cold so soon—at some risk and discomfort I am here—and for this!" Philip Guise frowned.
"I'll put it plainly, sweetheart: I may contrive to afford thee for a wife; I cannot afford thee for a mistress. Wilt thou marry riches and stay with thy friends? Then say farewell to me! But if thou thinkest thy honour lies in another decision——"
Cecilia interrupted passionately:
"What is this talk of honour?"
"'Tis the talk most women would expect to hear from a man in my case. Since I have been thy lover, with thy full consent, I might stretch a point and imagine myself as thy husband. For surely I cannot take thee as—a light creature."
Cecilia cried out against him.
"I am mortified to the soul! To thus remind me! Oh, I am ashamed!"
She was running away, but he caught her hand.
"Nay, forgive me if I deal with it roughly, I am not of thy fine world; nay, my darling, I know thou hast everything and I have nothing—and what courage should I have to ask thee to marry me, save thou hast given me some cause to let me think that thou didst love me?"
Cecilia, with a bosom struggling against her laces, and tingling cheeks, stood silent in the dusk, the dry leaves falling from the high trees on to her shoulders, a chill breeze stirring the hair on her forehead, her fingers loosely in the firm clasp of Philip Guise.
She watched a new moon that hung about the dark facade of the houses and played with her destiny. "I'll put him off, I'll not be forced to a decision; 'tis sweet to hear him plead; if I insist, we'll meet secretly again—'tis so dark now he might kiss me. His wife? Perhaps he'll not love me then ..."
His low voice, close to her ear, broke her eager musing.
"Shall I go to the young Earl—to-morrow—to-night—and tell him thou must be free to marry me?"
"No, no." Cecilia was angry. "Art thou lunatic? We must contrive something—must meet again—"
He answered brusquely, putting her aside as she tried to take his arm:
"I'll not be tempted again. I could never be a great lady's secret lover, though I might pinch for bread and board for a wife, I could not contrive one fairing for a mistress of thy quality. Come down to me, chuck, or surely we part."
Cecilia stood aside in wrath and stamped her foot.
"I'll not be driven nor commanded! It seems I am nothing to thee but a puzzle to thy pride. I came to thee freely, with an open heart, to be met with dry niceties—wilt thou think of nothing but thy arrogance?"
He did not answer, and it was too dark for her to see his face; an anguish of regret, of longing, of disappointed love found relief in an outburst of reproaches; sobbing, she ran away.
Sobbing, she turned back, searching for him, but Philip Guise had gone from beneath the fading trees into the London twilight.
A SPACE of empty days, and Cecilia did not hear from Philip Guise; she had written to the "Black Bull" and received no answer; a dreadful fear lest she had gone too far in her torment of their love sunk her unsteady heart. "Oh, God, if he does not come back! Oh, God, if he has forsaken me!"
She and her betrothed husband faced each other in the little parlour where the music written out by Philip Guise lay on the harpsichord, and neither knew the secret of the other's misery.
"Cecilia, your father thinks that our marriage should be no longer delayed, and I must own that he is in the right."
"The marriage was arranged for October," she answered, looking away at the trees beyond the window.
"But I was weak to submit to so long, so extreme a delay."
He strove to be cool, calm and prudent, to put his own discomfort aside; he had resolved to forget Philip Guise, Laurence Ambler, Thomas Cramer and his father, and he wished to consolidate this resolution by an immediate marriage with Cecilia.
"This is a false relationship, my dear," he added; "we have been too long betrothed, there is so much formality between us; and you," he added with an impatience he could scarce control, "are as if you were in prison."
Cecilia smiled.
Shalford was surprised to see an expression of pain, almost of contempt, on her beautiful pale lips. Did she not know that she was in prison? Those stolen interviews with Philip Guise? It was like a miracle (or a damnation) that she had been able to contrive that one afternoon ...
Holding her fair face in her long hands, and resting her elbows on the table, she looked with detached and critical eyes at Shalford.
How little he moved her! This blond, comely, shapely young man, with the anxious glance and the nervous manner.... She hardly heard the words he was choosing with such nicety and difficulty, urging her to the marriage, showing her the advantages of their union, of what he could do for her when she was his wife....
She thought in amazement: "Does the man think this love-making?" and she recalled the words, the kisses, the embraces of Philip Guise; his brusque and familiar gallantry, his lovable and wilful passion.... Her cool indifference, her restraining glance caused Shalford's nervous tension to break ... he must make her feel with him; he would not be thus-lonely.... He was walking up and down the little room while he spoke and, stopping by her, suddenly snatched at her and begged her in a hoarse and breaking voice to have pity on him, to be kind to him....
Cecilia broke away from his embrace with a furious force that surprised herself; the feel of his hands upon her shoulders had told her as nothing else could that she belonged to the other man. Shalford drew back, stung into silence. Cecilia dropped into a chair and began to laugh hysterically.
"My God!" cried her unhappy lover, "if thou dost hate me like that why dost thou not say so?"
"I don't hate you, Edmund, but you must not touch me—never do that again!"
"Is this because you understand nothing, or because you really dislike me?" he asked her.
It was because she understood too much, and that was the reply she could not give him.
They looked at each other with frightened eyes, and again Shalford had that vision of a concrete evil, of a personal devil, which had somehow been evoked and served to blur and turn to horror all the actions of his life. It was as if an evil enchantment lay on them, he thought, with a fearful leap of the heart; even Cecilia looked distorted; she seemed to grin at him, her colour was unnatural, there was something snaky in the long coils of her fallen hair. She said, trembling:
"Thou hadst best go, Edmund; I bear thee no ill will."
"You want me to release you from this marriage?"
"It were better if you did."
"I cannot see you and never kiss you, Cecilia."
Her gaze at him turned into a stare which he thought was painful to behold; her face became pale and set, and he believed that she would fall into some kind of a fit. She pulled out her handkerchief, mopped her brow and steadied herself, muttering something about "delay—October" and so rushed from him out of the room.
He heard her laughing on the stairs.
Shalford tried to cheat himself into thinking he had not lost her; if he kept his head, was prudent and cool, these whimseys of a wayward girl might yet pass, and October might see them serenely married, happy at Wraxham; but he must be patient.... Biting his nether lip, he left the house and returned to his gloomy mansion in the Fields.... He had enough of routine duties and routine pleasures to fill the hours, yet time lay on him heavy as frost. His first action when he found himself alone was to go into the little room off the vestibule, where the purple busts of Caesars had once gleamed, and there, standing over a portion of the boards that were yet, from scrubbing, of a lighter tint than the others, to take from his pocket a small packet which he always carried with him—the packet which had been given to him by my lord on his death-bed. Lighting a taper he burnt these papers and flung the ashes on the scrubbed oak ... his childish act of symbolism meant nothing, yet it relieved his spirits.
Cecilia, when she had parted from him, had darted upstairs as an arrow from the bow, flung open her wardrobe and taken out a hood and cloak; she felt that it would be impossible for her to see Edmund again, and a sudden panic terror of the silence of Philip Guise smote her shuddering spirit.
Had she been playing, dreaming too long?...
She found a few coins in her pockets. Without disturbing the maids or Lady Anstice she crept out of the house, her little amount of money in her hand, his letters in her bosom and love and terror in her heart.
She knew that he lived at Islington and believed that, if she could get as far as that, she might without difficulty find his house; but she did not know how the coaches ran to Islington, nor dare to call a chair or a hackney for fear she had not enough money to pay for it, so on foot she turned in the direction of Lamb's Conduit Fields, walking, though she did not know it, a little out of her way. She passed the side of Montague House almost at a running pace.
There was such an intensity about her that none of the loungers and loiterers ventured to molest her. She reached the great pump in the centre of Lamb's Conduit Fields, and there asked her way, and so came not above the New River Head and, walking rapidly through dry lanes and over parched grass, came to Islington and the fine houses near it which stretched citywards.
Cecilia had reached the decayed church in the meadows before she knew she was fatigued; there she sat down on the low stone wall and looked at the graves. She was free, and a certain peace fell over her tormented heart ... she need never see Edmund again, nor any of her relations and friends; they would not spy on her nor question her nor cross-examine her any more. She would go to him, and they would escape together.
With utter carelessness, she had not brought a single jewel with her, either of her own or of Edmund's gift, and only the few coins, which, when they became hot and moist in her hand, she knotted in her handkerchief, safe in her bosom beside his letters.
She was penniless, and she believed that he had very little; she did not care for that; it was no longer the fear of losing a great position which had held her silent and made her deny Philip Guise, but the terror of exposing her inmost heart before the hostile and incredulous.... She thought, with the simplicity of an absorbing passion: "We will be married secretly, and wherever he goes I will go too."
A little haberdasher's shop was built against the side of the church; in the dim windows were hose, mats and balls of worsted, rush dips, bottles of balm, comfits and toffee apples.
Cecilia passed through the low doorway and spent two of her pennies in lollipops as an excuse to ask the old woman nodding behind the worn counter where Captain Guise lived.
The blear-eyed ancient shopkeeper had a knowing glance for the lady's pale rarity, but told her while she fingered the pennies that the gentleman lodged above the baker's shop at the corner of Hawbush Lane, by the toll-gate—she knew him because he played the organ on Sundays ...
Cecilia listened to no more ... nothing to her was the woman's almost outspoken curiosity: the hour was late, and why was she, a lady, unescorted, visiting Philip Guise in his lodgings?
Cecilia let the door close behind her on the small, dark shop, and distributed the lollipops among the children who were gathered round the churchyard wall, playing at marbles and leapfrog. She easily found the little house by the toll-gate, saw the cakes and loaves in the window and, entering the garden, accosted Polly, who was rooting weeds from among the bricks of the narrow red path.
POLLY glanced up from her weeding, and Cecilia paused inside the low gate, which she had softly unlatched. The two girls were much of the same height and they so looked into each other's eyes.
"Does Captain Guise live here?" asked Cecilia faintly. Polly put back the bright hair from her cheeks, which were flushed from stooping. "Captain Guise has gone."
"Nay, he cannot have gone; it is but a few days ago that I saw him. Gone? Where should he be gone?"
"I know nothing of where he goes, or if he will return."
Cecilia moved forward along the narrow brick path from which Polly had been pulling the weeds. She asked:
"Could you give me a chair and a glass of water? I have walked from London."
"You may come into the shop, if you will, ma'am, and sit there a while. From London? That's a long, dusty walk for a lady."
"I wished to see Captain Guise," replied Cecilia, scarcely understanding the extent of her own misfortune.
She followed Polly into the little shop and sat down by the counter, part of which was piled with the day's loaves that were unsold, saffron cake cut into slices and large jars full of lollipops. At the back the door was open on to the garden where Philip Guise and Polly had so often walked. The trees were now almost bare of leaves and heavily laden with fruit; some of the pears had already been plucked, and lay in a heap near the high brick wall.
Polly brought Cecilia a glass of water, and stood watching her while she drank; to Polly's knowing yet ingenuous mind mystery, romance and tragedy lay in this lady.
A love affair! she thought at once, for her little world held little else but such thoughts ... this fine creature, who looked so fatigued and whose eyes were so wild, who was, in an exquisite fashion Polly never could hope to attain, so beautiful, must be in love with Philip Guise; he could not be in love with her—there was triumph for Polly in that reflection—for he had left her, and she, great madam as she was, had been reduced to walk on foot to this cottage to find him....
She, Polly, had expected to be left; her fate had been a sad but not a surprising one, and she had met it with suave fortitude; from the first she had known that Philip Guise would go away and, perhaps, never come back... her philosophy was that men like Philip Guise always did go away and very seldom came back; she wondered with some scorn that this lady, who must be so much wiser than herself, did not know that also.
Sipping her water, Cecilia asked vaguely and faintly:
"Will not Mr. Guise return; does he not live here?"
"Why, he comes back now and then," smiled Polly wryly, "but he is not the manner of gentleman to stay long in once place, ma'am. He was a soldier, likes going abroad." She added shrewdly: "But you know him, perhaps, better than I do, my lady?"
"I wonder?" mused Cecilia. "I dare say I do not know him at all. But it is very necessary that I should see him."
"There are his bankers in Lombard Street, ma'am; one can always write there, but whether he will get the letters I do not know. This house, he has given it to my father." Polly, with a deeper sparkle in her eyes and a brighter flush on her cheeks, added: "Mr. Guise meant it as a wedding present for me, ma'am."
"As a wedding present for you?" said Cecilia, propping her lovely head in her hands; "are you, then, about to get married?"
"I am to marry Joe, my cousin; we are to carry on the business of my father, who is old enough to find it a burden, so Mr. Guise gave us the house, keeping only those two rooms upstairs for himself.... He said he would be away a long while."
"His rooms upstairs, could I see them?" Cecilia asked this with a direct simplicity.
Polly hesitated.
"You'll forgive me, ma'am, but it seems surprising for a lady like you to give herself the trouble of coming here."
"Surprising?" murmured Cecilia. "Yes, but you must, you shall oblige me—I'll see his rooms. I, too, was going to be married, but I could not at the last endure the thought of it."
"Was you relying on Mr. Guise to help you?"
Cecilia did not answer this, but glanced at Polly wildly and cried:
"Can I not go upstairs?"
The two went up the narrow dark stairs to the rooms which Philip Guise had occupied. Polly had made these very neat and tidy. The chest containing books and the young man's few properties had been corded and set against the wall; on the shelf there remained only the old Greek Bible. A few clothes still hung in a press on the wall. In there and in the drawers of the bureau Polly had put sprigs of lavender, rosemary and basil. A beau-pot on the window-sill was filled with strawberry and borage leaves. Polly swept and dusted the rooms scrupulously every day; clean white curtains hung in the windows. In the second room there was an old Persian carpet on the floor, and paper on the walls, a few more books on a corner cupboard, and an old cabinet with fuchsia-drop handles.
Polly glanced at the strange lady with a certain pride as she surveyed these fragrant rooms which, in their austere and gallant poverty, seemed a fitting background for the personality of Philip Guise. Cecilia felt more familiar with this girl than she had felt with any of her own family or relations, with Lady Anstice or with any of her London friends ... she wanted to sit beside her in this room which belonged to Philip Guise and pour out all her tale; she would have no difficulty in telling this simple creature of her own sex all her troubles, dismays and bewilderments. But that, of course, was impossible; pride and decorum sealed the lady's lips.
She thought: "I suppose everything is over. What shall I do? Of course he cares nothing about me at all, or he would not have gone away like this.... But he does care for me, and I must find him—it was I who denied him and sent him away."
"What shall I do?" whispered Cecilia, "what shall I do? What is your name?"
"Polly Renton."
Cecilia grasped her hand and gazed at her earnestly.
"Thou hast known Mr. Guise very well?"
"Well enough, ma'am. Come, don't be dejected; I'll warrant there is a cure for your trouble."
Cecilia seated herself by the window, exhausted, at a loss.... Here he had lived; had she not been an utter fool she might have lived here with him.... What to do, what to do?
"Tell me what you know of Mr. Guise," she said.
"Do you know nothing, ma'am?" Polly's curiosity was tempered by compassion.
"I met him in London—oh, a short acquaintance! Child, what dost thou know of this gentleman?"
But Polly knew little herself. She related Mr. Guise's parentage, his ownership of the house, his comings and goings....
"A Frenchman?" murmured Cecilia. "I had not thought so. I would like to buy this house; I would give you a great deal of money for it.... No, no—whatever am I saying? I believe I have no longer any money.... But it is a charming house.... I wanted to live above a baker's shop, Polly. I like the perfume of the dough and the saffron cakes, the hot sugar when you are making the lollipops—and the garden with the pear trees. Surely in some dream I have seen such a place."
"A town lady had it once," said Polly shrewdly; "there are old people in the village who remember that—a kept miss, she was, saving your presence; there are still some of the trees and flowers she planted in the garden—and a little arbour where she used to sit. A London lord used to come to see her, driving fast from town, and I think some of the furnishings 'ud be hers—but who was the gentleman no one knew...."
Cecilia, absorbed in her misery, took no heed of this vapid gossip; the tears lay in her beautiful eyes, and her hands were folded in her lap.
"If I do not find him I'm ruined," she whispered. "Why, 'tis all a void."
From these words Polly guessed the lady's story; one so like her own (eh, like many another too!) a girl had to be very lucky or very sharp not to fall on this misfortune. Polly had heard the fellows in the village swear they would not "buckle with a cracked pitcher"—and as for the gentlemen, why, 'twas a game to them; and Philip Guise, thought poor Polly with a pang, need use no arts with any woman.
"Hark ye, my lady," said the girl with a manner of rough kindness, "I may make a guess at what ye'll not say—and Mr. Guise hath gone, as the genmen do go—but you'll be pleased to take notice, ma'am, as I'm a precious soul, ma'am, a woman must think of herself; ye'll have the banns put up and be married—and just shut your eyes on the wrong man beside ye. As I'm doing," added Polly firmly, "though mayhap I too could have broken my heart."
"Wilt thou wed where thou hast no affection?"
"I'll not be common as duckweed," said Polly. "I'll be looked up to, and have children and a husband—ye can't have folk gibing; some way ye must hide up your heart."
Cecilia stared at the pretty fresh face of the speaker. "Did he love her also?—they were in the house together—all those days and nights while I was so lonely; but he offered to marry me—I must find him—who will help me to find him?"
She rose.
"I'll not stay, then. I was lunatic to come. I find it so difficult to think—this all came on me suddenly—I'll go back—"
"And I'll forget ye came."
Cecilia hesitated at the door.
"What shall I say? 'Tis odd if we cannot concoct a story. I could get ye a carriage at the 'Pied Bull,' and ye could be back in Lunnon afore 'tis dark."
"I've no money," sighed Cecilia, putting her hand to her bosom, where her few coins lay, "at least not enough for coach hire."
"My lady, see how much ye have," said Polly, who commanded the other in everything.
Cecilia drew the handkerchief out of her bosom; Polly opened it and counted the coins.
"Why, that's nearly enough, and I could give you another crown. You must say that you went to visit some poor woman for a charity, or that you were praying in a church."
"I shall say nothing," whispered Cecilia with the utmost weariness. "They must think what they will."
Polly thought with indignation of Philip Guise. "This poor soul is no better than a child. He might have stayed for her ... and I believe he hath broken her heart."
And Polly knew well enough what lay before a lady of rank and station whose reputation was blasted ... before any woman who stepped awry; Polly had seen Bridewell and knew who lived within.
Cecilia was in that apathy of dis-ease which can resist nothing, and Polly led her from the room and the cottage and along the dusty high road to the "Pied Bull," and there bargained for a hackney. Polly fee'd the coachman with a shrewd business-like air that the fellow seemed to respect. She told him to set the lady down near Gray's Inn in Holborn, for she did not think it desirable that he should know where Cecilia lived, and she stood by the inn door, between the hollyhocks and sunflowers which bent their last straggling leaves against the white front of the prim building, and watched the hired hackney lumbering along the London road....
So ended this adventure which was to have been so high and glorious, which was to have severed Cecilia Torrance, with one proud gesture, from all her past.... Humbled and dazed with misery she was returning to the old routine which she knew now to be intolerable. Dusk was falling as they reached the high walls of the garden of Gray's Inn.... The coach stopped, Cecilia leapt out and ran by Jockey's Fields like a hare bolting to her form. She returned to the house in Queen's Square, with dust on her skirts and shoes, wild-eyed and speechless; at once defiant and shuddering.
Lady Anstice, anxiously waiting her return, knew that it would be useless to ask her where she had been ... she spared the girl futile lies.
Jane, the cunning little London maid, had made up various tales: "My lady was at the perfumer's"; My lady was at the milliner's"; "My lady was visiting a poor family that had caught her sympathy." ...
But, Lady Anstice had said in her terrified heart, "The girl must have a lover."
Without daring to question her, she led her upstairs. Cecilia fell across the bed and allowed them to unlatch her shoes, loosen her gown; her look was so dreadful that Lady Anstice was frightened and could not at last forbear exclaiming:
"Oh, what hath happened? What trouble art thou in?"
But Cecilia was silent; she pulled her loosened hair across her face and sunk her head into the pillows.
SHALFORD gazed into a long mirror which hung in his bedchamber at Shalford House; he thought he saw the figure of his brother Edgar standing beside him, arrayed in the uniform of the Dragoon Guards they had both worn when in Austria.... A cloud obscured this fancy, and he gazed into a room empty of everything save a horrible apprehension. He stepped back from the mirror as if from a flash of flame; he heard the wind full and low at the windows, rose and pulled the curtains apart—the houses, the passers-by and the coaches appeared dark in the rainy shadows of the gloomy afternoon; the air was full of the damp noisome odours of autumn in the city.
Shalford sat down on the bedstep, rested his head against the quilt and fell into one of those trance-like sleeps which come to men drugged with fatigue; he had been for long yearning for coolness and to be rid of the dank rotting of autumn in the city, and he now found himself in a forest more gorgeous and serene than the woods at Wraxham, and knew that he had passed out of a tempest which was full of torrents running over black rocks and foaming with gossamer forms of evil water sprites.
The dreamer had a companion; beside him walked Edgar, with dead, lustreless eyes, and he was entreating Edgar to speak to him and tell him his secret.
Ahead, flitting through the trees, was Cecilia—Diana, the sainted goddess of his earlier dreams; her beautiful face was now and then turned towards him with a look of careless dislike, and he thought that if he could but overtake her he could make her pay to him a loving attention. His effort was partly to make Edgar, walking silently beside him, speak, and partly to overtake Cecilia. There were others too in that forest—the shapes of my lord, arm-in-arm with the shape of Laurence Ambler, walking as if they were lame and whispering together; and there was Thomas Cramer, bloated and unbuttoned, hobbling along in his slippers, leaning on his worn and polished stick; and Mignonette Luckett in her dress of faded red Indian cotton.
"Why does Cecilia make me love her so that I, who thought myself strong enough, can scarcely endure it, at the moment when she loves some one else?"
The wood ended suddenly in a wide meadow, and that other troupe of shades which had accompanied Shalford disappeared.
But Cecilia remained, a light shape high above the grass, one who could not remain on earth nor escape entirely into upper air. The distant fields rolled in a purplish campayne to the violet horizon and all the sweet odours which Shalford had longed for, when he was oppressed by the foul vapours of the city, that came sweetly to his nostrils.
"Speak to me," cried Shalford, addressing that shimmering shape of Cecilia. "Speak to me, tell me where we are going, what you desire, what I must do."
She kept her face turned upwards, as if she struggled to be free of the earth, and as if his importunities were not even heard by her. It seemed that she was attaining her desire, for she fast became invisible to his straining sight, and was drawn into that spreading glory which overlay the landscape as the sunset flared up into a final radiance.
The young man was alone. He chanced to touch one of his hands with the other, and found it rigid and cold. He believed that he was dreaming, and that the dream came to him while he lay in the vaults at Wraxham Abbey Church, between his father and his brother—his self-murdered brother and the father who had mocked him with malice to the last. The coffin sides were open, and they could stretch out their hands and clasp their fingers; the escutcheons were covered with dust and spiders' webs, the funeral wreaths had withered to a crackling brown decay. Hope and fruition were alike dead here. What had the bloated old man Cramer said?
"We die, we have our grievances, our lamentations, we take ourselves so seriously, nose and poke about with one affair or another, we have our ambitions and our despairs; then we are silent, and a careless glance, looking round for a sign of us, finds none."
Shalford groaned and moved, and the familiar room seemed full-charged with horror of the journey he had taken in his mind. He despised himself. Action was what was needed, not dreams. He must go to Philip Guise and tell him what he knew.... "Thus and thus it stands; Ambler and Cramer speak thus and thus.... Here are the facts. This is what I know. Take it up—investigate it all yourself. I believe thou art the Earl, and that I hold thy post, thy name and honours...."
But to give that man, already his superior, everything, and leave himself with nothing ...
He went out into the street. The rain was beginning to fall. The dry thundery heat of the summer was merging into these noisome vapours of the autumn, while his fair houses, set in pleasant parks, stood empty, waiting for him and his bride. When he reached Queen's Square he insisted on being brought into Cecilia's presence, though for days she had evaded him. He was allowed into a room looking on to a small garden at the back of the house, where a few tall poplars overlooked a stone seat on which doves were strutting to and fro. Wallflowers grew beneath the poplars, and there was nothing else in the garden save the small square of dry sward. The room was full of the first darkness of twilight, and Cecilia had impatiently refused a lamp. He looked at her earnestly, striving to see in her a likeness to that imperial creature of his recent vision, who had been as fine as a flame.
But Cecilia Torrance appeared human enough to satisfy the grossest eye; her gaze was charged with passion, her pale lips swollen, her hair hung neglected on her shoulders in entangled ringlets. She had made a pretence of reading, but the book had long since fallen from her fingers; she had made a pretence of needlework, but the silks had long since dropped on the floor. The terrible apathy of a caged creature was over her. She stared at Shalford with hostility as he sank on his knees beside her couch, and they watched each other, amazed at and not comprehending the other's distress.
"My dear, I do not know what we have become involved in.... Wouldst thou not like to return to Ireland and leave me?"
"No, no," she answered violently; "I must stay here. I am waiting. I am waiting for a letter—for news—of a friend—some one who must write or come soon. I cannot go to Ireland; that would be too far away."
"Cecilia, what dost thou want?"
"To be kissed and loved—but not by you," she thought, and gazed at him in hostile silence.
He drew back, and his glance turned towards the little garden with the poplars and the few wallflowers and the solitary seat—all of which seemed to Shalford full of an inexpressible dreariness.
"Cecilia, there was never yet anything got into that could not be got out of. We are very young, and there b all our lives—"
"That's the worst of it! How is one to go on being?"
"But what has happened to you, Cecilia? I don't understand. You always deny me and put me off—it is clear you don't love me."
"No, I don't love you," she muttered sullenly.
"Then you might have allowed me to set you free long ago, Cecilia."
"I understood so little," was her excuse. "I had no one to advise me. I have been so overborne and cast down.... Oh, Edmund "—she turned on him a yearning look at last touched with kindness—"if you ever loved me" Then she changed the sentence again: "Why do I keep talking of love? I don't know what it means, I suppose." She searched his haggard face. "You too, Edmund, what has happened to you? You have your sorrows, I think, and your burdens."
"Burden and sorrow enough," he replied, "and the moment has come when I can disguise neither. There is something on my mind, Cecilia, and has been since the night my father died."
The young man rose and strode up and down the room, wondering if he should tell her—how he should find words in which to tell her....
He said at last:
"My father wronged some one, and I must put it right."
Cecilia had no interest in that confession, but she was faintly moved at his distress.
"All is discord, all is jarred," she answered.
Then she rose; she held herself heavily and leant on the head of the couch.
"Edmund, we once were fond of each other, and I would help you if I could. Will you help me? I've no one to whom I can turn."
Her hands were clasped and straining together, her eyes wide open, her brows wrinkled; there was a certain wildness in her demeanour which made Edmund fear for her reason, and he recalled the two occasions of which he had learnt from the guarded words of Lady Anstice, when she had returned home once half unconscious with exhaustion and, it seemed, fear, her clothes drenched with rain and but half dried; the other time, in an equal state of fatigue, dusty and footsore, almost swooning.... Oh, there had been reasonable excuses—but ...
On the bureau by her couch were several sheets of music. Shalford remembered the firm, shapely hand that had copied them out, and forced across his lips the name that was ever present in his mind:
"Philip Guise, I must find Philip Guise."
Cecilia answered instantly:
"Philip Guise hath gone."
"How do you know that, Cecilia?"
"Why do you want to find him, Edmund? I suppose," she added vaguely, "you have discovered everything and wish to be revenged? Well, I do not care so long as you find him."
She looked now like the spirit of his vision—straining after a flight of shadows as she turned definitely from him in pursuit of another.
"You want me to find Philip Guise?" he asked stupidly. "But it is for my own concern I seek him. I believe I do him a wrong ..."
"I do not know the right or the wrong of any of it," replied Cecilia wildly, "but you must find him for me."
And now it was she who was on her knees, grasping the skirts of his coat and crying out: "Oh, Edmund, I am in such torment! Find Philip Guise for me!"
"You love him, then?" Shalford cried, in a pain so sharp that he allowed her to kneel there, and almost exulted in her humiliation. "And yet you denied him!"
"I denied him," repeated Cecilia, "and he has left me."
Shalford endeavoured to raise her, but she remained obstinately sunk on the ground, clasping her hands and entreating him, in a voice that became more and more hoarse, in accents that became more and more incoherent, "to find Philip Guise ... Philip Guise."
"Let us be done," entreated Shalford, "with these thin and idle fancies. We talk frantically and against truth and reason. Stand up, Cecilia; it cannot be that you love this man, and he loves you, and that you would not confess as much when I charged you with it, and that then he left you. Tell me," he added, stooping to clasp her wrists, "was you with him those two evenings when you came back spent with fatigue?"
"The first time I was with him; the second time I went to his house at Islington, and he had gone. If he had been there I should have stayed with him. I did not know where to find him, and I had no money, and there was a girl there who put me in a hired coach and sent me back, and since I have hoped every hour that he would write or come. Oh, Edmund, there is no worse torment in the world than to wait in vain!"
The young man raised her and set her on the couch.
"The first evening, then, you was with him—with Philip Guise?"
"Yes. There was a rainstorm—and we danced in the barn. He played the fiddle, and afterwards ... Don't look at me like that, now, prithee don't—'tis no fault of ours he is my lover. I must speak, my mind and heart can endure no more."
Shalford, in bewildered misery, continued to hold her hands; she was so alien to him, this creature, pale, disordered, with trembling lips and tear-stained eyes—how could she have ever been his ethereal, serene Diana? "Now you would say of her, here is a woman, not beautiful, who hath been radiant once."
"He is my lover," repeated Cecilia.
Shalford had not understood the extent of their common misfortune; he thought she spoke in simple innocency.
"Why hath he left thee?"
Cecilia did not answer, but she was encouraged by his kind, compassionate air; she believed herself understood and not blamed; she thought that the darkness of her pain and loneliness had been lifted by the pity and protection of a friend; and Shalford was encouraged by her silence to believe that she, in foolish, wayward youthfulness, made much of a bottomless fancy.
"Cecilia, I swear to help thee—this is a dreadful thing, but it can be gotten out of—time and patience will put from thy mind this fellow in every way beneath thee." As she still did not reply, he added: "And I will wait—for years, if need be—till this fancy hath passed."
"I can never marry thee, Edmund." Cecilia drew the brief letters of Philip Guise from her bosom and put them into the young man's hand. "Ah, he wrote?"
Shalford read the letters eagerly, and saw they were not the careless lines of a lover.
"What is the meaning, Cecilia, of his asking as to thy commands?—these letters are too serious."
"So I thought."
Shalford looked at her, holding the letters between them; till this moment he had treated her as a child... but he could no longer pretend that this brooding, passionate face so close to his was that of a child....
"My God, Cecilia, what was—what is between you and this man?"
"I said—he is my lover."
"But—in what sense? Your lover? And has left you?"
"He was my lover," cried Cecilia vehemently, "that afternoon—the rainstorm—what am I to tell you? I am not ashamed—I thought you understood—"
Shalford rose and moved away from her ... he still refused to accept her meaning.
"'Tis not possible—I must not put a gross interpretation on what you say, but be careful not to speak so to another—"
"'Tis very possible," said Cecilia faintly, "in that room—I was all his—"
"You mean, you cannot mean, that you are his mistress?"
"He used that word; he said he would not have me for a mistress, but that I must be his wife or lose him—but I was petulant—I was afraid too, so afraid—and then, I could not think of such things, I only wanted him to love me, and I was angry than he would not—any more—then he went away."
Rage and amazement disabled Shalford. For a moment he was incapable of feeling; he sat down on the low chair by the window and stared stupidly at the narrow garden, the wallflowers and the poplar trees, all bleak, dull and tainted against a tarnished sky.... Cecilia, of all women, Philip Guise, of all men ... his muse of music, his Diana... during a rustic merrymaking, in a tavern room ... while he had believed that she did not know the meaning of love, had never heard of passion or desire.
Still numbed at heart, with his fingers to his lips, he turned and looked at her. She lay listlessly in the corner of the sofa, too absorbed in her own anguish to care for his distress.
Slowly and with a stumbling accent Shalford began to put to her broken questions; from her sighs and half answers he satisfied his sickened curiosity.
The flight from town on what was to have been a joyous frolic, the harvest fields, the storm, flowers and music... even in his bitter fury he could not deny magic to the picture ... they were both so young, so handsome, and she at least so lost in love ... a better way this, perhaps, than the formalities of courtship, settlements, contracts, distant courtesies, artificial restraints—but his Cecilia—and Philip Guise—his Cecilia common—taken in a tavern—left.
He groaned and pressed his clenched hand on his mouth.
"Why should you care, Edmund? I was so little to you! You hardly even kissed me."
"Was that what you wanted, Cecilia, kisses?"
"I wanted you to love me—I was so lonely—I felt so wasted, Edmund, unnoticed, and my dreams were so heavy a burden—it was the way he looked at me from the first—and he's so gay—nothing seems to trouble his spirit."
"Cease his praises to me!" cried Shalford, and she was frightened at his pallor and cried out to him not to betray her—not to tell her parents or Lady Anstice.
"I'll not be shamed—I'll kill myself—I thought you was a friend."
Shalford controlled himself. All honour compelled him to be gentle with this ruined creature—this weak, distracted, wretched woman, who was no more his proud betrothed—but the cast-off mistress of Philip Guise.... Shalford persisted in this thought, though she had said the man had wished to marry her, and she had sent him away. No, he blamed entirely and furiously the man, a cold-hearted seducer, who had dared, dared to ensnare a woman of breeding.
The young Earl shook with rage at the thought of the scoundrelly insolence of Philip Guise—the man to whom he had offered friendship, even offered his betrothed, openly, in honour.
"Oh, Cecilia!" broke from his lips, "why did you not go with him when I asked ye?"
But even as he spoke he knew the folly of putting reasonable questions to Cecilia—they were past that; nor did she answer, but in a feeble voice implored his charity.
"Oh, Edmund, be kind to me, find Philip Guise for me—"
Shalford observed her dishevelled beauty, the bosom and shoulder showing above the disarranged muslin, the rich fallen hair, the fair features marred by that piteous expression of terror and grief.... How joyous and radiant had Philip Guise beheld her when she had lain in his arms in that tavern room!
"Yes, I'll find Philip Guise," he said.
"And you'll not betray me? You'll let our betrothal stand for a while? Oh, I will be docile and do what you bid me—only find him—"
He tried to silence her clamour of supplication ... so stammering, so broken ...
"What wilt thou do if I find him?"
"I'll marry him—I will go away with him, I'll plague thee no more—"
Shalford smiled; his mind had cleared; his heart beat steadily again; the numbness had left his emotions, and a fierce thought braced him ... by every tradition and code he knew he must kill Philip Guise, or Philip Guise must kill him; why, it was like the lifting of a great burden; here was the solution of all his problems, doubts and torments: one of them must kill the other ... the silly girl had not thought of that; he was bound by every rule of honour to seek out and challenge Philip Guise.
"I'll find him," he repeated, "have no doubt of it—and I'll make no scandal. But do thou," he added sternly, "put a better face on it—as long as I countenance you no one will dare question anything; as long as our promised marriage stands you are protected."
Cecilia had never heard him use this dry, cold tone before; she read in his tone and in his look what she now was to him; it was her first taste of the world's opinion of her conduct. Yet she must gratefully accept this hostile chivalry; she bit her forefinger, again toying with the thought of death.
Shalford saw her humiliation, but could not command himself to more kindness; he bade her compose herself and trust him, and so left her. As he passed under the bare trees of the Square, where the white statue stood stark in the autumn twilight, he recalled that he had bid her "trust him"; and yet he meant to destroy her lover.
The young man struggled with himself. Did he love her enough to forgo all vengeance, to further her marriage with Philip Guise—to think only of her?
No, his hate of the man was far more powerful than his love of the woman. Cecilia must suffer, he could not stay his hand. "Nay, 'tis too tempting; why, 'twould be an end of all his possible claims, or rights, or pretensions.... If he were dead I should be free—free—free."
As Shalford walked back to the Fields these words heat in his mind in a steady refrain: "If he were dead I should be free—free—free—"
A GENTLEMAN'S elegant coach (with flourished arms on the glossy panels) drew up outside the baker's shop by the toll-gate at Hawbush Lane; this amazed Polly, making tarts with the last of the hard pears, and her father, turning his loaves in the brick oven. It was Shalford who descended when the step was let down; very imposing to the baker and his daughter was this grand young gentleman, in his rich clothes, with his commanding air which half concealed excitement. He was followed by Laurence Ambler, dry and peevish, at once sullen and alarmed.
Polly, running out into the garden, which bore nothing but decayed stems and rotting leaves, thought at once of Philip Guise; her father, a lean aguish man, subject to asthma and powdered grey with flour, was frightened and silent before the impetuous advance and frowning expression of the young gentleman. Shalford had, as Polly guessed, indeed come for information about Philip Guise, and quickly preceded the baker and his daughter into the narrow shop, and paused by the counter where Cecilia had sat and asked for the glass of water, there demanding news of Philip Guise: When he had been last seen here? Where he was likely to be? How one might get at him?
Polly was hostile and silent; she sensed that these haughty questions were put in no friendly spirit, and she shut her pretty lips tightly, fully resolved to say nothing which might hurt or vex Philip Guise. But her father, trembling before these great ones, broke into incoherent and confused replies, the sense of which was summed up by Laurence Ambler and cynically offered to Shalford.
"D'ye see, sir, we get no further here; these good people can tell us nothing. Captain Guise hath gone abroad, as I suppose; we have wasted our journey."
But the young Earl was by no means satisfied.
"'Tis impossible," he cried, "that the fellow can thus completely disappear, and not in reason that we cannot come upon some trace of him—here where he hath lodged so long!"
"It is his house—the property of Captain Guise, I mean, is it not?" asked Ambler of the cringing baker, who, more ill at ease, made a trembling reply that Captain Guise had indeed owned the house, which had been left him by his grandfather; that for years he had paid him a small rental, but that now he had made it over to him, having, as he said, "saving your honour, no further occasion to live in Islington, but leaving some of his property in the two little rooms above, which my daughter pleases to keep in order, thinking that some day the gentleman, who has been a good friend to us, sir, might care to return and use them."
Shalford asked brusquely where these rooms were. On the baker replying that they were upstairs, he strode past Polly, who was half inclined to bar his way, and ascended the dark stairs to the two rooms where Philip Guise had lived, on and off, for so many years, and where Cecilia had lingered in her despair, looking out upon the narrow garden with the pear trees and the little arbour built by Barbara Pascoe.
Polly, suspicious and antagonistic, crept up behind the two strangers and stood in the doorway, while her father hovered behind her, distressed and puzzled, continually repeating in his eagerness to please and placate that he did not, indeed he did not know where Captain Guise was, or he would have been too happy to have obliged the genmen.
Ambler, with a shrug and a grin, glanced round the two narrow rooms, the poor furnishings, the humble corded boxes, the plain shelves. "This against Wraxham Abbey, a town mansion, the Cambridgeshire estates, many other houses with parks and farms—a few thousand acres, a fat rent roll—eh, my lord?" And he gave Shalford an odiously knowing look as he whispered.
Shalford returned a frown; he was past any fear or affront at these odious innuendoes. He turned sharply to the couple in the doorway.
"Look ye, ye must know something of this fellow Guise, and I'll pay ye handsomely for any information."
Upon the baker's continuous tremulous protests that he knew no more than he had already said, Shalford turned impatiently to the girl.
"Come, child, you must know something! I take it you waited upon this man and was familiar with his habits?"
"Your honour may insist as long as you please," replied Polly sullenly. "I know no more than that Captain Guise went away—I don't remember how many days ago, but it is some while—and he said that he was going abroad, and last time he went abroad he was away three years and more. He said that here in Islington Town it was nothing but a lazy life for a man of spirit."
"Hath he no friends, no relatives, no one interested in his movements?"
Polly put her hands on her hips and coolly eyed the angry young lord.
"Captain Guise, saving your honour, hath friends and acquaintances enough in Islington," she returned pertly, "but they are hardly of his quality, and he does not keep them informed of his movements; what friends he may have in town I know not—they don't come here after him."
This remark put the baker in mind of the visit of Cecilia, and, eager to please by offering some kind of information, he stammered out about the coming of the strange lady....
Polly gave her father an angry glance; she had intended to be discreet on the subject of this escapade. Shalford angrily bade the man be silent.
"What is it to me what women visit him?"
But the baker tried to emphasize the importance of the lady.... He had seen his daughter going with her to take the hackney back to London, and a beautiful creature she was, finely dressed in silks, and in the greatest distress, weeping, it seemed, as though lost....
Shalford had known from her own lips what had sent Cecilia to visit these lodgings, but the stranger's relation of the episode gave it a poignant and almost unendurable reality.
"Why did ye not tell me of this?" demanded he of the girl, and Polly tossed her head and answered:
"Why was I to think anything of it? My father is making ado about nothing. It was but a gentlewoman came to see Captain Guise, and, finding he was left, went back again, and asked me to get her a coach; and as for her distress, I marked nothing of it."
Shalford eyed the girl narrowly. She was lying—how women did lie to help one another ... he had lately discovered that even Lady Anstice, the old woman who had seemed so much his devoted friend, had told him a multitude of little lies about Cecilia's behaviour, dressing and covering up the insupportable truth.... He saw women as all afraid and all lying, involved in their own fond humours.
Polly waited, silent and defiant. She had guessed much of the truth behind Shalford's visit.... "No doubt this is the other gentleman, and he hath discovered somewhat, and I'll not say a word; but if Philip Guise hath left that lady it seems a cruelty I would not have thought of him."
The two strangers were in the little inner bedchamber—Shalford enraged and at a loss, Ambler laughing and bantering, though not without his secret fears and confusions. Simulating curiosity, he poked round the room, opening the presses, tapping the corded trunk, lifting the pillows on the bed and taking the books down from the shelf.
"Here Philip Guise hath lived, and here hath been content," he remarked. Opening the Greek Bible he showed, with a snigger, the entries on the first page. "That was cleverly done," he grinned, and pointed out with a withered forefinger the entry of the birth of Philip Guise at Islington. "And it never occurred to him," he added in a low whisper, "to go to the register of the parish and see if this piece of information might be confirmed!"
"Why should it occur to him?" replied Shalford angrily. "No doubt 'tis there; if it were not, 'tis no matter to me."
Laurence Ambler gazed at the young man; he wondered at and was alarmed by the recent change in Shalford's demeanour. All doubts and hesitancies, all pangs of conscience and strokes of remorse, all self-torturings as to the rights and wrongs of his secret problem seemed to have been lately effaced from Shalford's mind. Ambler regarded his character as having been violently changed by some stupendous event, and yet what this event might be the old man, clever as he was, could not possibly surmise. He had been so sure of Shalford, so convinced that he would dally and falter with the matter and finally leave it alone; even, as the years went by and life for him became more rich and full and Philip Guise did not cross his path again, forgetting it altogether. But, instead, the young noble man in the last few days had taken the matter up with the sternest determination, and a resolution that was almost violent. He had forced Ambler to accompany him on many futile journeys in the hope of discovering the whereabouts of Philip Guise. The Lombard Street bankers had not known this, the few people whom Shalford knew in London who also were aware of the existence of Philip Guise had not known this. Lady Anstice, most firmly questioned, had not known. It was but too painfully obvious that Cecilia did not know. Shalford had not paused for these rebuffs, and did not appear to have been even checked in his pursuit of the missing man, and Ambler wondered; watchful, suspicious and secretly alarmed, he hung on to the skirts of this changed Shalford on these vexatious and desperate attempts to trace Philip Guise.
"Why doth he want to find him?" Ambler turned that question over in his mind again and again. "The devil knows, I don't; except 'tis certainly not to say: 'Thou art the Earl, this is all thine, take it.'—"
Holding in his hand the large Greek Bible, he glanced over the yellowish cover at Shalford, who was now sternly and with an air of authority questioning the girl and her father in an endeavour to discover from them every possible detail bearing upon the character and ways of Philip Guise. He stood in the window-place with the chill autumn light full over him, his hands on his hips and his embroidered mantle flung over his shoulder. He looked, Ambler thought, ten years older than he had looked a few weeks ago. His face was set and lined, his fair brows were continually knitted, his eyes shadowed beneath; his well-shaped lips were of an unnatural pallor; he had lost his bloom, and even his look of youthfulness, and seemed to that anxious observer like a man who, reckless of consequences, allows himself to be driven forward by an invisible and ferocious force.
Ambler sat on the corded chest and sniggered again at those careful entries in the scholarly hand of the Reverend Robert Fishlock, so neatly displayed on that wide fly-leaf; he then noticed the small document fastened with the red seal inside the book and, observing this was in Greek, had the curiosity to begin to read it to himself. This gave him no difficulty, though the writing was small, in parts obscure, and he detected many faults, as if the writer had not been very familiar with the classic language he used.
Ambler, on an idea that came to him, had much ado to prevent himself from laughing out loud, and turned the convulsion that shook his lean frame into a fit of coughing; under cover of this he rose and set his back to the other three, still engaged in their fruitless conversation, and while so placed contrived to detach the Greek paper from the Bible and to slip it into his wide pocket. When he turned again into the room Shalford was impatiently snatching on his tasselled gloves.
"No more to be learnt here! These people cannot or will not speak. I'll have the house watched, look ye," he added sternly, "and if Captain Guise returns I shall know of it."
"And why should you not know of it, saving your honour?" replied the girl with some heat. "Captain Guise hath done nothing for which he may take shame or remain in hiding, and if he returns no doubt he will be pleased to meet your honour."
"There were two round after him yesterday," put in the poor bewildered baker; "Wilkins the saddle-maker, Power who keeps the toll-gate—they're musical fellows, and Captain Guise had taught them a bit more, and sometimes they'd make up a trio here. They were sorry to find him gone. He played the organ in the church, sir, you know, and was mighty skilful with the music—"
"Damn his music ..." muttered Shalford, and violently descended the narrow dark stairs.
He would not return immediately to London; he must, plagued by reckless misery, wander to the church where he had first met Philip Guise, and stare again at the cottage of the parish clerk where he had taken the register books out of the old chest and found that entry of his father's marriage.
The church was empty, but full of brownish shadows and the smell of decay. The dull hues were thick with dust, the red velvet cushions showed the horsehair stuffing, long greenish cracks and stains of damp defaced the heavy mural tablets, rain had come in through the roof and lay in a pool on the ground.
Shalford sat down on a chair near the pulpit; some panes were out of the window opposite to him, and he could see the mournful grey sky and a few of the last leaves, edged with a thin light, against the slow-moving clouds. Ambler slyly brought out the paper he had stolen from Philip Guise's Greek Bible.
"This would give ye satisfaction if ye had any doubts still, my lord," he whispered.
"I have not sufficient scholarship to read it," replied Shalford without interest when he had glanced at the sheet.
"Well, I've no doubt you will not care to take my translation, but give it, sir, to some independent scholar?"
"How does it concern me?"
"In this manner: This man Fishlock, having something on his conscience, took upon himself before his death to put a sort of confession in this dead language and seal it inside the Book. Ah, human beings will do strange things, sir, when they have secrets on their minds and death cometh near. It is but a few lines, and clumsily writ, but it says clear enough that Philip Guise is not his grandson, but the son by lawful marriage of the late Earl of Shalford and Miss Barbara Pascoe, for many dark reasons and through divers complications hidden away with him, and passed off by him as the son of his daughter, Arabella Guise, and her husband, Louis Guise, the French refugee and silk-worker."
Shalford snatched the paper from Ambler, crumpled it up, cast it down and set his heel on it.
"Prithee, do ye think I am to be plagued with such nonsense as this, invented to vex me?"
Ambler stooped and picked up the paper, from which my lord had removed his heel, smoothed it out and returned it to his pocket.
"You may, if you will, sir, give it to any scholar you may please; do you select one and ask him how he will translate this paper."
To Ambler's considerable surprise the young man appeared indifferent to this speech.
"It matters nothing to me," he said stormily, "whether ye can prove that Philip Guise is the Earl."
"It would have mattered a few days ago," replied Ambler sharply; "this piece of information would then have something moved ye, my lord!"
"I say it does not matter," repeated Shalford. "And now go and get me the carriage, bring it here to the gate across the fields as near as may be, after I have had alone five minutes' space, for I have many matters to think over."
"This is a melancholy spot in which to ponder any accident," protested Ambler. Shalford passionately bade him begone, but the other lingered and peered at the young man through the dismal brownish light that saddened the decayed church. "My lord, I've one good piece of news for you: you'll not be plagued with Thomas Cramer again—the man's gone, fled."
"I've little care for that," replied Shalford, and thought bitterly how much the news would have meant to him only a few days ago.
"Government spies got on his track. He came up to me at Highgate in weary haste, and I kept him hid for twenty-four hours. Then he slipped away, got down the river to Gravesend, on to a Dutch boat or to the north, as I suppose now. He'll find his way to Bar-le-Duc again, and it'll be long odds he don't visit England any more. I take it," added Ambler with an inquisitive look, "that he squeezed your lordship after all, for he seemed well supplied with money."
"He hath had no more from me," returned Shalford indifferently, "and none shall have for this affair, save I pay them to bring me information about Philip Guise. And now, begone!"
Alone in the church, Shalford stared at the small neglected organ where he had seen Philip Guise stand in the queer red coat, those old regimentals from which the braiding had been stripped. How beautiful the anthem had sounded under those skilled fingers, so carefully manipulating the ancient instrument ... how handsome and gallant the dark young musician turning round from the seat at the organ and looking down on the stranger ... how attracted to him had Shalford been, seeing in him so much that he had wished to be himself.... Now he was searching for this same man with an emphasis of hatred, with but the one purpose, that of destroying him in fury.
Sitting in the cold, damp atmosphere and pulling his mantle closer round his shoulders, Shalford mused as to how, when he did find Philip Guise, he should accomplish a duel without scandal, without a blast of public wonder and amaze that should involve and perhaps ruin Cecilia. He must certainly invent some trivial excuse for their quarrel (gentlemen always did as much), but it would be impossible to avoid a great exclamation of amaze.
Shalford turned over in his mind some possible ways in which he might destroy Philip Guise without this woeful scandal and his own peril. If he killed the fellow and remained to stand his trial, he knew he would be acquitted by his peers; but what would come out in the course of that trial? Was the mystery surrounding Philip Guise so securely buried that it might not be dragged to light in the course of minute inquiries I Could all his, Shalford's, money, influence and persuasions hush up the whole affair? He did not know. He was too lately come into his honours and power to know the exact worth of them. His father had few friends in high places. He might have inherited enemies who would be glad to pull him down. He did not know. And what would Ambler say? If Ambler spoke, would he be listened to? What would Cecilia do when Philip Guise was slain violently? Would she be cured of her passion and conceal her pain out of pride, or would she curse her lover's murderer and die? Shalford, in his mind, had stumbled on the word "murderer," and he pulled himself up to face that issue.
"It would be so easy to secretly destroy, nay, do not blench at the word, to murder Philip Guise, to arrange a scuffle, a brawl in a tavern, an attack by footpads, by the press gang; he is helpless, friendless, he might be cast into prison on a false charge, transported to the plantations and be disposed of on the voyage."
Shalford was amazed that such thoughts as these should come readily into his mind, that he should severally consider them.... "If Philip Guise hath gone abroad, how easy to follow him or have him followed—in France, in Flanders, in Austria—anywhere where the war continues; it would not be difficult to put a bullet secretly through him." ... And there would be an end to Shalford's shame, misery and uncertainty; his honour would be vindicated and his pride satisfied.
"Honour and pride, why do I use these terms? They and my thoughts have unsearchable meanings that the heart may not comprise—could I disapparel myself of such deluding terms I might see my way clear. I am alone and quiet, let me resolve what I intend with this man."
Shalford sighed and huddled in his thick cloak. About him the sombre panoply of a morose creed hung neglected by men whose lusts and interests drew them from the dreary temple of their own erection.
"While men run after a pleasing and prevailing world only the dead must, gross in sloth and corruption, be given as company to God—but what's this to me?"
Shalford groaned; he discovered how impossible it is, when the heart aches with passion, for the mind to reason coldly; all argument he tried to start with himself turned to the old silence that sealed all his miserable questions.
"I cannot escape, I must kill him."
Shalford rose. He felt within himself the change that Ambler had anxiously noted; no longer was he the tender, generous, serene and undeveloped young man, bedazzled by dreams and the fantasies of childhood, uncertain, reluctant; some power greater than himself had claws in him, aye, and teeth gnawing him deep. He gripped the back of one of the pews, and observed the whiteness of his own knuckles; a sprinkle of rain red the dust on the filthy pane behind him, which had been half stopped with a rag.
"No, no, I can't escape, that's certain."
CECILIA TORRANCE was ill. There was no need to invent excuses for the postponement of her wedding. The girl lay languid in a low intermittent fever over which the doctors shook their heads and pursed their lips. Lady Anstice trembled. No one had the courage to send true reports of Cecilia to Ireland, and the marriage remained fixed for the end of October.
Shalford forced himself to see her for fear of the scandal to which his continued absence might give rise. Cecilia would come to meet him and sit, withdrawn into herself in a bedgown, bending over the fire and endeavouring to control her fear and shame before him. often weeping silently when he told her of his failure to find Philip Guise.
The young man assured himself he no longer loved this trembling, humbled creature, but more than ever before he loved the Cecilia he had lost, his proud young Diana, his exquisite muse of music, whom his idle heart had deified....
He had sent out of his house his harpsichord, his viol di gamba, his pair of virginals, and closed up the room in which he used to play; had torn up and burnt his books of music, destroying with a trembling hand the sonata by Paradisi which Philip Guise had played to him with such gallant ease. He had taken from Cecilia the song:
"Solitary and musing I idled
Through the most lonely meadows
With slow and mournful steps—"
Music, which he had served so humbly and faithfully, had betrayed him to his greatest disaster; if he had not heard Philip Guise play the organ that day ...
Cecilia often tried to thank him for his kindness, his forbearance; his name protected her, his tolerance held her high ... but Shalford put her by, he would not let her speak; their moments alone together were moments of misery, the worse for him in that she was still young and fine, as (he thought) she should no longer be.
Spent with the endurance of his toleration she once dared to say:
"But this is not so hard for you as if you had really loved me, for I see now that, though you are generous, you are not kind; or is it possible that love can so change?"
Shalford set secret agents to work to find Philip Guise, and discovered some trace of the man at the "Black Bull," where it seemed he sometimes, though not very often, went, and where letters would often wait for him in the cage at the door. In the afternoon that he received this information, which was but two days after his fruitless visit to the house by the toll-gate in Hawbush Lane, a clerk from his bankers waited on Shalford. He was engrossed in the affairs which were absorbing his whole spirit, and would have put this business by harshly, but he was implored most earnestly to see the man, and gave him at length an impatient attention.
The clerk was an elderly man whom Shalford knew well, a respected servant of the bankers.
"What is it that ye must see me for? My steward will attend to this matter."
The clerk asked gravely, standing deferentially before the young lord, sitting weary at his bureau:
"Did your lordship give a bill of money to a certain Philip Guise?"
Shalford stared at the serious face of the speaker. Was, always and for ever, everything to come round to Philip Guise?
"Yes. The man was for a while in my employment, and on his leaving I gave him a bill."
"For how much, my lord?"
"For fifty guineas. An extravagant amount, but I hope it hath not been questioned."
"Nay, my lord, the bill unfortunately was not questioned," replied the clerk with emphasis. "It was this which was presented."
He laid on the bureau in front of Shalford the bill he well remembered signing and giving to Philip Guise.
"Well, what is the matter with this? What is wrong? 'Tis my own hand."
"Sir, you will notice, your lordship will notice that the bill is made out for five hundred guineas."
Shalford stared at the paper, which read "Five hundred guineas" in writing and figures, turned it over and looked at the signature of Philip Guise.
"Sir, it hath been altered," said the clerk; "your lordship will see that, though very skilfully done. Unfortunately, the clerk, knowing your lordship's hand so well and mistrusting nothing, paid out the money in rouleaux of guineas across the counter, and it was only afterwards, when it came into the hands of Mr. Thistlewaite himself, that the amount was questioned and the paper examined, that then the forgery seemed to be apparent."
"Forgery!" repeated Shalford stupidly.
"Your lordship hath confirmed that it was a forgery; your lordship said the bill was for fifty guineas."
Shalford was silent, turning the paper over and over in his fine fingers, while the man watched him anxiously. Easy for him to say: "No, I made a mistake; it was for five hundred guineas."
He repeated:
"Forgery! That's a deep offence."
"Sir, it's now a hanging matter."
"Who presented the bill?"
"That, my lord, we have made every endeavour to discover, but the clerk can remember little beyond that it was a stranger to him—a well-set-up, fine-looking man, he thinks, wearing a black peruke. He said he was Philip Guise when questioned as to his identity, and he asked for the money in gold, and so took it away in small rouleaux, which he placed in his wallet."
"A forgery," repeated Shalford. "The bill was for fifty guineas."
He stared down at the paper with a ferocious pleasure. Why, he need have no compunction, no remorse in dealing with this scoundrel, this felon, whose way was to thrust in the back. Instead of taking Cecilia openly, he had privately ruined her; instead of remaining in my lord's employ and honestly earning money, he had taken the bill, altered the figures and stolen four hundred and fifty guineas; aye, and no doubt gone abroad with it, the ruffian.
Shalford leant back in his big chair with arms and began to laugh, his eyes dark, his cheeks flushing, so that the clerk stood away from him amazed.... No need now for any duel, any scandal, any explanation, any peril. No need for him to stain his sword for this fellow, or stand trial for his life before his peers because he sent his dirty soul out of his body. No need for him to search for him, the sergeants and constables would find him quick enough. Let him be thrown into Newgate and carted to Tyburn and hanged by the neck till he was dead.... Shalford checked his exultation, sat erect in his chair, and faced the clerk.
"This is a palpable forgery; the note was for fifty guineas, and I marvel that this was passed."
"The bankers, my lord, are overwhelmed at the negligence; they are willing to make up the difference to your lordship, for they know that unless a young and inexperienced man had been—"
"No matter for that," interrupted Shalford; "no doubt this sly villain was on the watch for a moment when a young and inexperienced man should be at the counter. These things happen too often, and there must be some example made—why, forgery becomes as common as highway robbery!"
"'Tis an ill end to which to turn education," replied the clerk, "and a knavish action thus to abuse your lordship's generosity. Five hundred guineas is a great deal of money."
"How was it done?" asked Shalford, peering at the bond, which presented a smooth and fair enough appearance.
The clerk, bending respectfully nearer, explained:
"Your lordship writes a very fine light hand, and either side of 'Fifty' was a clear space. That 'Fifty' was skilfully removed by some chemical, and 'Five hundred' written in, filling up all the line, and in a wonderful counterfeit of your writing, sir, painfully copied from your signature. You will observe, sir, that 'Shalford' contains most of the letters used. The very ink was matched; as for the figures below, 'twas but a question of adding a 'nought.' This Philip Guise must be very skilful."
"Aye," agreed the Earl fiercely. "I often noted the fine neatness with which he copied music, and his care with quills and ink—an accomplished rogue."
"So it seems, my lord. There are a prodigious number of these persons now, since banking has come into greater use—and 'tis hard to credit the skill with which they go about their forgeries. Many of 'em are old politics who learnt to use cipher and invisible ink and copy hands—your lordship will recollect there was six hanged last year—"
In his cruel delight at discovering his enemy (whom be had bitterly imagined his superior in everything) to be a felon, the Earl did not heed this anxious speech; he was examining the bond for himself, spying out the very clever forgery—over which he saw the shapely hands of Philip Guise lingering....
Shalford, shivering with excitement, asked when the bill had been handed in. But it seemed there was some uncertainty about this date; that it fell possibly some two weeks back. As far as Shalford could trace the bill had been presented a long while after he had given it to Philip Guise; the rogue, then, had been taking his time and watching his opportunity.
The clerk asked for information concerning Philip Guise, and if his lordship knew his whereabouts.
"Not I. I have searched for him"—Shalford caught himself up—"I mean I have sent to the only address which I had, for he left me brusquely and in an ill humour, and I, in my foolishness, was sorry for the fellow. He was a man of certain parts and presence; I heard him by chance playing an organ in a church." Shalford made this unnecessary explanation with nervous rapidity. "I engaged him to make music for me sometimes, but I found him difficult, uncertain and perilous in temper; though I was willing to keep him, almost out of charity, he would go; since then I have not heard of him."
"For a good reason, my lord," replied the clerk dryly. "No doubt he has already left the country. If your lordship will furnish a description of this fellow, and what you know of his habits and whereabouts, and where he was last seen, I will give it into the hands of our attorneys."
Shalford smiled; and the old man was a little surprised to see my lord, who was known to be of a mild and generous temper, take so to heart this loss of four hundred and fifty guineas, which was indeed but a small thing to one of his fortune, and appear to be so vindictively pleased at the thought of the capture of the criminal.... "Well, well, 'tis just and right that these fellows should be laid by the heels, but I had ever thought this a mild and humane youth, yet his face, as he sits writing there, is cruel. Well, people change; he was but a boy when I saw him last; now he's grown up and come into his kingdom, and maybe," thought the old man uncomfortably, "he has something of his father in him after all."
With nervous rapidity Shalford wrote out a description of Philip Guise—ah, how well he knew that countenance, that figure, that air, those accents.... He could describe him minutely. Even as he wrote the dark, careless face seemed to smile down at him. "My God, here's a cast of fortune! My God, here's a chance! Thus to be released, thus to know what he really is, thus to be able to deliver him to a deserved punishment!—"
The clerk took the paper. Shalford rang the bell and called for his steward.
Before this man he repeated the affair in loud voluble tones: A forgery, a robbery of four hundred and fifty guineas; that man, Philip Guise, he had had in his house as a manner of secretary and to play to him, the man who had left in a wanton temper and evil mood, had forged the bill, making fifty guineas into five hundred guineas.
Shalford, during the steward's exclamation of horror and wonder, dropped the damning document into one of the small drawers of his bureau. He showed, indeed, such vehemence and relish in the affair that the steward, disgusted as he was with Philip Guise, thought in his heart: "I would have hardly believed that my lord had made so much of the loss of four hundred and fifty guineas."
He suggested doubtfully:
"Your lordship will find a difficulty in tracing the fellow."
Shalford replied violently:
"I'll find the rascal if it cost me a fortune."
And it seemed to him that he stood eye to eye with a defeated enemy.
He carried his tremendous news to Laurence Ambler, and found him at Highgate with his lamp and his books and Mrs. Luckett, now crept into temporary favour, brewing tea for him. Shalford hotly commanded the negress out of the room, and immediately she had gone cried exultantly:
"I have settled the case of Philip Guise!"
"Why must our talk be always of Philip Guise?" snarled Ambler, bringing his open hand down on the table. "I know who he is, and ye know who he is, and neither of us intend to speak, and the man has gone to the moon for all I know, so let it be."
"Old knave, I have let it be," replied Shalford, smiling. "I no longer need to search for him, there are others who will do that; nor need I make any mystery or concealment. Why," he cried in excitement, "the fellow is no more than a rogue and a common thief! 'Tis I who have been deceived and fooled."
Ambler put down his freshly-cut quill, folding his arms in front of the sheet of Greek text before him, and pulled the lamp so that the light fell on the inflamed and excited countenance of my lord.
"Now, what is all this pother?"
Shalford told him.
"But did he do it?" sneered Ambler.
"Why, there's the proof, ye obstinate old man, there is the very bill I gave him with his name on it and the amount altered; he hath been identified as having been to Thistlewaite's, Lombard Street, and presenting it."
Ambler shook his head.
"He never did it; I'll not credit it. There's malice or intrigue at work; it may be your lordship knows about that."
"D'ye think I've invented this to pull Philip Guise down? Bah! begone with your foul fancies; there is no need, the fellow is already in the dirt, the gutter; he will be lodged in jail. D'ye think this is the first trick of the kind he hath played? I might have known—an adventurer mingling with the scum of Europe. I know what these are, these led captains; I've seen 'em abroad, and how they make their living. What do I know of his career? He may be a deserter—a spy. But, since he hath a pleasing face and a ready tongue, I was deceived by him."
Ambler appeared not in the least moved by this tirade. He merely replied:
"He's a gentleman, and honest. I know something of how he hath been bred, and what life he has led, and I am certain he has never fallen into any disgrace—"
"Until now," sneered Shalford. "I've set the law on him."
Ambler pushed back his chair and rose.
"Ye have set the law in motion against Philip Guise?"
Shalford folded his arms across his chest and stared at him defiantly.
"Yes. What else would ye propose? 'Tis a common criminal. He hath robbed me of over four hundred pounds."
"And what have ye robbed him of?" asked Ambler. "Say this charge were true, which I believe it is not. Come, my lord, I have had many different thoughts of thee, but never a wholly ignoble one, and I cannot credit that thou hast set the law on Philip Guise."
"This very morning!" cried Shalford. "What else could I do?"
"The bill was brought to thee?" asked Ambler intently, with puckered brows, "and the forgery demonstrated? Well, thou couldst have torn it across or set it in the candle, and there would have been no evidence against any man; or thou couldst have said: 'I am well known for my extravagance and generosity, my rent-roll is high; this damned fellow pleased me, and I did pay him five hundred guineas.'—"
"I could have done this," replied Shalford sullenly, "but I did not. I told the truth, the truth, d'ye hear? I said the bill was for fifty guineas. I had my steward in, I made him a witness, and I did not destroy the bill; it lies now locked in my bureau."
"Why d'ye come to tell me this foul plot?" asked Ambler. "To me who have held my hand so long, and for such a little bribe! Wilt thou prove that thou art indeed my late lord's son, even though it only be his bastard son?"
"Old man, shouldst thou provoke me, I might strike thee and hurt thee deadly. Of lately my mind hath changed, and I am no longer that simple, foolish youth who was the sport of every man's devices. Thou hast lied to me deeply and blackly, thinking to entangle and deceive me, but now I am free of it. I see the manner of man Philip Guise is. Aye, for aught I know, may he not have been put upon me by thee? Thou and that scoundrelly hell-cat Cramer ... Philip Guise himself—all in a coil to bleed and squeeze me. How easy it had been to put that entry in the parish register in Islington, how easy to concoct the whole story—thou and thy Greek which proves him the heir!"
Shalford set his hands on his hips and laughed long and loud, like one amused by a malicious jest.
"So," muttered Ambler dryly, "this is your way of getting rid of Philip Guise? You'd have him hanged, eh? A neat solution to all difficulties, no doubt."
"I'll have him hanged," confirmed Shalford, still laughing.
"Then," snarled Ambler, "if ye will show no mercy to him, I'll show none to thee. I'll speak, tell all I know."
Shalford ceased to laugh; his look was menacing.
"Keep wide of me with thy threats!" he cried. "Shall I hang my head before thee?"
Ambler drew back. He was so used to cringe before a more powerful man; the spirit that stared him down from Shalford's bloodstained eyes seemed the spirit of his late vile master. He became afraid; the Earl saw this and rejoiced.
"Ah, it doth not take a loud volley to silence thee. Leave thy bravado, thou'll not speak. Thou hast thy ease, thy pension—thy cowardice. Thou wilt allow him to hang."
Ambler turned aside, stricken, with closed mouth. This young man had indeed great power, and he, old, longing for comfort, eager for safety, had hardly the strength to cope with the youth he had once thought so gentle and biddable. He began to regard the whole affair with weariness and indifference, and hugged compromise to a shrivelled heart.
"After all, the fellow may have got abroad," he muttered.
"The world is not so wide," cried Shalford with wicked glee, "but that I'll not catch him in some corner of it!"
Ambler, with bent head, glanced at him, to see him, with horrid force, tearing his handkerchief with his teeth; the veins were thick in his full neck, which showed flushed above the white muslin of his cravat.
POLLY lay awake in the cold autumn night and scolded herself for a fool. "Why must thou ever be thinking of him and troubling about him, thou great big simpleton? He'll not come back and if he did it would not be for thee; 'tis all beyond thy heeding, and thou must marry thy cousin Joe, who is good and kind and will work hard to make thee a living."
So Polly, whose head ever made a good battle with her heart, fought down her dreams, but could not wholly lull herself to sleep; she heard the continuous, half-muffled steps on the stairs and the odd creakings which will disturb those who cannot sleep because of wrangling thoughts.
She became impatient at last, and shivered from her warm bed, shuddering in the night air, and lit a candle, fumbling with cold fingers over the flint and tinder. Surely there was some one on the stairs now—her father or Jane, the old woman who lived with them, awake perhaps, with some sickness ...
Polly, who slept in the little room behind the parlour, opened her door and saw a gleam of light falling down the stairway from the two upper rooms; at this it did not take her long to put on her dress and slippers, tie up her hair, take her candle, and run up towards that same beamy line which came from under the door of Philip Guise's chamber.
She knocked there, insistently yet cautiously, so as not to make too great a noise.
The door was opened at once and Philip Guise stood before her; he also holding a candle in his hand, the light of which fell over his old red coat. He laughed at her with his usual gay good humour, then, seeing an expression of amaze and trouble on her face, he sobered, drew her within and dropped the latch, and asked her what was her news.
"Nay, what is thine?" whispered Polly. "Why art thou returned, so suddenly and so mysteriously?"
She shaded her candle with her plump hand, and looked at him over her trembling fingers; he was not changed. Somehow she had expected him to be changed, it seemed so long since she had seen him. Philip Guise, her love shone in her like a star.
Smiling, amused at her perturbation, he told her that it was only a few weeks, scarcely more than days, since he had left Islington, and as for this sudden and mysterious return, why, there was nothing in it. "A man who hath to go by coach-hire, Polly, and hath not his own horse will often arrive at inconvenient hours. And ye have forgotten how early ye go to bed. I was here soon after sunset, which is early enough now, and visited some of my acquaintances in the place and then came here, and found ye abed. I made no ado of that, having my key."
He spoke carelessly, but he was looking at Polly shrewdly. "Had she a message for him? Had there been any visitors while he was away?"
Polly glanced round the room, then her first care was to draw the curtains closely, to move both the candles so that their light did not fall directly upon the window.
"I believe they're watching for ye," she whispered. "The gentleman said he'd have the house watched, it's a marvel ye were not seen coming in—I believe I've seen one spying near."
"Have the house watched, and for me?" asked Philip Guise. "Now who was this?"
He guessed at once that it must be Shalford.
Polly told him of the visit of the two gentlemen; Philip Guise recognized his former patron and the patron's friend, or servant, or jackal—the gaunt, ugly scholar, Laurence Ambler, in the girl's description.
"They questioned close, did those gentlemen," added Polly; "the young one was fuming and would hardly take no for an answer. They came poking into this here place and opening your presses, and whispering together, and I don't like it at all. Oh, tell me, Captain Guise, have you done anything?"
"The young man was Lord Shalford," replied Philip Guise easily. "Of that I make no doubt. You must know, Polly, that he's strange—eccentric, they call it—and I was, for a short time, in his employ, and he would have detained me against my will, and, as I suppose, he came here to further persuade me."
"Well, 'twas a great pother over a matter like that," mused Polly. Then she added slyly: "There was a lady came too; that was a day or so after ye'd left."
"A lady? Describe her to me. What was she like?"
"Oh, you knew best," cried Polly shrewdly, tossing her head, "what that lady would be like, Captain Guise!"
Philip Guise considered, all the gaiety gone from his face, while he asked himself if this were Cecilia repenting of her denial, and if Shalford had indeed merely come in order to endeavour to retain him in his service or because he had discovered what Philip Guise hoped to hold for ever secret?
Taking Polly's hand, he began to coax her and plead with her with great urgency to describe to him the lady.
The girl became not only jealous, but frightened. "If I let him know that the lady was distressed, maybe he will seek her out, and these men, whom I am sure are his enemies, will get him into their power;" so she described the lady as dark and dwarfish, middle-aged and ill-favoured, for she regretted having told him of this visit at all, and to end the matter she finally said that it was his laundress, that she had paid her and let her go, and told him the matter to put a jest on him; at which Philip Guise laughed, but ruefully, and knew not what to make of any of the matter.
But he could scarcely believe that this visitor had been Cecilia, or, if it had been, she had surely since repented herself of that imprudence, for he knew from the "Gazette" and the "Mercury," that she was still betrothed to the Earl of Shalford and that her marriage would take place at the end of the month; so he stood baffled and displeased with himself.
Polly took his hand in both hers and pressed it to her cheek, and cast about in her mind as to how she might make him at ease.
"Look ye, Captain Guise, I hope ye will not come back again, and I'm to marry Joe at Christmas, and I mean to be faithful to him too," she added defiantly, yet laughed too, at a memory that was not of Joe.
"Well," smiled Philip Guise good-humouredly, caressing her hair, "thou hast my good wishes and the little house for a dowry, and I'll be gone in the morning early, Polly, and not trouble thee again. I only came back for a pair of pistols which, I take it, are in yonder chest; there are one or two other small matters which, it seemed, I forgot—I left in something of a haste."
"But where hast thou been all this time?" asked Polly, anxiously and nervously. "Those gentlemen had been searching for thee."
"I was safe enough," replied Philip Guise casually and good-humouredly.
And he told her the simple reason that had prevented him from at once leaving the country. He had chanced upon an ancient companion-at-arms who knew of one adventurer who was recruiting men and officers for Prince Charles Alexander for the Eastern war, and held his headquarters in Ath, a town in Spanish Flanders. Philip Guise, on this friend's recommendation, had good hopes of a company in this regiment of mercenaries, but he had delayed his departure for two reasons: first, he lacked sufficient equipment, and waited for the day when he might draw his quarter's annuity; secondly, he waited for the sailing of a certain ship—"The Flanders Lion"—which made frequent voyages between the Thames and the Low Countries.
"The captain is a friend of mine, and will take me and my companion for nothing, or near it," and he added that since he had left Islington he had been living at a riverside tavern by Wapping Old Stairs, where it was very fresh and agreeable, and he had pleasant company; "and hark ye, Polly, there is an old spinet and a few urchins to whom I am teaching music, and they sing fairly and sweetly already."
In mock solemnity Philip Guise made these explanations, smiling at Polly's serious face as he turned over the articles in his bureau and press, considering that strap and buckle, turning over this pouch or neckcloth.
"And now, silly chuck, art thou satisfied—with thy ridiculous pique against thy visitor, and thy romantical notions of mystery and peril?"
But Polly put out one of the candles, still fearful of the light in the narrow room; not comforted, she entreated him to return to Wapping before it was light.
"I am ignorant of what's threatened, Captain Guise, but oh, sir, the young lord had no goodwill towards thee!"
"What d'ye think he could do to me?" smiled Philip Guise.
"There's ways I don't know; people get pressed for the sea and put into jail on trumped-up charges and debts by the industry and contrivance of those who hate 'em."
"Which reminds me, how much didst thou pay the laundress for me?"
He laughingly put two crowns down on the bureau close by Polly's hand.
"But this young lord was angry," insisted Polly, taking no heed of the coins, but, at the back of her mind, intending to keep them, put a hole in them, and thread them with a ribbon so that she might hang them round her neck and drop them on her bosom. "Put the sea between ye and all this here pother."
"Take notice, dear; I must wait till my money is due," smiled Philip Guise, "for I have been careless and thoughtless, as usual, Polly. There are some loans to friends which I have not been able to have, and a certain other sum that was due to me I did refuse, and so, my Polly, before I can buy what is needful, I must have my next payment. With this pair of pistols, maybe, I can make shift, but I must have a horse, Polly; ah, child, if thou knewest how I long to have a horse again! Now don't disturb thy wits, dear, which are none of the strongest, with what no one gives himself any trouble about."
But Polly was in earnest; the more light and casual he seemed the more urgent appeared to her this mysterious, dark menace which she had read in the visit of the angry blond young lord.
"Stop not for horse nor pistols nor equipment," she urged; "do not come here again, let no one know thy whereabouts."
Philip Guise took all this for simple ignorance. He did not believe that Shalford could have discovered Cecilia's secret except from her own confession, and her own confession he found it impossible to conceive of her making; nay, the eccentric, wayward young lord had merely been after him to induce him to return to his service. But as he had only come to Islington out of a certain idleness to put through agreeably some of the time of waiting, and to fetch his pair of pistols and some other small belongings, he soothed good-naturedly Polly's obvious terror by promising her to depart as quickly and quietly as possible and not return before he sailed. And he gave her the address of the tavern at Wapping Old Stairs, called the "Generous Gift," where she might find him if she would.
"Thou art a kind, faithful child, Polly," he added warmly, touched by her sincere concern for him, "and when I am returned from the war I hope to see thee safely married, and to bring thee a Turkish tassel for thy children to play with, and thee with them, at a maypole again, bedecked with flowers and bloom."
The tears stood in Polly's bright eyes; she knew how often in the future she would dwell on these precious moments when they had stood so close together, bound by such intimate talk in the secret silence of the chill night, how often she would conjure up before her mind that charming, gay, good-humoured face, at once so impressive and so kindly. The best of companions, the dearest of playfellows, a man not without regrets and longings and ambitions, yet one cheerfully supporting a humble fate, one whose great gifts had been thwarted in their purpose by circumstance, but who yet remained serene in obscurity. Polly could not have put this into words, but she sensed the steady nobility hidden beneath an easy demeanour; she eyed him with a generous love. He wore the neckcloth she had hemmed, the coat she had mended; he spoke to her so kindly, with smiles that seemed to raise her to his level....
He uncorded the trunk, took the pistols out, and, seated beneath the shelf which held the Greek Bible, carefully polished case and weapons with a silk kerchief.
Polly, with loving interest in his most trivial actions, reminded him that he had taken another pair with him, but Philip Guise cheerfully told her he had sold those to his companion. Polly held the one candle high that he might be free of shadow in his work, and watched him with a yearning affection. They seemed so secure in the silence and seclusion of the little room in the little house; the very dark and chill air seemed to increase their intimacy.
"As if we were married," thought she, "and he had no need to tell me he loved me."
She gazed at the bright black hair which curled so strongly over his low forehead and was caught so carelessly into the plain buckle, at his straight, comely features and lively dark eyes, his fine figure and wide shoulders, the shapely hands that went so busily over their work. She would have had him begone at once (still alert in her indefinable terror), but he laughingly protested there was no danger, it was her moonshine, and he would stay, he would have an hour or so's sleep; why, he would not be back in Wapping until to-morrow. But to soothe and please her he said he would begone before the dawn, believing that she would return to her bed and forget to wake him.
Polly eagerly accepted the bargain. He would sleep as he was, ready clothed, with his pistols by his side, and, on her tap, rouse and begone....
The young man rose and considered the girl, impressed at last by her seriousness, touched by her devotion. Never had he met so fiery a little creature, so self-contained. She asked nothing, she was a philosopher, was the poor little wench with her fresh and jolly comeliness, her neat dimity gown, her resigned, defiant air. Very earthly was Polly, but no doubt she had as much of the angel, thought Philip Guise, as the other young woman who had played the divinity to Shalford's credulity so long, but proved mortal enough—sweet, impulsive, foolish Cecilia ...
"Thou art not thinking of me," said Polly sharply, "for all thou starest at my face—shan't, then, I tell thee, Captain Guise—who cares a fig for thy looks!"
And laughing and tossing, with the tears in her bright eyes, Polly turned gallantly to the door.
But he was beside her, coaxing, though he had flushed at the true accusation—impossible to part, save in kindness, from Polly.
"Shall I return for thy wedding, chuck, and amuse thee by playing the Jack Pudding? Thou knowest my skill for a solo on the salt box, or a sonata on the tongs and gridiron—"
"Hush ye," whispered Polly, half laughing. "Art from Moorfields? Wilt have the house awake?"
"Polly, don't go—dress up my hair as thou didst once to make it look a tye periwig."
"Nay, I'll no more of that fool's play." Polly was sobbing louder than she could laugh. "This here talk don't help us—you genmen take so easy what's hard enough to sillies like me."
"I'm shamed. What can I do, dear?"
"Let me go."
She snatched up her extinguished candle and turned away, waiting for no farewell. But she did not go back to her room. Outside his door she kept a patient vigil till the first grey light of dawn rose across the little garden and the bare apple trees, and her thoughts played to and fro like bloom in the breeze of spring.
Then Polly tapped on his door and, when he did not answer, entered and roused the tired man who slept, dressed, on the bed she had made.
He awoke, laughed, yawned, protested, and at last good-humouredly gave in to her caprice....
"Must I be back-broken by thy dismal load of fears?"
He took up his pistols, a small valise, and reminded her that he would have to walk as far as Queenhithe for a pair of oars.
"Must I go under cloud of night, like a sheep stealer?"
Polly cared not a bit for these gibes, nor for his laughing amusement at her anxiety. She hastened him down into the kitchen, drew him a mug of beer, offered him food—which he gaily refused—and so forced him, still yawning and stretching, into the narrow garden. On the threshold of the little shop door he bade her farewell, catching her round the waist.
"Nay, dost thou think that I would leave thee without a kiss?"
He kissed her on brow and lips ... their parting, at this, seemed to both a folly.
Polly said no word after that, but watched him go as far as her eyes could see through the twilight of dawn; shuddering in the cold air she waited furtively at the half-opened shop door; how dreadful was the loneliness when he had gone; how, the girl asked herself, had she come to have the fortitude to send him away?
Her head drooped on her forlorn bosom; she might have possibly won him to be her lover. Of what use to her was her virtue? She was so cold and cramped, she wished she might freeze and die where she stood.
But she was alert immediately she saw the beamy light of a lanthorn dispersing the brightening greyness and the shape of a man hesitating at the garden gate ... surely he had been watching the house and had observed Philip Guise leave.
The stranger had seen the waiting girl and her candle; he approached her; their several lights showed an individual of an obscure and debased appearance who, very well, she thought, might be a bailiff or sergeant or constable.
This person questioned her as to who had just left her.
Polly lied quickly.
"No one. I was looking out for my cousin Joe, who comes now to help with the baking. I came down to get the fire up—and what's it to thee, old cogger?"
The constable laughed; it was more likely the pretty piece had a rustic lover than that Philip Guise, against whom there was a warrant out for forgery, should venture back to his old Islington lodgings.
"Lord, I don't ask ye for a raw head and bloody bones in return for a civil question, my saucy—I thought maybe the genmen was Captain Guise."
"Why should it be?" replied Polly contemptuously. "Captain Guise left here weeks ago; he's the other side of Europe, or maybe at Bristol, drinking the hot springs. And this," she added, with a scorn to cover an excess of nervousness, "is a strange hour for one genmen to inquire after another genmen."
She slammed the door in his face and slipped the bolt into its place so that he could hear the hostile rattle.
The yawning constable was not very diligent at his work. He did not believe that Polly had any reason to lie to him, nor did he believe it in the least likely (in fact, was hardly within the bounds of possibility) that the hunted forger would return to his lodgings, either by day or night; why, he could not be so big a fool ... On this supposition the constable had very comfortably passed the night between the ancient parlours of the "Pied Bull" and the "Angel" with his feet in the embers and the punch-bowl on his knees, and it was only just before light that he had roused himself to resume his patrol and glimpsed the figure leaving the shop.
He made some attempt to follow this person, but found he had not gone through the toll-gate but cut across the fields, so, with a grumble, gave up the pursuit. But he did make a report to the young Earl's attorney that a man, whom it had been impossible to identify or pursue, had slipped past the baker's house at Hawbush Lane just before the dawn. Perhaps he had not left the house, or perhaps he was the girl's lover, but there remained a chance that it might have been Philip Guise, in which case the girl was an accomplice of his and probably would know his whereabouts; she seemed a quick, cunning little flyaway.
"One of his doxies as I make no doubt," cried Shalford impatiently when told the report, "and through her we'll get him; I recall her, a bold little hussy; and," he added cruelly to himself, "if Ambler squeals we'll get him too."
He no longer felt afraid of any person or any event, it was as if he had the Devil for his ally ... so many were afraid of him, so many cringed to him, through fearful days and nights he kept his soul bound and went diligently in pursuit of Philip Guise.
"How much easier, this, than sword or pistols."
If only he could have shut from his mind the face of Cecilia, her expectant eyes, her swollen mouth, her nervous, humble smile of supplication that, whenever he approached her, implored:
"Have you found him?"
POLLY trembled before the large, dark blue vases in the massive room of the Lincoln's Inn Fields mansion. She was wearing her best hat and cloak, her hands were clasped nervously one within the other, and she stared with alarmed yet defiant eyes at Lord Shalford, who sat in the long chair by the window-place.
This young lord had seemed a figure of supernatural strength and size, as formidable as splendid, to Polly since the day of his sudden and terrifying visit to Hawbush Lane; she had expected terror to grow out of that visit, and it had come. This time there had been no coach rolling up before the baker's humble garden, but a footman with a sharp summons for her to attend my lord in his town mansion to answer to him on some matters of high import. Polly had made various pretences to escape the journey, but her father, half terrified and half flattered, thinking, maybe, the girl's services would be rewarded, had persuaded her to face my lord. After all, they were honest people who owed no penny to any man and had nothing on their minds, and by pleasing my lord she might gain a present which would mean a substantial increase towards her dowry. So Polly stood in the handsome, strange apartment which so awed her, and stared with hostility at the young man who appeared to her almost omnipotent in his powers and his lofty terrible privileges, none of which could be even guessed at by poor Polly, to whom the nobility were as the gods.
Shalford had questioned her carefully and with what patience he could muster for this untaught rustic, at once stupid and sly. From what the careless constable had told him he was convinced that she was the friend, the mistress (accomplice, he named her in his mind) of Philip Guise, who had visited her secretly at night, probably to share with her, or conceal some of the money he had obtained from the forged bill, and Polly's fear, sullenness and shrinking defiance confirmed Shalford's angry suspicions.
He was seated, with a perversity he could not explain to himself, in the chaise-longue or invalid chair which his father had occupied on the occasion of their last interview before my late lord's accident, and as he questioned (half threatening, half coaxing) and strove to overbear the humble, frightened creature in his power, he thought continuously of how he himself had stood in some such discomfort before my late lord's envy and malice.
Why had he chosen this room for this interview? Why, indeed, did he live in a mansion so hateful, where he must with every going-in and coming-out pass the room where his brother had destroyed himself?
Shalford did not know the reason for this continuous self-torture. The pattern of his life seemed to have got out of his own control, big and small events, all fitting the one into the other, hurried him forward to some climax that he dreaded to even guess at ... but he could neither pause nor turn back nor take another direction. He had recently several times looked at himself in the long mirror in his bedchamber and seen, with worse than an aversion, a likeness to his father impressed upon his own countenance; he heard, too, his father's tones in the high, cold and malicious voice with which he questioned the girl.
Polly was staunch; with the cunning of the unlearned she took refuge in stupid denials.
Philip Guise had not been to the baker's house, she did not know where he was, she had never heard from him; all the divers and crafty means whereby Shalford tried to entrap or bribe her into giving him the information he hungered for she met with denials which the young man took to be too idiotic to be true.
"I'll swear ye lie or are of weak understanding," he cried angrily. "'Tis plain knowledge that Philip Guise, two days since, visited you at night."
And Polly repeated yet again:
"Your honour may say what you will, I'll swear it is not so; your honour may be hasty as gunpowder, but he don't fright me."
"Thou art a foolish and impudent wench, but shalt not escape me!" cried Shalford.
He bit his forefinger nervously and looked with an emphasis of contempt at the poor creature who was so much in his power, so frightened of him and yet so resolute to deny him.
"This Philip Guise, he had his friends. No doubt the girl was well paid. She would have her part of the stolen money. His secret mistress, too, no doubt. Cecilia had had to share this man's favours with a wench like this Polly."
Shalford shrank before this thought, which he could not prevent leaping to the forefront of his mind. A look of such anguish and humiliation crossed his features and he cut off so sharply a bitter exclamation that Polly was moved with pity for him, and for the first time since, with dread and reluctance, she had entered the great room, she began to waver in her doubts and suspicions, and to think that there was truth in the fine grey eyes of my lord.
"Oh, your honour, I'm such an ignorant fool, 'tis a sad thing with no one to advise one, and if I could but think your lordship meant goodwill——"
Shalford, recovering himself, stopped her stumbling words. Her emotion had put a quick notion into his head that had come so suddenly that he believed some one—was it his father?—had whispered it in his ear. He leant across the arm of his chair and addressed her with assumed kindness.
"My pretty lass, I'll not confound thee nor bait thee, let it all be. Go back to thy father, my child, and forget the matter. I must take other means to find Philip Guise. Come, what is it now?"
Polly had sunk on to the edge of one of the formal stools which stood between the large gross blue vases, and was beginning to whimper softly into her bare hands.
"I will send thee back safely, and thou shalt have a purse of guineas for thy pains in coming here." She murmured:
"Sir, I'm all in a maze and don't know what to do, no, I swear I don't."
"Well, I don't complain of you," smiled Shalford, "'twas in my mind to do Captain Guise a kindness, to send him a letter that has been writ with pains and contains matters of importance, and, maybe, he would thank you if you would give it to him. Dost thou not know I was his friend, that he was living here, entreated to remain? Child, thou art very unsensible or very ill-natured to assume me to be the enemy of thy Philip Guise."
He kept his tones sweetly level, and Polly, mopping her eyes with the corner of a coarse kerchief, began to feel herself a fool; indeed, what had she to go on, save her own instinct, that the two men were enemies? When she had told Philip Guise that Lord Shalford had come to visit him, the young man had shown no alarm nor discomposure. Polly had believed that they were rivals for the beautiful troubled creature who had made that first visit to the baker's shop, but she could not be certain that this Cecilia Torrance betrothed to Lord Shalford was indeed the lady who had sat in the rush-bottomed chair and whispered, "I must find Philip Guise."
Polly tried to dry her eyes and think the matter over in her loyal, earnest and bewildered mind.
The young man, trembling with secret rage, watched her with forced calm.
"It is unkindly done," remarked he shrewdly, "to make this doubt and difficulty, but I'll not chide thee, child."
Polly tried, in her crude language, to cry out and plead with the great lord to tell her for what occasion he required Philip Guise, and if any possible evil might befall that gentleman through her revelation of his whereabouts.
Young Shalford rose and stood in the window-place, tapping the woodwork gravely with his smooth, white hand.
"Child, why must you think that one like myself should take upon himself an unkindness to one of the quality of Captain Guise?" and he did not know that he lied as he spoke.
Polly, wiping her eyes and still pulling at the corners of her kerchief, was for blurting out the whole truth—how Captain Guise had come home for his case of pistols, had stayed but a few hours, and was waiting at the "Generous Gift," at Wapping Old Stairs, for the drawing of his money, and then would be abroad on the Flemish ship on his way to the wars to fight under some foreign prince against the Blackamoors.
But the Earl turned his head too eagerly, there was too sharp a light in his grey eyes as Polly began her tale, and her old fear and her old resolution returned; she would not, could not trust this man.
"I'm sure, your honour," she sighed, resolute for all her fright, "no man breathing can be worth the trouble your honour gives himself over Captain Guise. Your lordship spends a deal of trouble on the matter, but don't bait me any more, now, prithee don't. I can resist, my lord, indeed I can," insisted Polly, "for I feel a strange unquietness that none of this bears any good to Captain Guise, and I'll not deny I've a great interest in his fortunes."
"I admire your effrontery," returned Shalford coldly, "'tis not what I expected, but begone and consider the matter over."
Polly made two glad paces towards the door, then hesitated.
"Your lordship spoke of a letter. If you was to send me such a letter I'll not say that I might contrive a manner to be the carrier of it."
Shalford was about to refuse this undignified bargaining, but he had had such a taste of the girl's resolution and obstinacy that he judged it wise even to accept this small concession.
"I will give you such a letter."
"And if I discover where Captain Guise is," said Polly, whipping up her courage with greater success as she saw the result of her offer, "I'll not be followed. I'll take it in my own time and in my own way, and I'd like your lordship's word of honour that I'll not be followed."
"So ye've thought of that, have ye?" laughed Shalford; no doubt the hussy was used to secret errands and hidden intrigues. "I think something less than my word must suffice thee. Now begone, and some time this evening I will send for ye and give ye such a letter as we have spoken of."
Polly, doubtful and whimpering again, but not in the least shaken in her firm resolution, sat down in my lord's great kitchen, scrutinized and questioned by my lord's housekeeper and servants while she sat before the fire to eat a syllabub. She kept her own counsel, for she soon saw that my lord had not let slip among his household and company the matter of Philip Guise.
Musing alone in the hateful room the young Earl turned over in his alert mind, which was concentrated on the single object of finding Philip Guise, what manner of letter he might write which would induce that man to leave his hiding-place. Throwing himself again on his father's chaise-longue (why had he not had that detestable object removed?) a plan, swiftly formed and neat in its detail, came immediately into his head.
He quickly left the house, laughing to himself. As he crossed the cobbled courtyard he met Ambler, the man whom he had for several days carefully avoided meeting, but now he could not escape a fellow whom he so much despised and loathed and who had him by his coat's flap and pressed quick questions on him in the October dusk.
"My lord, I hope you don't intend any proceedings against Philip Guise. That has been on my mind since we last spoke. Have you found the man? Do you search for him? I have looked for a hue and cry, but have heard of none. Come, my lord, don't be furtive with me, who was frank enough once—"
"Aye," interrupted Shalford violently, "vent it all on me, I'll bear it all. Call me and think me what you please! I've done with all of you. I say that Philip Guise has no part in my mind nor heart; I have something else to trouble me, and that's the illness of Cecilia Torrance."
Ambler stared at him keenly; the young man could not free himself from the old man's clutch; the two seemed to strive and pull together in the windy dusk.
"Why do you take this so heavily?" demanded Shalford, and again he hardly knew that he lied when he added: "I tell ye I have done with it; the man is gone, and leave it at that." And while he spoke he rejoiced that he had put a bond of secrecy on all whom he had employed to trace Philip Guise; the hue and cry had been kept from the public prints. Shalford had hushed up all report and rumour of the forgery. "Leave him to me and I'll find the fellow."
Laurence Ambler did not seem wholly satisfied, he stared and muttered and pursed up his lips; with difficulty did the young man get away from him and stride rapidly into the twilight.
"Patient God! all the world seems to stand friends with Philip Guise—a pox on 'em!—this forger and debaucher of gentlewomen, fitted only for the gallows; must the rogue Ambler be tender in his concern?"
My lord looked back from the great iron gates to see the hesitant figure of his father's jackal standing on the cobbles, stroking his frosty chaps and staring on the ground, his coat flapping in the rude wind.
"Doth the fellow really believe that Philip Guise is the Earl?" Shalford railed in his heart. "Why, he is unsettled in his intellect, or he is the villain's accomplice."
Shalford made his way through the rising gale to the little house in Queen's Square. There were no longer any leaves on the trees in the garden between the houses, and the white statue stood bleakly among the bare boles. The grass was withered round the stone bench where Cecilia and Philip Guise had sat. Mrs. Torrance was staying with her stepdaughter, in an ill-humour for having been, as she called it, "beaten to a sea voyage" and to leaving her home in the pleasantest part of the year, when the gaieties were beginning in Dublin. Staying for a wind and being ill on the voyage, tedium and discontent had made her sharp-tempered when she had arrived in London. She had come armed with letters from her husband which were to support her protests at the delayed marriage, but Shalford had had an answer ready; he merely told her to regard her stepdaughter and see for herself if Cecilia was fitted to be any man's wife till she had recovered from her long melancholy indisposition.
Mrs. Torrance had been frightened by the young man's sternness, by the silence of Lady Anstice, by the condition of the girl herself. Sensing a possible scandal, a possible disaster, she had set her lips tightly and accepted Shalford's imperious directions without complaint and with the greater meekness as she had noticed a change in his character; he was no longer the good-natured, indolent, dreaming young man of the Dublin days, but tolerably firm and even brutal in his dispositions.
It was this lady whom Shalford now faced in the little room, where Cecilia had so often sat at the window and peered from under the sun-blind to watch for the coming of Philip Guise. He looked at her over the cluster of candles that stood on Cecilia's little work-table, which had been so long out of use.
"Madam, I would have you take Miss Torrance out of London to my house at Wraxham; it is in every way fitted and equipped for your reception."
The lady, amazed, cried out on this and made some complaint and protestation.
But Shalford put that all aside so coldly that she was silent.
"Pray make it no quarrel—I make it none, I assure you," he replied, "but for Cecilia's sake we must avoid a scandal and a gossiping. You know, as I know, that the marriage must be yet further delayed, and it is not seemly that she should linger in this furnished house. Lady Anstice will accompany you to Wraxham; there are conveniences and servants enough, and there Cecilia may have liberty and the country air, and be free of staring eyes and impertinent questions and chattering neighbours. In brief, madam, it is my will that it should be done."
"Since you think it best, sir," stammered the frightened gentlewoman, "in earnest it is a great pity that this misfortune hath befallen. I know not how to think or what to say; I can get no word from Cecilia, and I begin to fear that she is disordered in her intellects."
"If you have that suspicion, madam," said Shalford grandly, "'twill show better wisdom to take her to Wraxham."
"But the marriage?"
"When she shall be recovered we may again talk of the marriage; and now," he added, silencing further murmurings on the lady's part, "'tis concluded, and I will see Cecilia and persuade her to the journey."
CECILIA TORRANCE received Shalford without difficulty. The two women left them together, awed by this unknown trouble that seemed to increase with every day and knowing him to be the master, as indeed he felt himself to be. As he had mounted the narrow stairs to Cecilia's room he had said to himself: "They are all in my power; I have the money, the position and the influence; she has wronged me bitterly, and I only stay my hand out of charity. Were I to say I would not marry her, she is ruined utterly. I will therefore do as I please and send her to Wraxham, so that she may never hear that I intend to throw Philip Guise down headlong."
Cecilia crouched on a low chair by the fire, holding a fine silk screen before her face; her attitude, her look expressed lassitude and indifference; nothing about her person was any longer bright or radiant, save her hair, which hung carelessly on to the brocade robe wrapped round her bedgown.
Shalford did not sit down, he did not intend to remain long; the small, perfumed, overheated room half stifled him. Without touching or even approaching her, he saluted her with no more than civility. Tears of weakness stood in Cecilia's eyes, but for all her sense of degradation she could not forbear faltering out:
"Have you found him? Have you had any news?" He was her sole channel of any possible communication with her lover, her sole hope of finding again Philip Guise.
"No, I have not found him, but I think I may have discovered where he is; at least I know one who may have so much knowledge, but how to be at it is difficult."
"Difficult!" exclaimed Cecilia, flushing and clasping her thin hands tightly together. "But, if thou hast anything at all to go upon, may we not come at him? Oh, have pity upon me!"
"Have I not had enough pity on thee and thy senseless passion? Thou hast cast a cloud on me and thee that will darken even our graves."
"I will be patient, I will not complain."
"Nor will I cozen thee with false hopes," replied Shalford abruptly. "Thou art ruined and desolate enough. Say no more of it. But take nothing that I do ill—I mean it in kindness. This Philip Guise will not come forward to me, fearing, as I suppose, that I would inveigle him into my service again. He intends for abroad."
"He is not altogether lost? You have some trace of him?" exclaimed Cecilia with such a simple-hearted ecstasy that the young man could scarce control himself. But, keeping himself firmly to his resolution, he contrived to say:
"It was my design that you should write to him, Cecilia, such a letter as would make him declare himself if he be not less than a man."
At this Cecilia rose all in a bewilderment and amaze, her face flushed to a transient bloom, and Shalford brooded: "I should be flattered and more than compassionate that she so treats me as a friend and takes me, despite what is between us, thus childishly into her confidence. I should be moved, and yet I feel that I am not stirred to anything but cruelty."
"I will write to him," added Cecilia. "What shall I say? Oh, Edmund, you have been so good to me '. Help me in this, and in a little while I shall trouble you no more."
"Write to him," muttered Shalford with a heavy-effort, "that you do entreat his attendance at some certain place where he may meet you."
"Can he not come here?" asked Cecilia innocently.
"That," demanded Shalford, "after all the pains I have been at to keep thee from scandal and exclaim?"
"But if we are to be married," trembled Cecilia, "some day it must be known—"
"Not now. Be directed by me. There is much to be arranged and planned, much that you know not of, Cecilia, but is the business of men. Some employment must be found for this man, and some means of appeasing your father's wrath considered. Leave all these details to me. Do you but write and arrange a meeting with this Philip Guise."
Cecilia stared at Shalford, half afraid of him even through the joy that he had inspired in her sinking spirits.
"I will do all you say, Edmund; only help me."
Shalford, coldly deliberate in pursuance of his design, found Cecilia's little writing-case and set it on her knee, for she had sunk again, being indeed extremely weak, into the low chair by the fire. He stood over her while, with a shaking hand, she wrote the superscription, "To Captain Philip Guise."
"And at what address, Edmund?"
"Indeed, I know not that myself," he replied, and could scarce keep fury from his voice. "Do you but write, and I will contrive that it shall be delivered."
Cecilia, looking up at him, was frightened at his demeanour and became suspicious of his intentions, as Polly had been frightened and suspicious. The pen fell from her slack fingers; she whispered:
"After all I do not think I will write."
"Write," urged the Earl swiftly, guessing her thoughts, "and I will send the messenger to him. It is that Polly whom I believe you saw when you went to the baker's house at Hawbush Lane."
Cecilia was reassured by the mention of the baker's daughter. She could not believe (she knew not why) that any evil would come from that bright-faced lass, and she was silent, ashamed of her strange and unfounded suspicion of Shalford; it was unendurable, she thought, that she should suspect him when he had been so generous, and she was abased at the vileness of her own doubts. She would do as he bid her; though his directions might appear to her strange, she would not seek to know the reason why Philip Guise was hidden, or why she must make, as it were, a secret appointment with him....
"Where shall I ask him to meet me?" she sighed, all radiant again at the thought of her lover and almost forgetting the personality of the other man, save as a mere instrument to bring about this end.
"Pray write," replied the young Earl, who had thought out everything, "that thou wilt meet him in the ordinary, with the great straddling sign, which is the 'Crown and Anchor' hostelry of the better sort that all know of, near to St. Clement Danes Church and Arundel Street—"
"I? to such a place?" exclaimed Cecilia.
He could not forbear to remind her: "You have met him in a tavern before"; and in his heart he added: "How low art thou fallen to endure this!"
"Some one must take me," murmured Cecilia, drooping, "for I know it not and I am frightened of streets and crowds."
"I will arrange all," replied Shalford. "Now write and persuade him to this meeting."
He moved away, leaving her to her letter, but still continuing to closely and sullenly observe her, and he soon saw that she did not find her task difficult, for her pen went swiftly over the paper and there was blush and a smile on her face, a radiancy about h whole demeanour which showed him she was so absorbed in the thought of the man to whom she wrote that she had forgotten the man watching her; and again he considered bitterly: "I should respect, nay, even love her, for so trusting me, and pity her to such an extent that my hand would be stayed from all mischief against both of them. Yet these generous feelings I have not, nothing but an added hate against him for having brought us to this."
He could not long remain patient, but must return to Cecilia and take the half-written sheet from her and read it:
I hear I now have a chance to write to you, which is a thing I have long desired; my dearest dear, it is hard to know what to write. I am in such a penitence for my sending of you away, for which fault I have suffered all ways imaginable—I am now past all coquetry—I can discover nothing in the world to put a value on beside yourself....
Here the ink was trailed across the paper where Shalford had taken it violently from under her hand.
"Could you not forbear this in my presence," he exclaimed, "seeing what you were to me once?"
He tore the letter up and told her to write no more than this: an insistent demand that Philip Guise should attend her at the time and place mentioned, as he valued his honour and hers and the future comfort of both.
"I cannot write to him and not tell him I love him," stammered Cecilia with piteous simplicity, "and, Edmund, I did not think that this any longer pained you, but that you acted out of pure pity and looked upon me as dead; indeed a thousand accidents might have snatched me away, and by now I should have been forgotten!"
He was afraid of putting her in such a disorder that she would not be able to write more than senseless or disjointed sentences, so endeavoured again to console her, and assured her that this was no occasion for saying how passionately she loved the man, but merely one for bidding him meet her ... on an urgent matter.
"For you do not know, Cecilia, how he continues to hold you in his regard, and you may not humble yourself before him by protestations of affection that will be, perchance, not returned."
Cecilia, observing that the young man was in great trouble, fell into distress herself and could not write.
Shalford stood over her and dictated the letter; then he thought nervously that his brief sentences were too formal, and might be suspected or distrusted by Philip Guise, and so told her to add something out of her own heart, and turned away while she wrote, then would not read what she had written, but bid her seal up the missive, put her own signet ring on it in his presence and write the superscription.
When he had secured this piteous message he left her abruptly and, returning to his own sombre mansion, called up Polly and gave her the letter and money, adding nothing to his discourse of the morning, but dismissing her as if, after all, it were a casual matter in which he had no longer much concern. And Polly believed, in her ignorance, that she had been deceived, and that this was indeed a friend of Philip Guise.
But she was wary and careful, returned to Islington and made no effort to deliver the billet for two days, nor did she tell her father that she had it in her possession. Then, as there was no indication that she was followed, and no further message or urgent summons from Shalford, or any sign that the cottage was spied upon, Polly took the precious letter, which had lain under her pillow for three nights, up to London with the excuse of a visit to her cousin Sarah, who kept a mercer's shop in Ship Yard, Temple Bar. Polly, shrewd and quick, with sufficiency of money and well used to London, found no difficulty in making her way to Billingsgate, where at every tide waited barges, light oarsmen, tilt boats and wherries from London to the towns of Gravesend and Milton, in Kent, and to all other places within these bounds, and there she discovered it was easy enough to find a seat in a wherry which would take her as far as Wapping Old Stairs.
Polly, spruce and demure, wedged herself into the comfortable crowd, and got next a young linen chapman on a holiday who pointed out to her the Tower, the wood wharves and the homes of the gentry, and asked her if she had seen the new heads on Temple Bar—one could observe them very well, for there were those who made a trade of letting out spy-glasses at a halfpenny a look. Then he told Polly how he had seen grooms breaking-in horses in Finsbury Fields, and a Member of Parliament who was reputed to be agitating for a tax on gin hustled by the Irish in St. Giles ...
Polly enjoyed this pleasant gossip and, in the big boat on the broad grey river, felt herself a person of importance on a vital errand. The day was colourless and the sky lowering, the wharves on either bank grey, the trees nearly bare; to Polly it was a radiant prospect, because she would soon see Philip Guise.
By noon she had reached Wapping, and the wherry set her down at the landing-stage at the foot of the Stairs; nor did she have to search for the "Generous Gift," for the bow windows of this inn looked over the river, and the door was immediately at the top of the Stairs, opening on to an agreeable space of green with the pleasant gardens of merchantmen's houses. And there was the sign, a ship moored by a river with a sailor stepping ashore with a package of gold.
Polly, neat and resolute, stood watchful and slightly hesitant before the doorway of the tavern. There were sailors, bargemen and foreigners standing about, and a bowling green beyond the inn where several lads and men played. At a large window several of the better sort lounged and drank their beer or cider, smoking their pipes of Cyprus tobacco, and gazed up and down the laden river, which was very wide here, formidable and salt-smelling; or across to the docks, gardens and brick church of Rotherhithe.
As Polly lingered she heard a sound that was very familiar, the strains of a piece of music that Philip Guise often played, "Hence, Care, thou art too cruel." She ran confidently into the low pleasant doorway and looked into the parlour whence the sound came.
All was gaiety within. Though the house was old (like the "Pied Bull," old as it might be, of the reigns of three kings back, thought Polly) yet the chamber was modern, clean and comfortable. There was a fire of sea-coal, a fine meal of pies, anchovies, butter, toast and nutmeg on a clean cloth on the table, a woman with a pleasant face setting the plates, while near the window which looked upon the garden, where there were yet some green bushes, sat Philip Guise, at a harpsichord crazy from too much labour, playing to a company of four children singing as he bid them, who in between laughed and looked and played prettily, so that Polly felt a great desire to be one of this company.
Philip Guise wore the red coat she had so often refurbished, and his dark hair was in a plain buckle, his face a little embrowned; he was laughing and singing a catch now in the greatest good humour, but, turning round and observing Polly in the doorway, was startled.
"Why, Polly, what is this? Thou art come here so far and alone!"
"Lord, 'tis not so far, and I have managed very well, sir."
He rose and put back the staring children. How tall he was, and his actions so elegant, thought the poor girl.
"Is it trouble, Polly?" he asked quietly.
Polly, because she could not bear to distress him, answered firmly that it was not trouble, there was neither haste nor confusion about the affair. Then to prolong the pleasure of being with Philip Guise she affected to be faint with hunger, and so sat down with him, the children crowding round, at the pleasantly-spread table (after his long and kind persuasion, which she loved to hear, but put by for a while saying that she knew her own quality and was not fit to sit at the same board as himself) and ate what was the finest meal she had ever tasted.
Philip Guise courteously waited for her to explain her errand; he was at ease, happy, she thought; she watched him give the children sweets from his wide pockets, and drank her little glass of Canary and wished the moment might be immortal.
POLLY was so happy in the parlour with the bow windows looking over the wide river that she did not wish to spoil this felicity by giving Philip Guise the letter, yet she must hand it to him and watch him take it into the wide window and read it, standing with his back to the Thames, where the timber and coal barges were passing up and down, and ships with sails and flags very strange to Polly were moored alongside the wharves. The children had gone; Polly could hear the boys playing outside, the sound of their strings of nuts striking the floor, their gay shoutings one at another.
Captain Richard Cameron, Philip Guise's companion in his proposed journey, stood by the sea-coal fire smoking. He was a fine, tall, dark-haired Scotsman; Polly was afraid of him and wished that he would leave her alone with Philip Guise, but the genial soldier was amiable and, learning that she came from Islington, asked her what was the sport with the ducks there, and how many had been drowned in Ball's Pond lately when coming home late from the "Pied Bull," and if all the taverns were as crowded as they used to be with cits and their sweethearts coming from London to play bowls and skittles.
Philip Guise read the letter and put it in his pocket. He stared sternly out at the river, at the shaven lawn just beneath the inn, which sloped down the side of the Stairs and was set with a stone statue that reminded the young man of the crowned figure in Queen's Square garden where he and Cecilia had walked.
Never had he expected this—an appeal from Cecilia, a broken, humiliated, despairing Cecilia; a desperate epistle, yet one that told him nothing save that she wished him to take her away from an existence which she no longer found endurable and appointed, with the imperiousness of anguish, a secret meeting-place.
Philip Guise was deeply troubled; he had believed that Cecilia was happy in her own life, and he had contrived to put her out of his heart and mind; he had directed his fortunes in a fashion that would by no means include a wife; he must suddenly leave these plans and consider some other mode of existence.
Had he to face the sharp enmity, the bitter insolence of her relatives and the hatred of Lord Shalford, or was he to be a pensioner on their contemptuous bounty? Neither course appeared possible to Philip Guise, but what other offered? And even now he was not sure that she intended to acknowledge him openly—she suggested a secret meeting—a tavern again, a private parlour—how did she know of such places?
He called Polly into the window-place and questioned her as to how she had obtained the letter, and Polly was ready with her answers; she had decided, in her ignorant loyalty, not to mention Shalford to Philip Guise for fear that he should be startled or be affronted at the name of that young nobleman, and angry with her for going to Lincoln's Inn Fields and accepting the message, so that she told him the letter came from Miss Cecilia Torrance (which she argued was true ugh), and did not mention by what means it had so come.
"How dost thou know Miss Torrance?" demanded Philip Guise.
Then Polly confessed that it was indeed that gentlewoman who had come to the baker's shop in Islington, and that, to spare her, she, Polly, had afterwards pretended it was a laundress.
"Thou hast served me ill, Polly," said Philip Guise gloomily. "She came and thou didst not tell me." He mused, gazing out upon the river. Polly asked timidly:
"Sir, do you think Lord Shalford your friend?"
And Philip Guise turned sharply.
"Why do you ask that, child? He has nothing to do with this?" he added, frowning, touching his pocket where the letter lay.
"No, nothing," lied Polly hastily, fearful of his wrath or distress. "The letter is from the gentlewoman."
Polly wished him to have his lady, to marry and be a great gentleman, like Lord Shalford himself, as she, in her simplicity, believed he would be, with Cecilia Torrance as his wife, and the young Earl as his friend.
Philip Guise asked her keenly:
"Art thou aware of what is in this letter?"
And Polly was able to say with truth:
"No, sir, I know nothing, except that I was urgently bid to take it to thee. I would not," she added shrewdly, "tell them thy abode."
"Why so suspicious, foolish chuck?" smiled Philip Guise absently. "Thou had saved thyself a long journey by allowing another to carry this; it had been no matter."
Then Polly was minded to tell him of Lord Shalford and disclose the whole affair, but he prevented her by saying:
"It is no matter, I have it all clear, I know what to do; think no more of it, child, except to believe that I am grateful for this service."
Polly, believing that he was content and satisfied, tied the strings of her hat under her chin and took up her cloak.
"But, stay, I have an answer to send," he said, and, pulling the bell-rope, he asked for a standish, which being brought he wrote two lines rapidly: "Philip Guise will be at the time and place appointed, and entirely at the service of the person who commands the meeting." He worded the note thus guardedly, not being certain into whose hands it might fall, and being indeed acute and alert though bewildered about the whole affair.
Cecilia's letter had seemed to him of a desperate imprudence with its final lines of frantic pleading and passionate protestations of love. How came Cecilia so to trust poor Polly? Philip Guise frowned as he sealed up his own billet and reflected that with this high-born lady he had involved himself in what seemed, to sober reason, lunatic folly. Cecilia was too much like all the other women he had ever known; had she been from a milliner's shop, easily he could have dealt with her; but her position, her money and her relatives loomed bitterly and formidably in his mind.
As he gave Polly the letter, bidding her deliver it into Miss Torrance's own hand, he was thinking: "Is it possible that Shalford knows? I think not. Surely she could never have been brought to a confession, and there is no other way by which he could come at that secret. And if he knew, why, he would seek me out, though I suppose he would think it beneath him to cross swords with me. Does the poor creature think herself ruined? Is it against her conscience to marry that man? Or can it be possible that she is in love with me?"
He took Polly out of the inn, across the agreeable space of green, down to the quay, and waited there with her for the wherry coming up from Greenwich.
Polly anxiously noticed his distraction and gravity, and wondered if she had done wrong to bring that letter all; if she should tell him of Shalford. But, when she was about to speak, he put a crown into her palm for her fare and told her that he was a poor man for the moment, but presently would send her more. Polly, with a blush, thrust it back into his hand.
"I've been well paid for what I do," she answered quickly. "D'ye think, sir, I kept the last ye gave me? Why, they went into the poor-box," she added with a quick lie, for the coins had had a hole furtively bored through them; she had them even now, on a ribbon round her neck, hidden beneath her neat bodice.
Philip Guise frowned; he believed that Polly meant that Cecilia had paid her to bring the letter. He thought: "So it is, and so it will be; even in this she must pay because I cannot." He wondered bitterly how it was possible for a poor, proud man to be married to a wealthy woman. "And if they take her fortune from her (he did not in the least know Cecilia's circumstances) how will she endure my poverty?"
The wherry came up, and Philip Guise saw Polly into her place among a cheerful company of Londoners busy on their several occupations; he stood on the quay and watched the boat turning towards London Bridge, Polly waving her kerchief from the side. For a few moments Philip Guise leant against the capstan and watched the wide river, so soothing to behold in its grey, steady flow towards the sea.
Never before had his lack of money and position irked him so much; he had been able, so far, to command his circumstances and be equal to every occasion of his life as it arose; he had always dealt fairly with men and women alike, pretending to be no more than he was, offering no pledge he could not fulfil. Not one of his lovers had ever expected marriage, not one of them had been left in regret, remorse or grief, for he had always chosen gay easy creatures, genial and sensible like himself; but with Cecilia Torrance—he could not aver that he had dealt fairly there—she was so different in circumstances to those others, he had scarcely realized how different—he had been betrayed into an unpremeditated action.
And she had come to his lodgings, she had found her way to Islington, and Polly, poor silly little soul, had not told him. Perhaps for all these weeks, while he had been careless and at his ease, Cecilia had been suffering. Why, it was only the chance of his returning for a case of pistols that she had been able to find him again, for he had never intended to send his whereabouts to Polly, or to any other who could possibly get in touch with Cecilia. The thought of the probable suffering of Cecilia so moved him that he was surprised into wondering if, after all, he did not love her. "If I were a wealthy man, if I were in that young lord's position, with all that power—and I like authority—with a woman like that for a wife, a sweet, silly, obedient, capricious creature—why, 'twere well enough. Mine hath been a makeshift sort of life—adventure, compromise, obscurity; neither family nor friends, only chance acquaintances; that poor old man at Islington never seemed like blood of mine.... Well, I'm twenty-six, and there seems little chance of altering any of it now. I might have done something if I'd gone to the war, but, if I stay in England and marry her, I must take heed that I do not become an object of compassion."
When he returned to the wide pleasant parlour Captain Cameron looked at him shrewdly, wondering what was the cloud over his usual gay good humour, and what message the little girl from Islington had brought; it was not like Philip Guise to be in any manner of entanglement.
"Don't wear that long face, now, prithee don't; in two days we'll be away from here—"
"I don't know if I can go, Cameron, it don't seem likely; but I have an appointment to-morrow which will settle it one way or the other."
Richard Cameron affected not to take this seriously.
"Why, you was not thinking of leaving me at the last minute, was you?" he asked pleasantly. "You'll pouch your money to-morrow, and the ship comes up the day after; if we loiter here any longer we'll find the company filled up without us." Then, as his companion did not reply, the soldier's tones became serious. "Thou'rt not in trouble, art thou?" he asked quickly.
"Trouble? no. In difficulty, yes. But it is a matter I can confide in none."
"A woman," thought the soldier gloomily and hopelessly. He had often been surprised that Philip Guise had not been captured before by one of those hell-fire saucies who bring nothing but disaster in their company. To lift the cloud of uneasiness from Philip Guise's handsome face his companion suggested that he should play again, but the other rejected this with some impatience.
"The harpsichord is old and crazy, the strings all awry, and I'm in no mood to be bettering it. I often wonder, Dick, where is the sense in this love of music of mine, which has done nothing but to idle away hours for children and loungers, and occupy me when I might be doing better with my time."
Polly took the wherry as far as the Temple Stairs, and from there made her way, with an air of panting haste, to Lincoln's Inn Fields, and gave the letter to Lord Shalford in the large room with the blue vases and the invalid chair. It did not occur to Polly's simplicity that it was strange that this great gentleman had nothing better to do than wait for a humble messenger like herself, and that he must attach extraordinary importance to the letter to give the carrier of it so much attention.
At first Polly would not deliver the letter, saying that she had been asked by Captain Guise himself to give it direct into the hands of Miss Torrance. But Shalford soon overbore her.
"It is the same, child. I act for Miss Torrance. She is not well and may not be plagued with these affairs. Give me the billet."
As Polly gave it, not without some fear and misgiving as to the outcome of all this mystery. Shalford assumed a kindly manner; he sent a groom to see her into a hackney to Islington, and would have given her another present of money, but Polly, thinking herself already overpaid, refused. Indeed she had not wished to take the money at all, from a feminine instinct not to be paid for any matter appertaining to love, but she had accepted the first present shrewdly to quiet a possible remonstrance on the part of her father and Joe, her humble betrothed, as to her concern in the affairs of Philip Guise; once she could show the money they would let her alone.
When Shalford had dismissed the girl and appeared to have completely forgotten her, he suddenly called her back and impressed on her the gravest and strictest secrecy in all this affair, and bid her occupy herself with her domesticities at Islington and not come to London again, nor concern herself in any way in these matters into which she had been drawn.
When his little messenger had departed Shalford opened Philip Guise's note, read it, tore it up and cast it on the fire. As he did so it occurred to him what had not occurred before during his anxious search: that that young man went every quarter when he was in England to Lombard Street, to Greg's counting house, to draw his annuity, and that that day must be very near; nay, a calculation showed that it was precisely to-morrow. He might have had the banker's door watched and Philip Guise taken without all this elaborate treachery. "But I am so sunk it hath been a pleasure to do it in this manner, by the means of these two women whom he hath degraded and left, and if he hath forged the bond he would not come; nay, I have done very well."
He turned and smiled at the invalid chair, as if soliciting the approval of an invisible occupant of that hideous seat.
PHILIP GUISE was half an hour before the appointed time at the tavern which Cecilia had named as the place of their meeting. He held himself alert and watchful, for there were many details he did not know: in what disguise, under what name she would come, how long she might be able to be there, or even if she wished him to take her away immediately. He had intended this day to come to London to draw his money from Greg's, the Lombard Street bank, and to buy some of his equipment against his sailing on the morrow; but all this he had put out of his head, intent only on knowing what Cecilia required of him and what her situation might be. As the morning coach, "The Flyaway," had left, and the midday coaches not yet come up, the inn was quiet; it was, as Shalford had told Cecilia, of the better sort, and might almost be called a coffeehouse.
Guise sat down at one of the neat clean tables and turned over the copies of the week's newspapers, the "Mercury" and "Gazette"; but he saw none of the news and gossip of the day which he held before him; his eyes were ever quickly turning towards the door.
Unable to contain any longer his impatience, he rose and stood in the entrance and watched the people passing by the white church with the balustraded steeple and round portico; fish porters, hackney coaches, shop boys, women on humble errands; there was no figure among these like that of the elegant, lively gentlewoman he had come to meet. His agreeable smile curved his arched lip as he thought of the hidden loveliness of Cecilia—revealed to none but himself ... and there danced into his head an impudent notice he had read once with laughter in the "Public Advertiser": "Marriages performed with the utmost privacy, secrecy and regularity at the ancient Royal Chapel of St. John the Baptist in the Savoy ... the expense not more than one guinea, the five shilling stamp included...."—Well, they were near the Savoy; he could procure a guinea ... a clandestine marriage and chance the future on a hundred a year and luck ... he would have faced that gaily if he could have been sure of her; but he did not know her at all... he ruefully cursed himself for not loving her so much that it did not matter whether he knew her or not. "But if I had had a passion like that, I had never let her go."
What should he do with her when she came? They had best leave the Strand and walk down the Temple Stairs... a curious rendezvous this seemed, in every way wild and imprudent; he must take her as a child, as simple as passionate; must direct her in everything ... a wife for a wealthy man, how would she contrive without a servant, without many servants?
He returned to his table, ordered cider and drank it slowly. Half-past eleven, the hour she had named, was marked on the tall clock standing at the back of the sanded parlour ... his cheek flushed with expectation, he laid down the newspapers and kept his gaze on the door.
A decent, civil-looking fellow entered, glanced at Guise, then flung himself on the bench before the fire, ordering hot ale and warming his hands.
Five minutes passed and the lady did not appear, but two more sober-looking travellers entered and joined the first round the fire, which flickered on spit, gridiron, tankards and kettles.
Philip Guise finished the cider, put down his papers, rose and strode towards the door. "Had she some difficulty in getting away?... Why could she not allow me to have come for her openly? Of all things detestable this hole-and-corner secrecy!"
Two more men filled the door as he approached it, and he thought: "How disagreeable for Cecilia to come into this common parlour," and even in his anxiety for her arrival and his absorption in the thought of her, he vaguely wondered that there were five of these drab, nondescript fellows, who might have been bailiffs or tipstaffs, at this early hour in precisely this inn parlour and, to spare Cecilia this sordid company, he was leaving to meet her in the street when one of the men who had just entered touched him on the arm and said in a low voice:
"Captain Guise—Captain Philip Guise?"
"I am Philip Guise," replied the young man, startled.
Two of the fellows had quietly closed up on either side of him and the three who had been round the fireplace also moved towards him. He was skilfully and, in a second, surrounded.
"You must come with me," said the first person, "I've a warrant for your arrest."
"You're wrong," replied Guise coolly, amused at what he considered a palpable error. "I owe no man anything, I've no debts; look ye," he added good-humouredly, "ye may see by my clothes that I owe my tailor nothing, and, as for lodging, I have always taken that in my own house or an inn, where I have paid my occasions regularly."
"The warrant is for no matter of debt," cried another of the men, "and ye'd best come with us quietly, sir, without a bawling or a brawling in this 'ere place."
Another then commanded Philip Guise to surrender his sword, and, on the young man's instant refusal, the fellow said he was a constable and showed the badge of his office, adding that he represented His Majesty's person.
When Philip Guise found he was not in the hands of bailiffs who had made some mistake as to his identity, but was being considered as a malefactor, the young man conceived the whole affair to be as blatant a piece of lunacy as any that had ever come out of Moorfields, and said as much, and was moving impatiently away when, with the most harsh insolence, one fellow roughly detained him and one, coming behind, began to unbuckle his sword.
"You had best go quietly!" cried one, showing his cudgel, "for a bloody head will be all your reward for resistance!"
"Of what am I accused?" demanded Guise, paling.
"A hanging matter," grinned one constable with a knowing look, winking at another.
On this Philip Guise hotly and passionately demanded their warrant; it was shown him; the action against him was in the name of the Earl of Shalford ... he was accused of forging a bill for five hundred guineas.
"'Tis a gross error!" he cried furiously.
The constables said that was no business of theirs; it was their duty to lodge him safely in Newgate; when he was there he might do what he could for his release. On his attempted resistance they brandished their cudgels and forced him out into the street where a crowd of idle loons and sturdy beggars had soon gathered at the first sound of an outcry; the prisoner was then disarmed, his sword quickly taken away from him, while he was searched for pistols which he did not carry. One of the constables brought gyves out of his pocket and threatened him with these if he did not go quietly.
But the young man made no further resistance. He pulled his hat over his eyes so as to hide as much of his pale face as possible, and merely asked if he might leave a message in the inn for some one who was expecting him, but this favour was refused.
The shame and amaze of this public arrest, for the constables would not be persuaded to take a hackney though their prisoner offered them the money for it, held Philip Guise in a silent agony until they reached Newgate. When he saw that dark and gloomy gateway, which he had never glanced at without a sensation of horror, beheld the poor wretches clustering outside and the scarecrow faces staring through the bars above the poor-box, saw the piled filth and smelt the stenches, he drew back and refused to enter, but was pushed forward and forced to cross a courtyard where drab and dingy creatures played at knucklebones on the cobbles, or rested in attitudes of despair against the dirty walls which afforded a dismal prospect of barred windows.
A ragged turnkey received the prisoner from the constables, and with an air of professional insensibility showed him into a large cell containing a bed, a stool, a grated window, and demanded money for a handful of straw and a blanket. Philip Guise did not understand what he said, but asked fiercely that his news be sent to his friends ... for an attorney ... an opportunity to protest against this bitter injustice ...
"Ye'll not get bail for forgery," replied the turnkey, unmoved; but seeing that his new prisoner was not to be brought to what he termed "reason," he left him to come to a better frame of mind, and Philip Guise heard the harsh sound of the key turning in the lock.
Overborne by this violent misfortune the strong young man lost all control. He flung himself on his knees by the wooden pallet, buried his face in his arms and groaned aloud as he considered Cecilia waiting in anguish and misery for him in the common room of that tavern....
A thousand doubts tormented his stricken mind.
How had he come to be accused of this crime? How was it that Shalford, whom he had regarded as his friend, who had wished to be his benefactor, had treated him with such base cruelty? How would the constables have known that he would be at that tavern—and his name? Was it possible that Cecilia had been used as a bait?—but the letter was in her hand; though she had never sent him a letter before, he had seen her pretty writing often enough on her music. Had she come to hate him? Was she in a plot to destroy him?
His anguish was augmented by a hundred small discomforts, degradations and humiliations. He had no money; in his eagerness to meet Cecilia he had not been to the bankers in Lombard Street—there were but a few crowns in his pocket ... he had left his pistols at Wapping; they had taken his sword. He had nothing of any value about him—not a ring or a seal; he knew that in jail one must pay for one's subsistence; he saw himself likely to die of nausea, from mouldy bread and brackish water, from filth and cold. He had no money to bribe a messenger; useless to speak of attorneys.... He had no influence, he was unknown; Shalford was his enemy, and it was in Shalford's power to completely destroy him. He would have to stand his trial as a felon. What had they got against him? What was the case?
He tried to control and compose himself and run over all the details of that bill; how it had come into his possession, how he had parted with it ... but he was not able to collect his thoughts before the door was opened and he sprang up violently to face whoever might be entering.
It was a stranger who appeared, a civil, decently-dressed man with a spruce, gentlemanly air; Philip Guise at once knew him for a lawyer.
"Sir. I am employed by my Lord Shalford; it is at his action you are in this most unfortunate condition; but, be at ease, he will be thankful if he may be assured of your innocence. Perhaps so much will be proved if you will answer me a few questions."
"Am I to be questioned here, without preparation, by the attorney of the man at whose suit I am in this, as you say, most unfortunate position?"
The lawyer told him that all was meant in a friendly fashion, and he gave him a certain comfort by declaring that if he was indeed innocent Lord Shalford would procure his release as easily as he had procured his arrest.
"My lord has been very uneasy about the case; his generosity hath been abused, he hath been robbed of a great sum of money. Now, sir, pray inform me if you had the bill from my lord?"
"I had; it was a bill for fifty guineas."
"Well," said the lawyer dryly, "when it was presented to the bankers it was a bill for five hundred guineas."
"Of that I know nothing."
"Was it not you who presented it?"
"Nay, it was not I."
"Sir, who was it?"
"I do not know."
"You do not know who presented this bill for fifty guineas signed by you?"
"I do not deny that I endorsed it, but I did not present it, nor do I know who did."
"It was given to a messenger who was to bring you the money?"
"Nay, sir, it was not. I gave it to a stranger, or rather I gambled on a throw of the dice at the 'Black Bull' in Holborn."
"That will be a queer story to go to the jury, sir," remarked the lawyer quietly. "My lord will be distressed."
"It is the truth."
"You, sir, I take it, are not a rich man. You have no more settled funds than one hundred pounds a year annuity?"
"That is so, sir, and a quarter of it is due to-day, and I should have gone to fetch it had it not been for this arrest. I was about to leave the country for the war in the East, and was waiting for that money to buy my equipment."
"Ah, you was?" smiled the lawyer. "You was waiting for that money to buy your equipment? But some weeks ago you might have had twice times that amount, without waiting, merely by presenting Lord Shalford's bill at Mr. Thistlewaite's counting house."
Philip Guise saw where his own frankness had led him and that he was like to be entangled between his own admission and the lawyer's craftiness. But, being all his life used to candour, and even then scorning subterfuge, he resolved on nothing but the truth; was indeed too angry, weary and disgusted to fabricate any defence.
"Sir, I had my reasons," he replied, "for not wishing to take Lord Shalford's money. I believed I was overpaid, I thought the sum extravagant. In brief, sir, I am not obliged to open my motives to you—they were such that did not allow me to keep that money. And on a chance acquaintance, whom I took to be some manner of old soldier or dingy politic, and we falling into discourse I, in idleness and glad to be rid of the bill, did offer it instead of money, of which I had none, for our play, and he won it of me and I have not seen him since, nor thought of the bill either."
"Then," suggested the lawyer, "it must be this fellow to whom you, sir, so imprudently flung away your bill, who forged the amount. But I do not hear aright. It cannot be that you do not know his name nor where he is to be found? Think, sir, this is a serious matter—forgery hath been a felony since '32."
"Sir, I do not know his name," replied Philip Guise. "It was an elderly man of a gross habit, shabbily dressed, with a wig of an old-fashioned design, with spectacles, and a patch on his cheek—lame, with the address of a gentleman."
"Why," laughed the lawyer shortly, "there are many hundreds such in and out of a London tavern. Is this all the help you can give me, Captain Guise?"
The young man did not speak. He felt as helpless as if his arms had been bound behind him, and he was being pushed towards the verge of a precipice. It had not seemed to him at the time that he was committing an action foolish, nay lunatic, in tossing the bill to that stranger who had said he had known his father. Now, looking back, he could see the wild imprudence of his impetuous deed—how impossible it would be to prove it; nay, even to convince anybody that he, a poor man, had flung away fifty guineas and then waited, idling in an inn at Wapping, for twenty-five pounds to come into his possession.... How could he explain why he had accepted the bill if he disdained Lord Shalford's guineas? The real reason why he had been unable to keep that bond would bring in Cecilia—he was trapped. He could not excuse his own folly to himself; the gross stranger, though he had an air of having been born a gentleman, had seemed to him at the time no better than a scoundrel, and what more likely than that he should alter the bill, and what more unlikely that he should come forward now to save his victim?
"Ye can tell me no more, sir?" demanded the lawyer, tapping his teeth with his quill and regarding Philip Guise quizzically.
"Nothing more."
"Well," said the attorney, rising, "the case, sir, seems unhappy. We will publish a description of this fellow in the public prints, but I have little hope of success. Meanwhile, Lord Shalford bid me ask you if you have any commands?"
"I—commands?" asked Philip Guise vaguely.
"Any friends to whom you would like your misfortunes communicated—a lawyer to whom you would care to entrust your cause?"
"No one whom I would cloud with any of this disgrace save at the 'Generous Gift' at Wapping Stairs there waits one, Captain Dick Cameron, and ye might let him know what has befallen me, and that I shall not be able to sail to Flanders to-morrow."
The lawyer glanced round the miserable room with a dry air of pity.
"And Lord Shalford wished to know if you were cramped in means—"
"I'll have no charity from Lord Shalford. I'll make shift as the others do who come here penniless, friendless and wrongly accused. I must trust in justice, sir, as they do."
The lawyer stroked his chin and wondered what manner of man this prisoner might be; the forgery had been a clever piece of work, but it had been a fool's action to remain at Wapping, and the fellow was uncommonly candid in his air and assumed the indignant very well ... the attorney bowed himself out and stepping daintily through the filthy jail went to make his report to my lord.
Philip Guise flung himself on his pallet bed and fought (as desperately as he had ever fought for his life in a battle) for serenity of mind, for patience and fortitude.
"SO the damned rogue is well lodged?" and Shalford repeated to strengthen and comfort himself, "The damned rogue is well lodged."
"Saving your lordship's presence," sniggered the obsequious attorney, "'tis a lodging from which he will find it difficult to remove but in the cart."
Shalford endeavoured to subdue his emotion before this man who was his instrument, but it was difficult for him altogether to disguise the triumphant satisfaction he felt in having discovered Philip Guise indeed to be a scoundrel. Why, the tale of having gambled away a bill for fifty guineas to a stranger whose name he did not know, whose whereabouts he could by no means discover, was so flimsy and childish that it seemed to Shalford certain proof of the guilt of the man who was driven to compose such a farrago.
Let him be tried fairly; let him have every assistance and see if such a tale would go down!
"Sir, what did you think of the fellow?" demanded the young lord aloud. "Is he not a specious, plausible, careful villain?"
The lawyer was secretly amazed at his patron's malice and vehemence. Like many others he had always believed that my lord was a good-natured, indolent, careless youth, and he now reflected, "Well, he grows like his father, he'll be another devil in a dung-cart yet, for aught I know," but aloud the lawyer was smooth, amiable and flattering, yet could give no very black picture of Philip Guise.
"I must confess, my lord, the man was frank. He seemed not to know his rights, that he could have claimed to be legally represented from the first, and that he need not have answered any of my questions. Rogues generally have these details at their fingers' ends. This Guise had no protests to make. He seemed a man amazed and shocked by his misfortune, but answered me candidly, and had all his facts out at once; he also declined, with some nicety of pride, as I thought, any assistance from your lordship."
"How is he lodged?" muttered Shalford.
The lawyer lifted his shoulders, and was silent.
"Very foully?" demanded the Earl.
"As a prisoner in Newgate, awaiting trial for forgery," smiled the lawyer, bowing.
"Did he ask for any friends, or any lawyer?"
"Aye, he mentioned one Captain Dick Cameron, to be found at the 'Generous Gift,' Wapping, whom I take to be another such scoundrel as himself, and who has probably had his share of guineas." Here the lawyer leant forward and said impressively:
"Now, my lord, does this not seem to your honour a strange point? I have ascertained that this Philip Guise was for abroad, and had all arrangements made to sail on a ship called 'The Flanders Lion,' and should have taken service with some company newly being recruited in the Low Countries. And yet he delays and waits, and gives as his excuse that he must have his quarter's annuity which he should have drawn to-day."
"What is there strange in that?"
"Why, this. A man who hath secured five hundred guineas by foul means would be wiser to leave the country immediately rather than wait for a further paltry twenty pounds."
As my lord was silent, the lawyer added:
"It's a point in his favour, and the only one that I can see."
"Let him bring it up at his trial, and make what he can of it then."
Startled by his own vehemence my lord endeavoured to control himself, and to give an accent of generosity to his next words.
"I am sorry he did not find a better tale; I would have been pleased to hear some excuse for him, having once had a kindness for the fellow and entertained him in my own household."
The lawyer, though he murmured words of conventional agreement, was not in the least impressed by my lord's attempt to mask his real feelings. "I know thee, thou spoilt youth," he thought, "thou art whimsical, ill-tempered and expensive, and, maybe, hast got a jealousy on thee; it is well known thy marriage hangs and thy mistress be ill abed. Who can tell but that the handsome face of Philip Guise has come between thee and the Irish girl?"
So often and so easily does the common mind arrive at common truth. But none of this was any business of the smart, sly lawyer and, as far as he could see, Philip Guise was really a forger and had altered the bill, probably relying on the generosity of his late patron, and might be for all he, the lawyer, knew, a confirmed scoundrel who had performed several such misdemeanours in various parts of Europe.
There was queer scum risen to the top of society since the last war, and many needy, lusty adventurers pitting their wits against the law. And so, though the lawyer had been impressed by the uncommon handsomeness of Philip Guise, the agony expressed in that comely face, the proud candour of his manner, yet he was quite prepared to believe him as worthless and guilty as my lord so passionately held him to be.
"Sir, it's out of my hands now," remarked Shalford, "I have but my evidence to give when the time comes. The law will do the rest."
And he went heavily to deal with Cecilia Torrance who was waiting, in a transport of hope, for news of Philip Guise. Shalford had encouraged Lady Anstice and Mrs. Torrance in the belief that Cecilia's mind was unsettled, and he had insinuated to the girl that she had best not contradict this supposition, which would save her the torment of questioning and suspicions, doubts and wonderings, which must otherwise assail her. And he was supported by the three physicians who attended the lady and who, in face of a case beyond their comprehension, were very ready to declare that she was in a melancholy or disorder of the intellects. This had made it easy for him to arrange her visit to Wraxham without consulting Cecilia.
When he reached Queen's Square he saw his great travelling coach in waiting outside the door with a posse of mounted servants, ready to escort the lady to Wraxham Abbey.
It was about two of the clock on the day of the arrest of Philip Guise, and most necessary, in Shalford's opinion, that Cecilia Torrance should leave town immediately in case she might hear some rumour of the imprisonment of her lover. The case, however discreetly handled, could not be wholly kept from the newsmongers nor out of the daily sheets.
By Shalford's orders, which now took a tone of high authority in everything, Cecilia had not been told of the impending journey. On the stairhead he brusquely passed Lady Anstice and Mrs. Torrance, both of whom looked at him with apprehension, for they feared every time they saw him that his secret trouble would overswell its bounds and overwhelm all in tragedy. But he endeavoured to soothe both with such commonplace as he could command and, tolerably composed, entered the presence of Cecilia.
He read in her eyes, scorched by her unshed tears, her usual frantic question: "Have you found him? Has he answered?"
She did not dare to put these entreaties into words, but whispered:
"Thou hast been so long, the waiting hath been so tedious."
"Command thyself, Cecilia, if thou wilt not have some fortitude I can do naught for thee."
Terrified by this sternness on the part of the man she regarded as her only friend, Cecilia clasped her hands and promised the most slavish obedience to his wishes.
"I will do anything, indeed I will. I will be patient and dutiful—"
"I have not yet come upon this man," said Shalford, interrupting; he was surprised at the hoarseness of his own voice. "But I have a clue, and if thou wilt be, as thou sayest, obedient—"
Cecilia had hoped for more, at least for a letter; she knew that the hour for the appointment had gone by that morning (an hour of agony it had been for her), and therefore that he could not have accepted the rendezvous, but she had ventured to indulge in the illusion of another meeting—or at least a letter, a message. Now, nothing.
"He doth not want to see me. He will go away, he hath forgotten. And you," she whispered, "are too kind-hearted to tell me."
"No, Cecilia," he answered quickly, for he by no means wished to drive her into despair and yet more frantic melancholy. "I have indeed good hopes of finding him. He hath not slighted thee, for he doth not know what thou hast written him. I have not been able to deliver the letter. Now, grieve no more; leave it all to me. I have arranged that thou goest to-day to Wraxham in the care of Mrs. Torrance and Lady Anstice."
Cecilia sprang up; such a proposal was truly hateful to her; she disliked both those women, whom she regarded as her jailers, who tried to be kind, and who could not help being curious, who wished to be sympathetic and who yet secretly thought her a fool or worse to so mar a fine fortune ... and Wraxham, a big lonely country mansion such as she had lived in in Ireland ... waiting for news, in such a place.
"I'll not go, Edmund, indeed I'll not go. I'm happy enough here and I like to wait in London, it's nearer—"
"Aye," thought Shalford, "nearer to Newgate and Tyburn. For that very reason, my sweeting, thou shalt even go further afield to indulge thy moods and whims."
Aloud he told her that all was ready, her maid had her portmanteaux packed, the coach was at the door, the grooms mounted; the country air would remedy her feebleness, she would have everything—servants, surgeons, all manner of attention, and even diversion and liberty.
"Why, thou art cooped up here, pining within these narrow walls, and at Wraxham the park lieth open for miles—"
"But 'tis on winter now," shuddered Cecilia.
"'Tis on our wedding day," he reminded her; "it should have been to-morrow."
"Thou canst not think of that with regret!" cried Cecilia, the tears rolling down her worn cheeks; "and do not remind me, Edmund, of what might have been happiness..."
"Aye, what might have been happiness," replied Shalford.
Something in his face, his demeanour, his accent, frightened her. He was so powerful and she was so helpless. He could command everything and she nothing. He could go abroad, arranging this, commanding that, and she must stay secretly, privately hidden with her secret. Impelled by this terror of his power she threw herself on her knees and caught at the skirts of his coat and entreated him not to send her to Wraxham.
"Return then to Ireland with thy mother."
As he could not raise her without touching her, he turned away and left her bowed upon her knees.
Cecilia would not go to Ireland—that would be to put the sea between her and all hope of Philip Guise; nay, sooner Wraxham, which she understood was not so far from London. And yet she entreated him again to have mercy, to have pity, to have compassion and not to send her away.
"Arise, compose this thy disorder, or thou wilt betray thyself to those who will have little compassion on thy misfortune."
The girl struggled wearily to her feet, sank into a chair and dried her cheeks; but even in the same breath that she promised obedience to Edmund and trust in him, she begged again that he would not send her away from London....
The young man walked away In the ante-chamber was the surgeon whom he had summoned.
"I am determined," said Shalford, "that this lady shall go to Wraxham, where she may be properly attended and, as I do hope, cured, but she is obstinate to remain in London as I feared, therefore if thou hast some draught—"
The doctor, sinking his voice, said he had of late given the patient small doses of laudanum ...
Shalford ordered him to prepare such a posset now, and stronger than usual.
Cecilia, after a shuddering protest at taking the doctor's mixture, became calmer and soon drowsy, and took Shalford's hand with a feeble pressure, said "that she trusted him and no one else on earth, that, indeed, she had no one else on earth to look to and, as for heaven, indeed she was quite forsaken there."
She was helped by her maid down the stairs and into the great coach; Shalford watched her disposed, half drugged, among the cushions—a pack of women, and he in command of all of them.... He liked that sense of power, they were all afraid of him, and he could do what he would. She would be away from London now, and there was no need to stay his hand on her account. He begged Lady Anstice and Mrs. Torrance to see that their charge lived tranquilly; "and doth not cast her eye upon the public prints, which are full of mischief, bloody murders and dismal executions."
Then he stood before the steps of the little house in Queen's Square and watched the great travelling coach, followed by two post-chaises full of servants, disappear into the St. Pancras Road. He felt a great relief with the departure of the girl. Everything was narrowing to its conclusion. Philip Guise was captured and Cecilia Torrance was away. "There is no longer any reason for me to be active in this event, it must take its own course. What would be the future of Cecilia?"
He shut his eyes to that. He judged her foolish and fickle, so easily she might recover and love again with avid passion; was not such inconstancy common? Then he put her out of his mind and his thoughts dwelt entirely on Philip Guise.
He returned to his mansion in Lincoln's Inn which he no longer desired to leave. He looked into the mirror in the darkening hall, and thought how his likeness to my late lord was increasing. Then he would have gone into that cabinet which looked upon the back and found it was locked, so he summoned Heslop and asked for the key, but the servant, in manifest confusion, said this had been lost.
"But why is the door locked?" demanded Shalford.
The man had no satisfactory answer, but seemed troubled so that Shalford questioned him angrily.
"Dost thou put a trick upon me? Hast thou locked this room of a purpose?"
Then, dismayed, Heslop answered:
"Indeed, my dear lord, I think your lordship doth go there too often. It is no place for a musing and a brooding, and ill furnished, and," added the old man with a sigh, "it's the place where Lord Edgar died."
"Do I go in there so often, Heslop?" muttered Shalford. "Do I? Indeed, I did not know it."
"Day after day, and night after night, your lordship seems drawn to the place. Oh, sir, if you could bring it to your mind to go to Wraxham."
"I have a fair tenant there, Heslop, and I cannot call it mine."
"Well, your lordship hath other mansions and estates. When my late lord died ye were all for leaving this mansion, sir."
"I have changed; yes, I have changed in many particulars. Give me the key," he added abruptly. "Make no more ado."
The reluctant servant was forced to hand him the key.
Shalford entered the gloomy room which was now, even in the height of the day, darkened by the other houses opposite the tall narrow windows.
The young Earl closed the door and sat in his solitude, musing on the man he had admired, envied, feared, hated, brought down, and now intended to utterly destroy.
So, solitary with his thoughts, Philip Guise would be sitting in his Newgate cell—no music to console him, no women to beguile the tedium of the dragging hours ... robbed of all. "But, who is the lonelier—he or I?"
CAPTAIN DICK CAMERON waited morosely and anxiously at Wapping for news of his friend, idling on the quay, staring gloomily at the prospect of the cabbage fields and docks of Rotherhithe, or watching eagerly the wherries and tilt-boats which came down from London. Children played about the agreeable square, pigeons circled over the statue on the shaven lawn of the merchant's house and over the tiled roof of the "Generous Gift."
By looking to the left Dick Cameron could see "The Flanders Lion" moored at her dock; she was due to sail that afternoon. As he knew Philip Guise too well to suspect his good faith, he believed that some misfortune had overtaken his friend, who had gone early the day before to a mysterious rendezvous without leaving behind any indication of his business. "It may be that he's been pressed for the Navy or the merchant service, or fallen into the hands of thieves, or spirited away to the plantations."
Cameron went gloomily in to his dinner. The children came running about him, asking if his friend was there—be who played the accompaniment to their merry songs and gave them lollipops afterwards. Cameron had to send them away disappointed; he delayed his meal to gaze from the large bow window, for a wherry from London had just arrived; possibly Philip Guise might be aboard.
No familiar handsome figure, alert, erect and graceful, came gaily up Wapping Stairs, but the soldier's doubts as to his friend's whereabouts were soon solved, for the wherry brought a boy who carried a bundle of public prints, and the landlady, purchasing one of these, came, pale and stricken, into the parlour to point out in black and white: "The arrest of one Philip Guise for forgery even now lying in Newgate."
Cameron immediately hired a pair of oars and, landing at St. Paul's, with haste and diligence made his way to Newgate Jail. By bribing out of his poor store the turnkey and a porter he was enabled to come at speech with his friend.
Philip Guise sat under the small barred window in a still attitude, which he attained by a stern mastery of his mind over his body and spirit. But at sight of his companion a convulsion of joy and relief shook him.
"So thou hast found me, and I did feel myself entirely forsaken, not having the means to bribe these ruffians to send a messenger; for, Dick, I had but a few crowns on me, and these have gone on food."
Cameron, with all the horror of a man accustomed to an open, easy life, glanced round the prison. He felt all the shame of one who, bred a gentleman, still entertains after a rough existence a nice notion of honour.
"What blackguards have got thee here?" he cried. "There are some shall smart for it."
"It's like to be myself will smart," smiled Philip Guise. "I am bound over for the Assizes, and they are all in a story against me."
"But what story?" demanded Cameron. "What hast thou to do with forgery? Who has issued the warrant for thy commission, and who hath made the accusation? Both must needs be false. Whoever hath done this shall suffer for contempt of law; even a justice of the peace may be punished for sending a vulgar scoundrel of a lackey to the house of correction or common jail without sufficient cause. Thou art a soldier and a man of honour; aye, and many another can prove it."
Philip Guise smiled during his friend's valiant speech, and pressed his hand.
"It is more serious than you suppose, Dick, and my own folly at the bottom of it. Many a time have you railed against my imprudence, and now I have cause to rail myself, since my impetuous carelessness has landed me in this confoundedly ugly hole."
He told him of the charge against him, and on what this was founded, but he could not tell him the reason which had caused him to gamble away the fifty-guinea bill, and he felt that to even the loyal ears of his friend the story sounded lame.
Cameron was indeed distressed and puzzled.
"Wert thou in a quarrel with the man?" he asked. "Yet it is not like thee, Philip, to quarrel."
"In a quarrel with myself for ever having been in his service. I took up with him out of curiosity and, maybe, some ambition. Thou knowest when a man is hampered by lack of fortune that he will snatch at fantastic chances. But I could not endure to be a dependant in another's house."
"But the guineas had been fairly earned," objected Cameron; "and why stake them on the throw of the dice with a stranger?"
"'Twas my mood," smiled Philip Guise ruefully. "How may one account for one's own inconstancies and whimseys? And how should I have any thought that the rogue would alter the figures on the bill?"
The Scotsman did not know much more of either law or banking than did Philip Guise, but he could see that his friend had committed a most imprudent action and that the case lay heavy against him. He knew too the dreadful position of a man without money or influence in a case where the prosecutor had both, and in such a degree as Lord Shalford. He fetched a groan and paced up and down the cell. He wondered if he and one or two other good fellows might scrape together bail, but Philip Guise reminded him that no bail would be accepted if he was committed on a criminal charge.
"I am treated as a felon, Dick, and it is only by being very patient and quiet that I escape the gyves, and that will not be for long unless I can bribe the turnkey. And, Dick, that is a favour thou mayst do me. Go to Lombard Street, to Mr. Greg's, and see if thou mayst have my money, if there is time before the ship sails—here I have no clock."
Captain Cameron swore that he would not desert his friend while he was in such a plight, nor leave the country while Philip Guise was sunk in misfortune.
"Look ye, when ye are out of this foul place, we'll sail together—"
Guise interrupted and strove earnestly to persuade his friend to take "The Flanders Lion" that afternoon, merely begging him obtain the money due to him the day before.
"For it seems that it is only by perpetual garnish, as they call it, that one may save oneself from the worst of humiliations."
Cameron paused in his agitated pacing to and fro and shrewdly and keenly regarded the prisoner. He had not known Philip Guise very long or very intimately, and had been at times a little shy of his good looks and his accomplishments, which seemed too brilliant for his manner of life; but he had always felt him to be in every way an honest and honourable man. He was amazed as well as pained to find him brought so low, and believed that there was something behind the misfortune of Philip Guise more than coincidences and unhappy circumstances.
"Look ye, Philip," he remarked shrewdly, "this young lord, this great earl, whoever he be, is an enemy of thine."
Philip Guise, thinking of Cecilia, replied briefly: "'Tis possible."
"God help ye, for he is a man of great wealth and power."
"But I took him to be honest. I was some weeks in his house, and did observe him; though he is expensive, whimsical and, as I suppose, weak, yet I cannot believe that he would spring a conspiracy to ruin me."
"What have you done to anger him?" demanded Cameron bluntly.
"I suppose he did not like my conduct towards him when I was in his service," evaded the prisoner.
But Cameron believed that there must be something more in the matter than that, or else they dealt with a veritable monster. In any case, and whatever cause of offence Philip Guise had given, it seemed to the frank soldier an incredible thing that a man in Shalford's position should show this vindictiveness towards an inferior.
"What is five hundred guineas to him? He could have destroyed the paper and said that that was the sum for which he had writ it."
"There are not many men who would have done that, and maybe he believes in his own conscience that I committed the forgery; though truly that is little flattering to me, since I was in his household he should have known me better."
Cameron uneasily demanded what legal assistance his friend had.
"Oh, there was a fellow came with his notes and his standish and his quills, and must make long, tedious descriptions of me and my fortunes, and I answered as best I could and signed the deposition. He told me my lord had sent him to look after my interests. I understand nothing at all of these legal matters, and merely told the truth, and that, as I could see, went down very ill."
"It is an ill story," replied the other simply, "and there's very few'll believe it, Guise. Why should ye fling away fifty guineas and then wait a couple of weeks for twenty-five?"
"Because the lesser sum was mine rightfully, and the greater seemed as a dole or charity, and I did not care to handle it."
"I do not know," mused Cameron, "how that will go down with a jury. But there is one point in thy favour, Guise. What art thou supposed to have done with this great sum of money, seeing thou hast been living in an ordinary down at Wapping?"
"Why, they seem to know that I went back to Islington one day for a case of pistols, and to think that I hid the money there. But I know not "—and Philip Guise smiled wearily—"how these lawyers may twist and turn the affair. Lord Shalford's attorney was here yesterday within a few moments of my arrest—"
"That is not legal I dare swear," interrupted Cameron; "that was done by money and bribery. Thou shouldst not have said a word."
"What doth it matter? I have nothing but the same tale—and that's the truth—to give to any man. But, oh, Dick, it's heart-breaking sitting here alone in this loathsome place with naught to do and the world going by without."
"What of thy appointment yesterday?"
"I was arrested before I could keep it," replied the prisoner bitterly. Then, another thought coming into his mind, he eagerly asked his friend if he had a public sheet or "Gazette" with him.
And Cameron produced that which he had thrust into his pocket at Wapping, and which contained the news of the arrest of Philip Guise.
The prisoner turned over the sheet. Yes, she was mentioned there: "Miss Cecilia Torrance, slowly recovering from severe indisposition, has gone in the charge of her mother and Lady Anstice to Lord Shalford's mansion at Wraxham."
Philip Guise, with a shaking hand, gave the sheet back. So there had been no intention of her being in the tavern parlour yesterday—the letter was a mere trap? He was more amazed than angry at this conviction. How impossible to believe a man of Shalford's breeding should come to such a device, and how had he obtained the letter from the poor creature? Did she hate him? Had she written it with intent to lure him to a detestable downfall? And he thought, in weary disgust: "Why didn't they arrest me at the banker's—they might have known I should be there soon—without this trapping a man through a woman?"
He rose and leant against the window, and the shadow of the rusty bars fell across his face.
Dick Cameron looked at him with an infinite and a bewildered regret and admiration. Philip Guise had all the brilliant qualities that go with an emphasized masculinity, some arrogance and sense of power, generosity, laughter, good humour, a fine figure, a lively colouring. He was in everything pleasing and delightful and, Cameron believed, had done no harm to man or woman. How came he, then, to be so dreadfully involved in disaster?
The turnkey rattled at the door. The prisoner's friend must go; even this short interview had been a gross indulgence.
"Keep up a good heart, Philip; this Moorfields business must soon come to a conclusion. I'll bring thy money and lay it out for thee as thou wilt, and I'll see thee again as soon as I may."
"It'd please me better," replied Philip Guise sincerely, "if you would send another with the money, and yourself take 'The Flanders Lion' this afternoon; for I doubt that you can assist me, and I would be more at ease thinking that I had spoilt no one's chances."
But the Scotsman left him with added assurances of his loyal friendship, which were rudely cut short by the turnkey hustling him out, clanging the door and turning his key on the prisoner.
As Cameron was crossing Newgate yard a civil, neat-looking fellow approached him and asked him if he were a friend of Philip Guise, the new prisoner, and, on the soldier answering yes, the other demanded his name and at what address he might be found? As he added that he was scrivener to the attorney engaged for Mr. Guise and would be glad to know the names of all those likely to assist the prisoner at his trial, Cameron eagerly gave his name and quality and where he might be found, which information the other man wrote down in a notebook, laughing the whole time and thinking in his heart, "A gull, a gull, how simple they be!"; for he had nothing to do with assisting Philip Guise, but was the man of the lawyer employed by Lord Shalford spying in the prison yard to see who might go in to the prisoner. And the news that Philip Guise had a friend and the intentions of this friend soon reached my lord.
"He's such another as himself, sir," said the attorney, "a ruffling, swaggering bully of a hired soldier. I have had him watched. He went to the bankers this afternoon and would have fetched out the twenty-five pounds, but it was not given him, for they had the news that Philip Guise was in Newgate, and now he goes round the taverns of London engaging friends for funds in Philip Guise's cause." The attorney added significantly: "There are ways of getting rid of such troublesome fellows."
My lord, wearing his cloak, and huddled by the fire, answered:
"Why should I be concerned when the prisoner's guilt is manifest?"
The attorney replied dryly:
"Oh, he may make a pother, and if your lordship is anxious for a conviction—"
"Who said I was anxious for a conviction?" cried Shalford violently. "I only wish for justice. Think ye I have any private grudge against this jail-bird?"
"Nay, my lord," smiled the attorney, knowing in his heart that this was exactly what he did believe and acted upon, "but this other starveling, threadbare captain—why, there are means of getting these inconvenient, lying, false witnesses out of the way, and in a legal fashion."
"How?" frowned the young Earl.
"Why, there is the press gang; 'tis but needed a word to the officer looking for likely fellows for His Majesty's service. There are always men-o'-war at Bristol or Plymouth undermanned—"
"That is no business of mine," cried Shalford coldly. "If the friend of this Guise is an idle, low sharper like himself, why, it were better he were pressed into His Majesty's service."
The attorney bowed; he required no more direct command. "It means another fifty guineas or so on my list of fees and expenses, and scoundrels like these ruffling soldiers are better out of the way."
He ascertained that Richard Cameron had no friends or relations to concern themselves with his fate ... he saw to it that the officers in the proper quarter were informed where was a hopeful recruit.
Shalford affected to put the whole matter out of his mind and to give himself to other affairs, but these occupations, whether of business or pleasure, were but a gloss on those his whole inner being was absorbed with—the man in Newgate, the girl at Wraxham Abbey.
On three separate occasions did Laurence Ambler endeavour to see him, and on the fourth met him in the hall as he was going out to a rout, his mask in his hand. It was the fifth day after the arrest of Philip Guise and a mild November evening, lit by a high moon, after a day of faint sunshine.
Shalford turned his head away from Laurence Ambler and lowered his eyes; he had lately learnt how easy it was for one in his position to get rid of a man. Ambler was too old to be pressed for the Navy, but there might be other ways...
"Do not make yourself too troublesome to me," he muttered.
Ambler replied undaunted:
"Sir, I insist that I speak to you. Three times have I come in vain."
"And would have come a fourth," sneered Shalford, "had I not chanced to meet you here; but rather than have a bawling in the vestibule, follow me into this cabinet," and he led the way into the closet in which Edgar had shot himself in haste and silence.
"An ill-omened place," remarked Ambler dryly.
"The whole house is ill-omened," smiled the Earl, "to those who are weak enough to regard superstition."
He came into this closet so frequently now that there was always a light there at dusk, and candles stood already on the chimney-piece.
Shalford took a seat at once, but insolently left Ambler standing. The old man regarded him without respect or kindness and remained leaning inside the door, his arms folded over his breast.
The young Earl was very magnificent with an ostentation of luxury which he had never affected before these last few weeks. Tailor, valet and barber had lavished their respective care upon his person; he had a diamond at his throat and gold thread among his laces, the cost would have paid Philip Guise's annuity for two years or more. In thus making display of the evidence of his great wealth in his person he had coarsened and shadowed his face. He was no longer the fine candid-looking young man who had mounted the steps of this same mansion a few months before, and, glancing at himself in the mirror, thought that his face was simple and unmeaning, "too much like that of any other young fellow who carried a pair of colours in the Guards."
His nostrils were pinched, his lips narrowed and tight, his brows contracted and his eyes slightly bloodshot, while the thinning of the contours of his face had added considerably to his age, as did the elaborately fashionable dressing of his hair.
"Another few years of this," thought Ambler, "and he will be the spit of my lord as I first knew him."
"Well," demanded Shalford impatiently, "come on with thy prating and whining which, I promise thee, shall be useless."
"Philip Guise must be released from Newgate," said the old man heavily. "I have been to your attorney, sir—"
"Then you have heard the tale this absurd wretch offers," replied Shalford, "which is one that makes a mock of sense."
"I have no doubt but that it is the truth," replied Ambler dryly. "He is a proud, impetuous creature, and I see nothing unreasonable in thus throwing away your money. And I see something more, and that is that this fellow to whom he gave the bill might very well be Thomas Cramer in one of his disguises."
Shalford laughed loudly and cried out on this as a fantastic improbability—nay, an impossibility!
"Listen to reason," said Ambler. "What is more likely than that Cramer should have hesitated, as I hesitated, sir, between you and him, and have gone to where he knew he might find him, and found him, and then decided against him, as I, unfortunately, decided against him? His cause is too doubtful and his position too obscure for rogues like me and Cramer to stake much on it, and if it be Cramer, then the young man has the rope round his neck, for the wretch has fled the country and dare not show his face anywhere within His Majesty's dominions. Neither I nor any of his associates know where to discover him. He has many names and many haunts, he may be by now in Rome, or Madrid, a monastery, a jail, a lunatic asylum—who is to find Cramer? If it was not he it was another of his kidney and I take it that Philip Guise has no hope save in you."
"In me, none," said Shalford, looking steadily at the other man, and lifting his pale lip in a sneer.
"How completely, sir, has your father accomplished his purpose!"
"Why, if you mean that crazy parcel of lies he left with me, they have not concerned me at all—not at all, I say!"
"Not concerned you, sir? Pause and think. Are you not even now such a man as your father was when you most loathed him—nay, worse, for I do not know that he ever allowed an innocent creature to meet a dreadful end out of pure malice, spite and cruelty."
"I scorn to defend myself from such a lunatic charge." Shalford rose angrily. "Waste no more of my minutes, this blackguard merely gets his deserts. He is a forger and a—" He caught himself up on that last word.
"The woman, of course," thought Ambler, "she preferred Guise."
"Hark ye," added Shalford, "I'll have no more of it. I was a confounded fool to palter so long, with all your tales and contrivances which have been no more than blackmail, and one word further about this Philip Guise and I'll stop your pension."
Ambler's dull glance travelled round the room, and it rested on the spot where Edgar Dellow had been discovered lying in his blood ... shot between the eyes; from the breast up, very horrible.
"So, sir, you'll let this man be hanged?"
The young Earl struck his hand on his hips above his sword, and answered:
"I have that intention."
Then, as Ambler gazed fixedly at that spot by the window, he asked almost on a shriek:
"Why do you keep staring there—what is it you should see in that place?"
"I see nothing; I was thinking how much more fortunate your brother was than yourself, sir."
"Fortunate! Edgar fortunate! Do you know anything more dreadful, Ambler, than to be self-destroyed in the bloom of your days?"
"He murdered his body; you, I think, sir, murder your soul."
"Wish me to hell and begone!" cried the Earl, moving violently towards the door. "Do what you will, I can defy your utmost malice." He paused and added, with a sad smile: "But you'll not speak, you'll not plague me; you, too, are a little man, and snug with your cottage and your pension."
Ambler let him go without speaking; he was afraid, and shuddered as if he had just interviewed a supernatural visitant to the earth, for it seemed to him that it had been my late lord's eyes in the face of the present Earl that had mocked and jeered at him—eyes which seemed to sneer: "So you tried to thwart me, but I've bested you, my old rogue, and ruined him, despite your lies."
THE post brought cheerful news of Cecilia from her anxious guardians. The girl now had revived in the sweet autumn air, she had been induced to go abroad in the park and be driven in a light carriage along the fine roads that divided the estate. Her spirits seemed a little raised, yet she continued to shun all company and to be reserved, even sullen in her demeanour. But what were these formal accounts to Shalford? Enclosed was a little billet from Cecilia herself, sealed many times against the prying eyes of curiosity, and containing, amongst agonized incoherencies, but one plea: "Have you found Philip Guise?"
"So light, and yet so constant," thought the young man, "but she'll forget soon enough. I'll send her back to Ireland when this is over, and let her father deal with her."
He mused upon Cecilia, then actually treading the groves at Wraxham Abbey where he had imagined her as Diana walking beside him with a step that scarcely printed the turf. It had been springtime then; he remembered the purity of the knots of daffodils and primroses growing by the churchyard wall, and the exquisite rarity of the young leaves on the high trees. Now the groves were forlorn—and forlorn, too, Cecilia—no virgin goddess, but a humbled woman whose youth was spent, whose beauty was wasted in one wild, vain offering, who was a creature fit only for compassion.
Shalford endeavoured to fix his mind on a consideration of the causes which had brought them all, in the space of a few months, to tragedy. But to one whose very spirit is consumed in a fire of emotion such concentration is difficult, and Shalford, for all his struggle for self-mastery, could hardly follow one circumstance into the other, nor trace the sequence of events which had betrayed them all to a downfall, undreamt of by any of them but a year ago. Had it been that drop of poison his father had left behind him as a legacy which had spread and spread till it had corrupted all—peace, happiness and honesty? "Surely yes, surely I may fix this monstrous blame on the unhappy dead. I provoked him by a parade of what he called 'virtue,' and he left me a heritage which, in a short time, has made me no better than he was himself. If I had not been lied to and wrought upon ... why, what is a man worth when conscience and spirit are overborne so soon? I, too, have cheated and betrayed and lied; out of my weakness I had the man here, and if he had not been here she would never have seen him. And so I lost her to a ruffian, and I doubt if any of us may happen on peace again."
Yet he smothered his self-contempt, his self-judgment. He felt that he had some stout ally which he could best name, an invisible Mischief or Daemon which stood at his elbow and directed his actions. Under this harsh influence the throbs of pity, remorse and tenderness vanished from his heart and he became but an instrument in the hands of that implacable phantom which he believed had been evoked from the miasma of hatred between his father and himself, and culminated in the death-bed he—"Yes, lie," repeated Shalford aloud. "But I am more powerful than that he," and he smiled to himself as he considered his power.
Only lately had he begun to exercise his great authority; how people flew to do his bidding—how obsequious and servile they were! Even those two women in whose care he had put Cecilia were eager to please him, and performed his wishes without murmur. How greedily every one snatched at his money and his patronage! Without any trouble to himself beyond a few muttered words he had been able to dispose of Philip Guise's fellow ruffian, who was now no doubt or the high seas. Yes, without any effort whatsoever he had been able to destroy his enemy. "I will do it, and she may die of it, and I can feel no compassion for either of them; and when 'tis done shall I feel relieved of my present disease? Nay, that is impossible—and yet I shall not stay my hand. 'Tis true I did not know the man I was. I thought I was a simple, good-humoured, agreeable fellow, and my father, since he has been in his grave, has shown me what I am."
Shalford sent to Lady Anstice and Mrs. Torrance conventional letters composed for the sake of the post scriptum in which he wrote:
One Philip Guise, who was formerly, for a brief time, in my employ, now lies in jail for forgery; as the fellow will indubitably be hanged, keep news of this from Cecilia. For, as I believe she met the fellow once or twice, this news might be disturbing to her in her present state.
Shalford sneered as he wrote these lines. No doubt the two women had nosed out the truth by now; none the less, they would understand his command. "This is not I, Edmund Dellow, once so easily moved to compassion and distress, swayed by warm affection and tender ideals. Is it possible that a man's whole nature can so change?"
Shalford answered his own wonderment with a fury of contempt: "Whilst thou dost turn over these paltry reproaches of thyself, thou knowest well enough that even now thy intention is to glut thy hate on an enemy vanquished!" And, within a few hours, he was at the entrance to Newgate, and shuddering fastidiously among the squalid misery of the blackguard jail-birds, deferred to by turnkeys and deputy-marshal, sickened by stenches and foul sights, through all this into darkness, the rattling of keys, of chains, and the flinging open of massive doors, into the presence of Philip Guise.
Shalford set his back against the locked door and his glance darted to the prisoner, who had risen at his entry.
With mingled dread and pleasure Shalford had expected to see an extraordinary change in Philip Guise, but the man who had received the main blow which had brought him as low as any place there might be, save the condemned cell, was little altered in his appearance.
After a week in Newgate he was clean, he was shaven, he was erect. Though his friend, Dick Cameron, had failed him, there were other old companions-in-arms who had heard of his plight and had subscribed a few guineas for his maintenance, and his own active mind and vigorous nature had made the best even of these dreadful circumstances. As he was not yet judged, but waiting trial, he had obtained permission to assist in the menial offices of the prison, and by helping in the cleaning out of the cells, the common room and the yard, by the carrying of faggots and wood, had obtained a certain amount of liberty, exercise and a few privileges such as the attention of the prison barber, and permission to see his friends, beside a certain amount of privacy and better food.
All that wretched company saw that this was a remarkable man for such a hideous environment, and he had aroused sentiments of admiration and pity in many hard and embittered hearts. A woman had contrived to send him a cluster of marjoram and rue to sweeten the air and keep off the infection of the prison, and this gift Philip Guise had stuck between the little bars of his narrow window.
When he beheld so unexpectedly the man who was the cause of all his misfortune, Philip Guise paled and, to hide this rare sign of emotion, turned away his head. Shalford could contrive nothing but a muttered conventional sentence:
"I am sorry to see you here, Captain Guise."
That roused the prisoner's humour, and he could not forbear the smiling reply:
"I am sorry to think that your lordship put me here."
"You take it lightly, sir, I perceive," said Shalford, inflamed to find the other man so little changed, "but I fear that yours is a very hard case."
"I await my trial, sir, where my case, hard or not, will be debated. I have some rascal of an attorney, who seemed to me to have more learning than sense, to represent me."
"All indeed, Captain Guise," sneered Shalford, "must admire your fortitude."
"Sir, if a man may not find some comfort in his innocency, where may he find it?"
"Your innocence? You mean rather that you are hardened in your trade, and as for despising wealth and influence, hark ye, ye know not what ye talk of. Come, ye have neither friends nor money, as I believe."
"I had a friend, and one whom I believed would have been loyal, but he must have sailed for the Low Countries, the which I did entreat him; but, first, I had thought he had sent me money and some message."
"Have you so lived, Captain Guise, that there is none to support you now except the riff-raff of the taverns?"
"Have you so lived, sir," flashed Philip Guise sternly, "that you come to take pleasure in insulting a man with his misfortunes? 'Tis on your warrant I lie here, is not that enough?"
"No," said Shalford in his heart, "it is not enough."
Aloud, he replied:
"Why did ye do it? I had given you the money without much ado."
Philip Guise answered in quiet, almost gentle, tones:
"Lord Shalford, ye cannot be so poor a judge of men as to believe I did do it."
Shalford would not look at him, but returned:
"Many a sly, worthless rascal hath an honest air, and your tale makes a mock of credulity."
"It is not the first strange tale that is true; a man's impulses, moods and whims are found odd enough told afterwards in cold blood. Which d'ye think it more likely, my lord—ye who know something of me—that I tossed aside your bounty or that I planned to rob you of a sum of which I stood in no necessity?"
Shalford struck at the heart of the matter.
"What happened between my giving you that note and your tossing it away to so change your mind? Had ye felt that scorn for my bounty, as ye call it, why did ye pocket it?"
Guise knew that in that question he was trapped before Shalford, as he was likely to be trapped before the judge and jury, since it was impossible to mention that his squeamishness arose from the fact of the other man's betrothed wife having, in the interval between the getting and throwing away of the bill, become his mistress; and he could not forbear an ironic smile at his own predicament, which bitter mirth further angered Shalford.
"I repeat, you seem very confident, Mr. Guise, but you have not answered my question."
"And you've no right to question me," returned the prisoner. "How can I account for what worked in me to throw away your bill? Dislike of you, perhaps, sir. Now, a question to you, Lord Shalford: Why have you come here to make quibbles with me?"
"I want the truth."
"Good God, my lord, do you come hunting for that in Newgate?"
"I want to know why you did it. Why did you require such a large sum of money? Where have you hidden it? Why did you linger in this country so long after you had obtained it, to your great peril?"
"Sir," replied Philip Guise, with a look of impatience, "this seemeth to me tedious, and is, as I believe, illegal, for you to question me thus privately and endeavour to force from me a confession. I have not committed this crime."
"Thou wilt be hanged for it."
Shalford was startled at this voice, so hoarse and so deep, which he could scarcely credit had come from his own lips, and Philip Guise also seemed amazed at the cruelty of the words. He replied sternly:
"Do you intend, sir, that I shall be?"
And they looked at each other through a pall of silence. The blood showed in Shalford's face as he saw the other man still formidable, still unafraid, as he thought of that afternoon during the rain-storm when those two had caressed each other in the inn bedroom, and he cried out:
"I shall never marry Cecilia Torrance."
Philip Guise, throwing up his head, replied instantly:
"You came here to tell me that?"
"I do not know; but I have said it, and I bid you think on what it means."
Philip Guise was wary of a trap; he would not betray her. He still believed it possible that Shalford did not know the whole truth.
"Dost thou still affect not to understand? She told me."
Philip Guise remained silent.
"Thou art wary and cautious enough," raged Shalford. "Wilt thou have me ask thee in round terms if thou couldst not have found another wench for an afternoon's frolic and a chambering in a public ordinary?"
As Philip Guise frowned, but still did not answer, and still kept his handsome head high, the young Earl added with intense bitterness:
"You see, I know everything."
"Then you know," answered Philip Guise at last, "why I threw away your bill, and the matter is at an end. All must be clear to you, as it is to me, and we waste words over a matter that cannot be put into speech."
Shalford tried to emulate the other man's detested composure.
"You recall," he demanded thickly, "how once I did imagine there was some fancy and liking between the two of you, and how on an impulse I brought you into her presence and she refused you? You both lied and deceived me, and afterwards you must take her behind my back, making me ridiculous and her worse than shameful."
"I recall it very well, and I, like you, was dependent on a female's caprice. When she denied me, I thought there was an end of it, and afterwards when—mind you, sir, I was not in your employ or under any obligation to you—I did behave without forethought or discretion, yet not, as I think, dishonourably. I would have married her, I did implore her to marry me, but she would not. I have much blame in the matter, and you, my lord, may not be acquitted of that folly which breedeth disaster more quickly than sin. Why did ye not leave me where ye found me? Why not have wedded her months agone?"
"Because of those same caprices, those whimseys," cried Shalford furiously, "that you quoted at me just now, and which, repeated coldly, seem incredible!"
"And is it because of these that you come here to torment me now?" asked Philip Guise. "And now you know our case I may demand of you how she fares and to what pass she was brought, poor soul, before she confided in you?"
"You dare ask me for news of her?"
"It seems you have given me so much right," Philip Guise added earnestly. "You have told me she has confided in you—a thing I had found it hard to believe. That being so, I suppose she takes you as her friend. Now that letter—she wrote it?"
"She wrote it."
"But not thinking that it would undo me," replied the prisoner instantly. "You must have been tampering there and, as I suppose, you have been to my lodgings in Islington and got the lass there into your devices to bring the letter? Now, what was the need for all this pother? I had been taken very simply when I went to fetch my money at Greg's."
"I only thought of that afterwards."
And Philip Guise smiled sadly, and asked:
"Prithee, tell me, why d'ye hate me so? For I can see that ye have snared me out of pure malice, having no belief in my guilt."
"You're damned insolent to ask that, 'tis clear enough."
"Because of the gentlewoman?"
"Confound your insolence, that would pass in the world for cause enough!"
"Yet your affection must have been small to give her so slight an attention that it were possible for me—for any Oh, we were all at fault," he added impatiently, "and I take the most blame on myself, for I am the older man."
"How little moved ye are!" cried Shalford desperately. "I believe even now ye do not realize your situation. I have power; lately I have come to know how much, and I shall use it against you in every possible manner, so that you shall stand stripped, helpless and shamed."
"Is that the only way you could think of, of settling our affairs?" asked Philip Guise. "And what is the gentlewoman's part in this paltry revenge of yours?"
"Leave her out of the matter. When first I knew her story I made great search for you, and would have settled the matter man to man, ignoring your obscure condition. Then this was put into my hands, and I learnt that you was a felon. And I determined," he added wildly, with an emphasis of hate, "that I would see you blasted utterly."
"Alas, I pity you!"
"Pity me?"
"That you are come to this."
"I come to this?"
"Yes, once you was generous and candid, an honest, honourable man; but now, I take great shame to myself that through any action of mine this change may have come about."
His looks and accents were those of a friend, and Shalford felt that shocking sensation of a pain from the breast to the throat that is known as the heart leaping to the mouth. He sat down on the miserable bed, put his hands before his face and burst into fearful tears, driven forth by an agony no longer to be repressed.
Philip Guise endeavoured to comfort him.
"Life is not smooth and simple except for fools, and we expect too much ease and happiness. For me, I will expiate by any means in my power; I have been most light and thoughtless.... Nay, sir, look up, let us handle this matter like men and see what we may do for her ... poor soul, indeed I was to blame ..."
Shalford remained with his face in his hands, he forgot the differences in their two positions—forgot that he had everything the world values, and that the other man had nothing, not even liberty or an honourable name. That before him opened all possible fair prospects, and before the other nothing but dark shadows.
It was as if an elder brother spoke to him, and he realized dimly but sincerely the essential innocence of both of them, of all human souls, the essential purity of Cecilia, and the mutual kindness, nay, love, that bound them all. But what he said, in an excess of anguish, was:
"I'll see thee hanged."
"I'd be hanged willingly," replied Philip Guise, "if it would help, but I think it would something add to thy burden, sir. What tale would you tell to her?"
Shalford rose up steadily and drew his hand, with a childish gesture, across his swollen eyes.
"It will damn me, I suppose, it'll sink my soul, but I shall do it—I am bound to do it."
While Shalford, in a fumbling fashion, picked up his hat and gloves from the one chair, Philip Guise was silent; then he said:
"In that case I, on this earth, can do no more good or evil to any woman, and I must recommend her, sir, to your care."
Shalford, for answer, struck violently upon the locked door, beat upon it impatiently till the turnkey opened it, and then, without a backward look at Philip Guise, left the cell.
A FINE rain refreshed the still woods at Wraxham, and gave a gloss to the large driftage of dead leaves which the gardeners had swept from the shaven lawns into high pyres from which a sluggish blue smoke endeavoured to ascend into the damp air.
"Edmund, have you quite forgotten your music? And Cecilia, too, she never sings now."
The old woman's voice fell almost to a whimper as she muttered from the wooden chair by the wide hearth. Lady Anstice had aged suddenly. No one any longer took much notice of her, but sometimes Shalford glanced at her with a transient regret.
"What was that song you used to sing that you took so much care over, Cecilia? 'Alone I wandered in the most deserted fields'—that was a pretty tune. The fields are deserted now, ain't they?"
"Music is but a toy for children, great-aunt," said Shalford impatiently, "and I regret that I have passed too much of my time in such idle ploys."
The old woman turned away her dim glance from the young man she no longer loved. Edmund was not the same as the sweet and candid youth to whom she had given her affection, but she was glad to know that he stood behind Cecilia's chair and that those two might yet be wed and end in peace and prosperity. Yet she nursed in her heart the thought of one of whom she dare not speak, the bold, gay, dark, laughing man who she had seen in the little house in Queen's Square, and who she at one time believed to have been more to Cecilia than her betrothed husband. But time had shown that this Philip Guise was a felon, one whose name must not be mentioned; she longed to ask about him and if he had any comfort in his downfall; she hoped feebly that he would not come to be hanged.
Cecilia was constantly opening and closing her hands, and the repetition of this gesture irritated Shalford, and yet he could do no less than gaze over her shoulder and down at her lap to see those wasted fingers continually twining and untwining.
"Edmund, take me out, we will walk on the terrace."
"But it rains; it hath rained all day."
"I do not care for the rain, Edmund, nay, you shall indulge me," she cried, and Lady Anstice began to protest at her folly. "I will go abroad whether Edmund will come or no."
They were out on the terrace, the fine drops shone on her cloth hood and his bare hair. They looked down at the pile of leaves through which the thick blue smoke struggled upwards, faltering and reluctant, and beyond at the woods sloping to an azure haze, and Shalford thought with a shudder that this was the very place of his dream, where he had walked with Edgar by his side and the pure, shadowy Cecilia, the goddess who had never existed.
She spoke with a piteous tranquillity:
"Have I not been patient and obedient, Edmund? You know it hath been very solitary here. I went to church to pray, but saw nothing but graves. I went to the pond, and there were ducks caught in the net and strangling. I walked in the woods, and I saw them catch a rabbit in a trap ..."
She began to laugh, holding her fingers to her lips.
"But this is nothing, and I am well; and I have been discreet, Edmund. And when you came to-day I controlled myself, did I not, and greeted you quietly, and have waited till now. But, have pity on me, Edmund; tell me your news."
They walked up and down the wet terrace side by side, in step one with the other, speaking in whispers, he bending from his greater height, she raising her hooded, shadowed face.
"So you have not forgotten, Cecilia; this man is still all your thoughts? Was ever so fond a folly?"
"Don't plague me, Edmund, now prithee don't. Thou hast been so good to me, but mayhap he is not to be found, and has no care for me. Then I must die."
Shalford made an impatient grimace at this romantical nonsense, but as the girl had not yet outlived her fancy—but seemed rather to brood upon it—he saw that some invention must serve to save her from despair. And he founded a tale on what he had known of the intentions of Philip Guise, saying that he had gone abroad and was now in the Low Countries, that his, Shalford's, agents would work to bring him back, that in a week or so he might be in London.
"In a week or so," repeated Cecilia, with twitching lips, "a week or so! And then you will let us go away together, Edmund? I'll be no trouble, I'll want no money, but I don't want to hear what will be said of me—you won't let them torment me, Edmund?"
"Never fear, you shall be at peace. I do all that a man can, and you must trust me, Cecilia." He spoke these last conventional words in a distracted tone, for he had observed a dark figure coming up the long path between the two great lawns.
It was his attorney's clerk, booted and muddied, who had respectfully left his horse at the lodge gates and came humbly on foot to the great lord's dwelling.
"Here is one," added Shalford, "who may have news of Philip Guise. Do thou go within, Cecilia, and I will be with you when I have dismissed him."
But the girl, quite unable to move, sank down the stone balustrade of the terrace, and Shalford, who had vowed never to touch her again, was forced to go to one of the long windows and rap on it angrily to call for help to have her carried into the house. But, fortified by an assiduous desire to placate him, she had commanded herself and, before Mrs. Torrance came, had gone within, leaving Shalford to his interview.
The clerk had brought a letter, scrawled that morning in the court of the Old Bailey:
The trial is over, the verdict "Guilty"—there was never any doubt about it. The witnesses for the defence were a poor set of fellows, acquaintances of taverns and the bivouac whose word as to his good character went for very little. There were also some few tradesmen from Islington who spoke up for him, having tasted his bounty; but justice was secure from the first, your lordship is delivered of a scoundrel. His demeanour was very impenitent, the execution is to be on Wednesday. This hurried writing is to meet your lordship's demand for instant news of the result of the trial.
Shalford neatly folded up the letter.
"I was in no such haste," he remarked in a forced voice. "I have no such great interest in this rascal's fate." Then he added faintly: "Tell me, sir, did you not think him a very handsome fellow?"
"The women seemed to think so, my lord; there were half the hussies in London packed in there to see him; such a sobbing and sighing and a casting of nosegays and kissings of hands and God-bless-ye's. It seems a pity, too, my lord, that a man who has been a good soldier in his time and, it seems, respected by many, should kick out his life at Tyburn."
"Who are those who respect him?" demanded Shalford with a sneer.
"Well, sir, there were many who spoke up for him; true, of the baser sort, but it seems he hath mixed with no other, and there was one wench from Islington who raised a cry of conspiracy, and even went so far as to accuse your lordship of malice. But the judge soon silenced her for an impertinent liar. Then there was the minister from Islington and one or two tradespeople for whom he had made music, and all spoke up for his kindness and honesty, and all the rest of it, and the unlikelihood of his having forged the bill. But all this went as nothing in the face of the plain truth."
Shalford did not wait for the man to finish his narration, but walked away into the rain and across the park to the little church which he had last entered on the occasion of his father's funeral. "In the condemned cell now, Philip Guise, to be hanged by the neck before a gaping crowd until thou art dead, Philip Guise. Then there will be no one left to torment me, and it will not matter if he was my father's son or no. No one left save Laurence Ambler.... How quiet Laurence Ambler hath been of late. He, too, is afraid of me."
The young man smiled, hugging the sense of his own power. He stood above the vault where his father and brother lay beneath their embroidered palls, heavy with coats of arms and gold bullion. "Here, too, I shall be laid with great respect and pomp. And Philip Guise—where do they cast the felons? Now steady, my heart and mind, a few more days and the thing is done. But if the Devil who set me on should desert me and leave me to face myself?"
He leant his hot forehead against the cold stone pillar above the entrance to the vault. "Thou knowest he is innocent of that for which he hath been condemned, and a better man than thyself. More than that thou knowest too; that it is very like he is the rightful possessor of all that thou enjoyest, from thy grand name to thy smallest jewel. Yet, with all this, thou wilt see him hanged. Why? I do not know, only that I will see it done. And the woman—I do not believe, after all, she will forget so easily. I expect that she, too, will die, and what shall I do after that? How do we name that lust which drives us to destroy that which we love and cherish? I believe I loved them both.... How lonely I shall be when they are gone...."
Shalford checked his musings, all too dreadful and clear for endurance, and came out among the graves. The light rain had changed into a mist, beyond which, over the bare woods, the sun shone and a rainbow was cast across the sky, trembling, impalpable, almost invisible—more felt than seen. "How sweetly lovely, yet it bringeth no relief."
On the threshold of his house there was whispered news of Cecilia; the girl seemed to have fallen into one of her distractions or deliriums, and Mrs. Torrance had given her a sleeping draught, though Lady Anstice had muttered petulantly:
"You will unsettle the child's wits with so much opium."
There was other news also. Laurence Ambler waited for him in the library. Shalford heard this without displeasure. He believed the old man to be completely within his power, and he thought that to wrangle and argue with Laurence Ambler would somehow help to pass the horrible hours of waiting, for how could he hope to sleep, or eat, or distract himself, while Philip Guise lay in the condemned cell at Newgate? So he went into the great library, as a man may go to a bear-baiting, to distract himself by that cruelty from his own greater wickedness.
Ambler had ridden from London, from the Old Bailey, hard on the heels of the attorney's clerk. He looked old, haggard and despairing, and was drinking brandy which he had begged from the lackey.
"Hark ye, Ambler!" cried Shalford, "I have had pleasant news to-day. There's a villain brought to his deserts. Have ye come to say a word for him, my old scoundrel?"
"You have gone too far," replied Laurence Ambler. He spoke without fear and used no title of respect. "You'll get that man reprieved and dismissed from jail, or I'll speak."
But the young man only mocked and laughed at him. He, too, poured himself out a glass of brandy and drank it avidly. He recalled the night of his father's death, which he had spent in the closet where Edgar had shot himself—how he had drunk brandy then, and it had burnt his brain and flamed in his blood and made him oblivious to all his duty.
"Old blackmailer, who will listen to thy slanders? Who will read thy bundle of papers? Beware, lest thou, too, find thyself in Newgate for forgery. Where are thy witnesses, thy proofs of this damned tale with which ye have plagued me so long? Where are the clergyman, the valet, the nurse, the witnesses, this man Cramer?—all spirited away like the rogue who is supposed to have taken my bill from Philip Guise."
The young man laughed long and violently.
"But," replied Ambler, blinking across the brandy bottle, "I have played cat and mouse with truth, letting it in and out as it suited me. I hated this man's mother; I hated, too, my late lord; I was counting on the day when you would come into your inheritance. I liked you, you were kind to me, but your brother Edgar was insolent enough. I thought you seemed of a different breed, in which I was, as the Devil knows, mistaken. I made a choice between you and Philip Guise, and a damned bad one. I thought it was an old story best forgotten, that you had the greater moral, if not the legal right. I thought, look ye, that you were bred and born to the place. My pension was enough for me; I knew you would make it more if I crooked my finger. I thought I could persuade you it was all moonshine and my lord's malice, and that you would let the matter go. But you must falter and fool and hesitate and then—my God!"—he brought his hand down on the table—"do you really mean to let this man hang? And why?" demanded Ambler. "Because you know he is the Earl?"
"Because I know he is a scoundrel, you another, and Cramer a third. Look out, Ambler, I find I've got power, a damned lot of power. How would you like to see the inside of Newgate, or the Fleet, or the King's Bench, eh?"
Ambler did not blench when the inflamed and angry face was thrust towards him. He said:
"I appeal to the man you were to let Philip Guise go."
"The man I was," muttered Shalford; "the man I was."
"I'll give you more plain speaking. I take it that you have something else against Philip Guise beside your knowledge of who he is, and that's the Irish gentlewoman; nay, I know it is the fashion to be very nice on these matters, but we are past squeamishness. Aye, if he took her it was because you put her by. You showed yourself less than a man, 'twas no warranty that she was less than a woman."
"What do you know?" snarled Shalford. "Nothing."
"I've guessed a good deal. I know something of the world. When with my late lord I had an opportunity to observe men and women. If he had her d'ye think she was forced? What's a man to do when a woman throws herself at his feet? Pick her up or tread on her? Bring it down to common sense. The gentlewoman lost her head and, maybe, something more. Ye'll be silent about it, maybe lie about it, as becomes," sneered Ambler, "your man of honour. It is no hanging matter to accept a fair woman's favours, even if she be promised to another."
These direct words had no effect on Shalford. He sat with his arms folded on the table, his head turned aside, his features twisted, a smile on his strained lips. He was not in the least afraid of Laurence Ambler, of his paltry bundle of evidence—why, no one would even listen to the fellow....
"Take your tale to whom you please," he cried, with sudden violence, "but don't plague me again!"
Then his fury fell suddenly like a wind rushing by, and with a sly smile he pulled Ambler by the sleeve and begged him to stay the night and keep him company, telling tales of my lord.
"We've never spoken of that, Ambler, but I dare warrant thou hast some wicked stories of my lord's youth. He knew some tricks and devices, eh? He could get more pleasure out of the pursuits than the possessions, as I have heard.... I once had no interest in such affairs, but now tell me of them ... tales of the bagnios, the hells, the brothels, the harlots' houses, eh?"
Without raising his head Ambler looked up under bent brows at the young man; when he was in this mood he did a little fear him, for it seemed that it was not the present Earl but his late patron who spoke to him, the evil companion, the cruel master, detested, fawned upon, the despised and dreaded employer.
"I'll back to London," he muttered, getting to his feet, "and Philip Guise—"
But Shalford had him tight by the sleeve again.
"To Newgate, to comfort Philip Guise, eh?" he whispered. "Nay, you shall stay here with me, and tell me tales of the vile haunts where thou hast been, the pimps, buffoons and trulls thou hast seen and the merry deeds of my lord and thyself—"
"Merry," repeated Ambler, shrinking, "merry!"
Shalford put his flushed young face close to that other old withered face, and demanded sharply:
"Do you believe in the Devil, Mr. Ambler?"
"HOW many books, and all unread!" remarked Laurence Ambler, as he peered round at shelf after shelf of high tomes set there by the pride and pomp of dead men. "How many sheep and calf-skin, how many fields of flax gone to make that parade of unread wisdom? I'm nauseated with books—why do I bury myself translating the wretched sophistries of Theocritus the mystagogue?"
"Because thou art a foolish pedant with no blood in thy veins. Now continue with thy tale of how my late lord, coming home from the Vine Tavern and falling into the gutter at Long Acre, was carried to a picture-cleaner's and provoked by a youth mocking him—"
"'Tis a stupid tale—"
"Conclude it."
"Well, my dear patron was able to pull out his sword and stick it through the young man, who was sitting up late to mend a great piece of St. Peter, and he, dying, contrived to hit him on the head with the bottle that had held his oil—'twas like a rain of blood—but no one rebuked my dear master, who was a peer of the realm and had acted in self-defence. Now, as to these provoking books—"
"Leave the confounded books and go on with thy talk."
"I have talked enough," grinned Ambler; "it is very late and I must get back to London. I'll have no more to say of these old mischievous devices."
"'Tis too late for ye to return to London; thou must stay here and sleep—if thou canst. As for me, I'll have no bed to-night, but listen to thy ancient tales of mirth, of pomp, of imperiousness. I am so weary of the earth that I would be wrapped away in fantasy. How senseless, chill and dim all seems! I have no longer even any hopes of contentment. What did I hear in church last Sunday?—'He that is dead is free from sin.'—"
"Ah, will ye run to church? As far on the road as that? An ye hunger for texts, I'll give ye another." Ambler brought his hand down beside his empty glass. "'There is no balm in Gilead.'—"
"None for me," nodded the young Earl, and then he grinned. "None for me."
"We are both drunk," remarked Ambler, "and therefore in a fit state for wise and grave discourse concerning corruption and the glories of the spheres."
"I'll not be a dull, wretched creature," muttered Shalford, unheeding this. "Dost thou dare to think that I am tortured by conscience? Nay, I have passed that. Dost think I am distraught because there is another rogue in Newgate to-night? I have had my troubles," he added sullenly, "but I have overpassed them."
Ambler quoted with a mocking snigger:
"Yet had our pilgrimage been free
And smooth without a thorn,
Pleasures had spoiled Eternity
And tares had choked the corn."
"Come, let's chop logic; let us see if we can by reasoning account for the pass that thou art in—"
"Indeed," murmured the young man mournfully, "I can account for nothing, for all is like masks and shadows."
He was sunk in the great chair of gilded leather by the fire; on the table between him and his guest stood a massive rich branch of candles that lit the heavy silver plate, the savoury fragments of a luxurious meal, gilded decanters and the dark bottles of wine laid down by former generations for times of festival.
It was well into the night—how late neither knew. Ambler, who had drunk greedily, retained his wits and his composure. Shalford, who had drunk much less, hovered between frenzy and melancholy. He had succeeded in filling his mind with phantasmagoria and in blurring the horror of reality with the vaguer dread of dreams.
"Who shall we blame?" demanded Ambler, peering at his companion. "Was she free to deny herself to the better man, or he free to refuse a soft woman offering herself? Passion makes playthings of our wills and our resolutions."
"Was I free," muttered Shalford, "to go to this stranger and say: 'Ye have all that is mine, and I have nothing'?"
"You were free," replied Ambler, "but you had not the strength to do it. Lord, how is your spirit and honour defamed! I once admired you. Why, look ye, I admired you sufficiently to try to salve your conscience with that pretty tale of mine."
"I have about me Bedlam figures," muttered Shalford, his head drooping on his laced breast, "and all those fantastics I have seen in arras and puppet plays—cease these pranks of speech, leave this threadbare discourse, nothing has happened and I am very well."
"Have you still sense enough to quibble?" sneered Ambler. "Come, have you so darkened your cloudy mind that you have forgotten that man in Newgate?"
"He will be hanged. And am I for that to put myself into a ridiculous misery?"
"He is innocent."
"Which of us can say as much to any charge?"
"He is innocent," repeated Ambler, and then added: "And he is the Earl—drunk or sober, I can swear to that. Hark ye, sir, there was a marriage. Philip Guise was the child of that marriage."
"You can't prove that," murmured the young Earl, without raising his head from his breast. He seemed more than drowsy, even half asleep.
"I wonder?" pondered Ambler. "I never thought I could, and that was partly why I was silent. I know," he added with extreme bitterness, "what I believe you know now, sir—the power of a great man. My late lord was able to efface all trace of this marriage by the same means with which you have been able to place Philip Guise in the condemned cell. I was afraid of him, and a little afraid of you."
"You won't squeal—you won't squeal?"
"There's the entry in the parish register at Islington."
Shalford raised his head at that and began to laugh, peering round the tall side of the chair.
"Oh, is there—is there?" he mocked. "Mayhap I've had that destroyed, eh? Not so difficult. The old loon who keeps the register is stupid enough. There is that Greek paper," he added with sudden cunning; "what hast thou done with that?"
Ambler lifted his shoulders to his ears.
"Why, that was nothing—I never can resist a mystifying tale. It was but some note that the old pedant had written in his bad Greek, preserved out of vanity—he would not have committed himself on paper. I hoped to have given you a twinge with that, but it seems you were past it even then."
As Shalford continued laughing, Ambler added fiercely:
"But we wasn't talking of truth, was we? It's a matter of one's soul and conscience, you know, and I know. I don't say you should give up to him any of your possessions, but, by God, you can't let him be hanged!"
"I've no power to save a felon," stammered Shalford, still half laughing to himself. He was sitting up in his chair now and swaying slightly to and fro, as if he bowed towards some invisible power.
"Ye can do it by the crooking of your little finger," retorted Ambler contemptuously.
"He will be hanged," persisted the young man stupidly.
"There's no proof, none at all."
Shalford struck names off his fingers:
"They are all dead—pox take 'em ... aye, all dead; the wretched valet is transported, the damned old nurse is dead, the minister's dead too. And if Cramer were to dare to say a word he'd put his neck straight into the noose. Yes, I'm safe!" And he laughed, nodding at his fingers.
"Safe? Indeed I see thee standing on the very edge of the pit."
"Ye can't threaten me with the vengeance of God; I fear it not. He's made all of us—wicked and virtuous, weak and strong; it's He who is responsible to us for the souls He put into our bodies."
"You leave the Devil out."
"Am I a child, to be affrighted by the Devil? And yet—" He turned towards Ambler with drunken gravity and added: "I have thought that the day my lord died, nay, before, that there was another presence in the room—surely his hatred and my loathing compounded some evil which hath grown and grown and overwhelmed me."
"Well, what is that but the Devil? A force created by our own vile passions doth become concrete evil, and once we are in its power we have no chance to turn back to the ancient track."
"Then thou canst not blame me if I go on and let this man be hanged."
"I do not blame thee; I pity thee."
Shalford staggered to his feet and held on to the back of his chair.
"I tell thee," he whispered with a ghastly look, "I am shocked at what I do, I am amazed at what I do, and yet I shall do it."
Ambler also rose and looked at him across the branch of candles, the despoiled table, the deep shadows that seemed palpable, the fluttering light.
"Here is a chance offered thee, Edmund, couldst thou but save this man and woman from despair!"
Shalford smiled foolishly, biting his forefinger.
"Aye, if I could do that," he muttered, "I should be a very fine fellow, no doubt. They might even be happy together, eh, Ambler? Think of that—happy! I could give 'em that—life and ease and comfort and happiness."
"Do it," implored Ambler hoarsely, "in the name of the man thou wast once!"
A slight convulsion passed over Shalford's body, as if something within his flesh struggled to be free, or at least to express itself.... This reminded Ambler of a man he had once seen drowned, who had struggled to the surface and nearly won to upper air, then fallen back and been seen no more. So, as the man's face had sunk into the river, this fugitive light faded from the countenance of Shalford, which again became dull, stupid, with vicious eyes and malicious mouth. Ambler, hardened drinker as he on occasion was, found it difficult to keep his brain wholly clear from fantasies to-night, and he drew back from the splendid disordered table because it seemed to him that in that moment there was indeed a third presence in the room, gigantic, cold and overwhelming. Some likeness of my lord, my late lord, who was dead, and some likeness to some creature much more mighty and terrible than my late lord. Ambler thought that this presence passed before the young man and cast its shadow over him, withering all nobility in his heart, and that in that second the Earl's chance was gone.
"Damme, why do you stare so?" cried the young man angrily. "Pour me out some more drink! Why can't I get drunk?"
"It will be a rare draught that will bring thee oblivion hereafter."
Shalford snatched at a bottle and poured out for himself, dropping and spilling the liquor over the table and his ruffles, then seized the glass in both hands and drank eagerly, gulping at the fierce old brandy until he choked.
"D'ye remember what Cramer said, the old blackguard rogue—how we dropped out one by one, with our complaints, our grievances and our disasters—one day lamenting, the next silent? Didn't he say that we all take ourselves and our affairs too seriously? We lack humour, d'ye see, humour! What doth it matter to either of us, when I am dust in Wraxham vaults and Philip Guise is dust in a ditch, which was the Earl and which was hanged?"
Ambler staggered to the great windows, fumbled with the catch of the shutters, threw these wide and then the windows, letting in a cold air which sent the candles guttering into smoking flame and stirred the damp fair locks on the young man's brow.
"What wilt thou do?" asked Shalford, staring at him bent before the inrushing night wind.
"Get away from thee," replied Ambler, and there was a terror in his squealing voice.
He reeled out on to the terrace; a great scud of cloud was flying over the moon, the bare branches of the dark trees were bent straightly in one direction by the harsh drive of the wind. Ambler staggered along the stone pavement, and Shalford laughed loud at the antic figure he made.
"Thou lookest like a gingerbread puppet at a fair, stiff and staring! Wilt thou dance to the moon, my philosopher from Moorfields?"
Ambler was performing antics on the windy terrace as if he indeed executed a grotesque dance, yet his movements seemed without his own volition, like those of a leaf blown by the wind. The spectacle of the lean, dark figure capering on the terrace in the steady wind beneath the hurrying clouds and the moonlight excited Shalford.
"Doth any of it matter? We are indeed leaves in a wind. But let us dance before we rot. Unaware was I when I was born, and unwilling must I die; let me also leap and caper while I can."
He seized a bottle of sack and, throwing back his head, he endeavoured to drink from it, but the liquid ran down his chin, over his cravat and the gold lacing on his coat. He choked, laughed, grinned and cursed, threw down the bottle, which broke into shards on the table, and ran out to join Ambler's dance in the windy dark.
Aye, magnificent, the force and freshness of the wind, the light hastening clouds, those bending subservient trees; it made the young man feel part of these lofty forces, impervious to human feeling and mortal weaknesses, hurrying on a dreadful errand, knowing no remorse at dealing destruction suddenly.
He sprang after Ambler and clapped his hands in the leaping dance; Ambler escaped and seemed to dissolve into a dozen black shadows, all capering and springing over the terrace. Shalford found that in his wild pursuit he had flung himself against the balustrade of the terrace with a force that had bruised his arm; hurt, he sobbed out:
"Where hast thou gone, thou damned old rogue, where hast thou gone?"
He was answered, but not by the old man's voice; a childish cry came from behind him. He turned and looked up at the dark facade of the house; at an upper window was a light, and against this light a figure outlined.... Cecilia, roused by the shouting and the stamping on the terrace, had opened her casement and then leant out into the night, muttering a little cry of alarm which could scarcely be heard by any but Shalford, so much did it resemble the faint call of some unhappy night-bird snared hopeless in some terror of the dark. The remembrance of Cecilia partly sobered the young man, and he called up:
"Hush, it is I, Edmund—there was a vile fellow here making a tumult, but he hath gone."
She did not answer. He could not be sure if she had heard; her window was closed and the curtains drawn, but between the folds he could see her steady light. He listened. No one else had been aroused. It was like enough that Cecilia was an ill sleeper; it was like enough that when she could evade the opium she did not sleep at all.
He turned into the library and closed the windows and shutters after him. Cecilia awake and he awake—alone in the great house. They two awake. He was drunk, but not so drunk ... there was a ewer of water on the table, and napkins. He bathed his face and his hands and squeezed the wine out of the lace on his breast. He lurched about the room seeking for a mirror and thought: "No doubt she's lonely, poor soul."
There was no looking-glass in the library.
"Had I been sober I had remembered that."
He took one of the candles from the stand.
"I wonder how much light they get in Newgate."
He went upstairs holding aloft the candle; the wax dripped down, the smoke blew in his face and he could see very ill, but he found his way to Cecilia's chamber door.
"Cecilia is easy, Cecilia is common—shall I be less bold than he? Once I deeply longed for her.... Who knows if there might not be oblivion there ... for a little while at least?"
He pushed open the door. Her room was lit with a little taper in a lamp; she was standing in the corner by a tall press which gaped wide before her; as she startled round and saw him she cast something into this garderobe and closed it. "Some memory of him, some secret gift or tender billet," thought Shalford. He entered the room, shut the door and leant his back against it; dim, melancholy the ancient chamber looked in the crazy tottering light.
"Are you lonely, Cecilia? Did I disturb you just now upon the terrace?"
The frightened girl stared at him and saw that he was drunk; she knew that gentlemen were very often drunk, but seldom before women of breeding; she knew too that even the best of men, when in such a state, were to be fled from, shunned and dreaded. She had never seen Edmund drunk before; she hardly recognized him. His hair, untied, hung over his shoulders and breast; he had undone his neckcloth and shirt, his throat was bare, the wine stains showed on his linen, his face was blotched, his lips loose. He dropped the candle that he held, and it was extinguished on the carpet. Then he advanced steadily enough, and Cecilia thought that she had been mistaken and that he was, after all, sober.
"A messenger might come in strange guise," thought the poor girl, and she ventured to whisper:
"Have you had some news of Philip Guise, Edmund?"
The Earl advanced to the bedpost and stood there, pulling sullenly at the crimson brocade curtain.
"Aye, I've had news of Philip Guise."
She came towards him at that in a trust which forgot everything save what he had said ... those words of an incredible hope....
He stared morosely at her; the recent effacement of her beauty was not apparent in this light; she was lovely as a wilted white rose, storm-beaten, dying.
"What saith the song?" muttered Shalford stupidly—"'Though thou art but a sullied flower thou art fair enough for me.'"
She wore a careless silk bedgown, and, as she in her trust approached him, he snatched at it and pulled it down from her shoulders; she had on but lawn beneath. He broke into low laughter at her sob of incredulous dismay; Cecilia began to whimper incoherently, and this terror, which he found childish, provoked him; he held her closely, pressing her bared bosom against his disordered laces, and as her faint voice became more desperate he put his hot hand over her trembling mouth.
"Thou wert more free with him, I'll warrant. Who said that I was less than a man? I can show thee that they lie. Dost thou think that because I gave thee a tender respect I was unable to deal with an easy woman? Had I guessed thy humour I had been as ardent as he—"
Cecilia jerked her head aside and whispered through his fingers:
"There is no need for this, Edmund, indeed there is no need—this is not you—hurting me; indeed you know not what you say; nay, good Edmund—"
He did not release her, but rejoiced in the exercise of his strength, so soft was she, so feeble, so faint with terror. Well, she knew now that he was not a fool ... there were the marks of his fingers on her face where he had stifled her cries; he took his hand away to kiss these brutally; there was an enchanting perfume from her fallen hair, from her desperate tears.
"Shall I not have my solace too? I waited long for you, Cecilia. You know I am master of large possessions ..."
Still holding her close he began to boast, half laughing to himself, of his power, his influence, his wealth.... "Only lately have I found what I can do.... Every one is afraid of me ... if I allowed thee to cry out now dost think anyone would come? I am master—thou but a ruined folly. Every one is at my mercy."
Straining away as far as possible in his embrace Cecilia stammered:
"Leave this; all is too late, too late, I say—what are thy possessions to me?"
"Once they had been thine—and something did tempt thee, sweet chuck, or why was I accepted?"
"I knew nothing—oh, I believe I have been very wicked—but how was I to guess how I could love? Nay, I only, of all of us, know that, Edmund—thou art ignorant, and so is he, but I truly know."
He was impressed, even through the fumes of drink and passion, by the force and despair with which she spoke... here was that rare gem, the truth—poor Cecilia loved ... and neither he nor Philip Guise truly loved her, or they had none of them been in this plight; but he was not to be stayed now; he snatched her closer, pressing her weeping face to his shoulder.
"Nay, my pretty, don't strain away from me so, now, prithee don't. Don't I deserve some comfort too? I'll force you if you'll not be still. Who are you to be so coy?"
And as she still resisted, struggled hopelessly: "What price dost thou set on thyself, proud piece? Nay, pretty, come sleep with me; what is any of it? Look ye, I have been at a preaching, and there was told to me 'there is neither virtue nor honour,' so let us have some kisses before we become but a stench in the ground."
She rested, passive, in his arms; he gazed across her head at the strange shapes into which the shadows cast by the little cresset fell, advancing, falling back, for ever pouncing and withdrawing; on a chair were her little gold lace shoes, a quilted bed-jacket, her rifled privacies piteous before his stare.
Stroking her naked shoulders he said in a harsh commanding voice:
"Are ye listening, my girl?"
As she did not answer he thought: "She will be quiet now, 'twas but a show of modesty—she is no better than any of the others—why, I should be very happy—he is in Newgate and I have his wench and all his possessions."
Cecilia's head fell back with a jerk; her eyes were fixed and glassy, her lips drawn; he noted curiously the fine blue veins in her throat that ran down to her bosom. Faintly came her whispered voice; she was almost spent.
"I am not proud or virtuous, I know my worth too well, but you, Edmund, you are changed...."
"Nay, I am not changed; I am revealed."
"Then, Edmund, what shall I do? For I have trusted you, and you only!"
"Trust no one; that was how I was betrayed, by having faith in you and him."
"Edmund, you know not what you say, your brain is turned. But, tell me this, why have you come here now? Have you indeed news of Philip Guise?"
"When I leave thee I'll tell thee my news of Philip Guise."
He pressed his hot face against hers. Useless for her to protest, to lament, to cry out; he was master. Repeatedly he assured her that he was master, he knew now the extent of his power over her and over all of them....
"Don't ye suppose those two old women know it all? Even your father will have guessed by now. I have you all at my mercy."
Cecilia, forcing her feeble hands against his breast to hold him off as long as might be, sobbed:
"I will show you something I was hiding when you entered."
"Some love token from him, d'ye think that that will stay me?"
He was pressing close on her; her voice was so faint it scarce reached his ear.
"Love token? He gave me none. Edmund, it was a rope I hid to hang myself, for I could wait no longer.... I know I am forsaken and must die."
"A rope!" he repeated stupidly, and half released her, "a rope to hang thyself!"
"I made it of my silk hosen and ribbons; I had it strong enough when I heard thy shouts from the garden."
Shalford began to laugh—after all he had guessed as much; but this was too soon, before she knew of her lover's end. Why, a rope for both of them—perhaps for him too in the end; but he cried aloud between his laughter:
"Shall we not make merry first?"
With an emphasis of despair he dragged her towards the pillows she had tumbled in her desperate wakefulness.
"Nothing shall hold me now; why not give yourself to me as soon as the grave, Cecilia?"
"I'll tell you, Edmund, why I could not wait, why I should have destroyed myself to-night. I thought you had guessed—I thought they might guess—all those eyes watching me—"
"I say that there is nothing that can come between us now, Cecilia; thou art in my arms, repeat with me those moments in the tavern bedchamber. Am I not as fine, as bold a lover?"
"There is something that shall come between us, Edmund: if I had lived I should have had his child."
Then he took his arms from her and allowed her to stagger away. He put his sick head against the bedpost, and his hand before his eyes; he heard her whisper:
"Edmund, I might have died so easily to-night."
Watching beneath his fingers he saw her go to the press and pull open the doors; there, on the floor beneath the skirts of her dresses, lay the rope of silk and ribbon. She held it up and showed it to him. He doubted if it were strong enough; they used thicker cords at Tyburn. How cold and wretched she looked—Philip Guise's woman, dishevelled where he had brutally misused her; yet she commanded him as she showed him the paltry twist of silken rag that should have been the instrument of her deliverance. He closed his eyes and could see more than when he had them open; he heard her voice faint as if she called from a great distance from him:
"I cannot live quite forsaken; my heart is all astray—I understand nothing, but I know what I suffer."
He pulled at the bed-curtains, clung to the bedposts and got away from her; with his hands on his hips he began to sing, vacantly staring down the dark passage, a song they had often sung together in Ireland—Henry Purcell's pretty melody, "My dearest, my fairest!" ... How genteel they had been then, how well-behaved and false! Was that miserable creature bent on self-destruction the same as that placid, drowsy miss in her neat silks, indolent in her charming parlour? Was he that spruce young officer with the pleasant unmeaning face, simpering over her hand?
"My dearest! My fairest!" sang Shalford drunkenly; then, in a fury, he beat on every door he came to till his knuckles bled.
"How they all sleep with a sick creature in their charge!"
He shouted them up—the old gentlewoman, squealing and mumbling in terror; the stepmother, dishevelled, exclaiming; a parcel of chamber-women in snatched-up clothes. He felt himself of a supernatural height and power among all these silly, chittering, staring wretches, and bade them—"lazy fools "—to look to Cecilia and not to leave her. "Don't ye know maladies bring fancies? She may do herself a mischief!—"
They hardly knew him; their caught-up lights showed his discoloured face, his fallen hair, usually so neatly rolled, but now hanging to his waist; his bare throat and open shirt, his handsome clothes stained and awry. He pushed them aside and stumbled to his own room, where his body-servant (who seldom sat up for him now) had long since set a lamp. His mind was beyond his control; the huge chamber seemed to him to be the apartment of a sacked château in Mollwitz where he had once seen a drunken dragoon take up porcelain vases, one after the other, and dash them down on the hearth where his comrade was thrusting stolen ducks into a pot, while a third was tearing a Bible to shreds and scattering these like huge flakes of snow ... all three starving, drunk and despairing.
"That's an odd thing for me to think on; of all things why that?"
He had the curtains, the shutters apart, and moonlight drifting vaguely into the great princely bed with the crimson plumes, monstrous curtains and drooping cords; his parents' marriage bed, and in this vast room had he been born.
"And here I'll die, no doubt, and they'll draw a sheet over me while the laudanum dries in my mouth."
He felt himself on the point of swooning and fell into the huge chair of yellow gilt leather by the hearth, where the fire, hours ago, had sunk into ashes; his head bent on his breast, his hands fell on the arms of the chair and all his courage left him in sobs that heaved to unspoken words.
"Philip Guise's woman—Philip Guise's child—and I'll see him hanged on Wednesday!"
His eyes closed, and he sat so still that the mice crept from under the ancient wainscot and, avoiding the lamp beams, crept unheard over the shiny floor in the deep shadow.
LAURENCE AMBLER always avoided the neighbourhood of prisons; he never could pass King's Bench without thinking that there might be an old acquaintance or two within to whom, maybe, he owed the obligations of at least a visit, nor could he ever meet a company of scavengers sent from Bridewell to clean the streets without avoiding them lest, perchance, there might be man or woman among them with whom he may have at one time been intimate, nor descry a procession escorting a carted street-walker without skipping up a side-street lest the lady, in her triumphal progress, should see him and acclaim him loudly as a fellow-sinner. It was therefore with much squeamishness, disgust and failure of the spirit that Mr. Ambler passed the porter's lodge at Newgate Prison. He had come well supplied with money and he used Lord Shalford's name, so that between the glitter of the gold pieces and the glitter of an earl's authority, the deputy-marshal promised him an interview with Philip Guise.
The fate of this particular prisoner had not caused any concern to anyone, since he was without birth, friends or any manner of notoriety, and forging had become so general lately that at the last Sessions as many had been condemned to hang for that offence as for highway robbery, and though there were those who, at the time of the trial, had been astonished at the young man's bearing and impressed by his good looks, that astonishment could prove but transitory in the atmosphere of court-house and jail, where day after day many likely young fellows were sentenced to the rope or transportation.
The deputy-marshal could not at first distinguish Philip Guise from three other malefactors who were to be hanged next Wednesday, and who shared with him the condemned hole. Laurence Ambler had long known what prisons were like, yet put his knowledge always out of his head. Now he was forced to a realization of facts; he felt sick, but surmounted his own shuddering cowardice and followed the heavily-fee'd turnkey to the cell where those condemned to death passed their remaining days on earth.
When the door was unlocked and opened it revealed a room sunk a couple of feet below the surface, dark and reeking of a sour, damp stench. Two brutish-looking ruffians (who were, as the turnkey informed Ambler, to suffer for a peculiarly hideous murder) were, despite their gyves, tossing dice in the centre of the dungeon. A third man, dreadfully marked by disease and vice, lay in a semi-conscious state along the filthy floor. The fourth occupant of this detestable dungeon was Philip Guise, and at him, and him alone, Laurence Ambler gazed, wincing and shuddering, across that noisome gloom.
The young man, heavily ironed, sat on his heap of straw and leant against the dirty stone wall. His head was turned as far as possible on his left shoulder, an attitude rarely seen in a human being and one, Ambler thought, peculiarly suggestive of a strong despair and a strong resignation. His dark hair had fallen so as to form a screen for his face, and his firm hands were clasped so as to slightly ease the weight of the manacles at his wrists. To further lessen his torment he had drawn his feet as far as possible close to the wall, for the irons round his ankles were fastened to an iron ring in the wall by not more than a yard of chain.
Ambler asked faintly why the two ill-looking scoundrels in the centre of the floor were allowed to be unchained while the other two were fastened closely in their places; the jailer replied that these two were well-known footpads with friends both within and without the jail, who had got up a subscription for them, ...
Though it was early afternoon the light was soon defeated in the condemned hole, and the high window only permitted a straggling grey illumination to fall between the thick bars. Therefore the jailer raised his lantern and said:
"Philip Guise!"
At that the young man turned and asked:
"Is it Dick Cameron, or the chaplain?"
Then the shuddering creature behind the jailer, with more courage than he thought he had possessed, said quite steadily:
"It is I, Captain Guise—Laurence Ambler, whom you met once at my lord's, at the house in the Fields."
Philip Guise moved carefully by reason of the dragging weight of his chains. He replied:
"Good evening, Mr. Ambler, or is it but afternoon? I don't know that I have anything more to say to anyone, nor can I believe that you have anything to say to me."
Ambler stared at him with a deep, enthralled horror. How laboriously he had always avoided such a sight as this—a human being chained in filth and obscurity, awaiting a shameful death! How dainty he had always been in the avoidance of such disgusts! Without answering he said hoarsely and harshly to the jailer:
"You know you are to take off his manacles and let me see him privately. I am to have an hour in a separate cell. I have authority."
The jailer nodded and made no more ado about loosening Philip Guise from his chains; such privileges as these were easily bought for prisoners who had friends and influence. Turnkey and deputy-marshal both supposed my Lord Shalford, upon whose warrant Philip Guise was condemned, had some Christian pity for the unfortunate malefactor and wished to offer him some consolation in his last hours. And, as they greedily sucked up my lord's bounty (as they thought Ambler's money) they commended the young Earl for a good Christian gentleman.
Guise stood stiff and cramped on the floor of the cell; he was assailed by the envious curses of the two murderers who, having gambled away everything, even life, now gambled away nothing save tedium. The turnkey took no heed of the snarling abuse, but hustled Philip Guise out of the open door, which he locked on the blasphemies of the wretched occupants.
"You're too good for that company," he remarked pleasantly. "It seems a pity a fine young fellow should ride the horse that's foaled from an acorn for putting his name to a bit of paper; perhaps your friend here can arrange transportation for you? I mind, thirty years back, 'twas no more than the pillory and maybe a broken jaw from a brickbat."
"Have you come for that?" asked Philip Guise wearily. "If so, it is no good turn for me, for I would rather be hanged than sold into slavery."
"I have no power to alter your sentence, sir," replied Laurence Ambler gloomily, holding a handkerchief soaked in jasmine water to his lips and nostrils.
The jailer conducted the two men to the cell which Philip Guise had occupied before his trial, and there clasped round his bruised wrists a pair of lighter handcuffs and left the two together, locking the door and placing two turnkeys outside, "In case," he grinned, "of any fantastical notions of escape which you two genmen may hatch up, but which don't go down in this here place."
Philip Guise sank on to the chair by the narrow table which had been so familiar to him, not being, indeed, well able to stand on his feet after three days in the condemned hole.
Laurence Ambler paced up and down in restless agitation, sniffing his handkerchief, unable to speak.
"I did not know I had a friend in you, Mr. Ambler," said the prisoner at last, breaking the uneasy silence. "Indeed, I believe that I saw you only once before."
"Sir, I have seen you," replied the other, with an effort at composure, "several times, but that was when you was a child, and you will have forgotten it. As for being your friend, I don't know that I am, I'm here on a matter of conscience—"
"Sent by my lord Shalford?" asked Philip Guise quickly.
Ambler answered:
"No, it would be against his wish that I should come here. He is not aware of my visit."
At that Philip Guise closely observed this odd visitor, and said:
"You seem very concerned about one who is a stranger to you."
Ambler, pacing up and down and biting his forefinger, asked him nervously:
"Is there anything ye want? Is there anything I can do for ye? That foul hole—that infernal company! Thus we treat our unfortunates in this Christian country!"
"There are many things that I would like if it is in your power to do me any such service—a barber, clean linen, and freedom from chains and the society of those wretched knaves."
Ambler looked at the young man without replying, and pondered. If the Earl could have seen him now he would have no cause to be vexed because Philip Guise had not changed; his unshaven face appeared bloodless, his linen was soiled, his coat torn, his movements appeared stiff and difficult, his beauty and his grace were alike eclipsed and broken. But his heavy-lidded, tired eyes were steady and, to Ambler's amazement, not only fortitude but humour showed in his look and accent. Nor had he lost his air of candour, and he did not seem to bear anyone malice for his dreadful situation.
"I was not at your trial," muttered Ambler. "I never can endure to be at such scenes. But, how was it, sir, that all so went against you?"
"Sir, because I had so poor a case," replied Philip Guise immediately. "I acted the fool, and who will believe that a man has done that when it is so much more likely that he acted the knave? It seemed a very poor tale to my lord the judge and the jurors—"
"Especially," broke in Ambler, "as you was not at liberty to say why you gambled away the bill, eh?"
The answer made Laurence Ambler admire the fashion in which Philip Guise refused even then to be trapped into bringing the name of Cecilia Torrance into the affair.
"The real reason was mere extravagant whimsicality," he replied, "and who will listen to that in a criminal court?"
He spoke lightly, but he was very much on the alert, wondering, from Ambler's last remark, how much he knew ... why he was there.
"But how was it possible," demanded Ambler, pausing close to him, "that you was identified as the man who changed the bill?"
"How are you so sure," smiled Philip Guise, "that I didn't change the bill? You seem mightily convinced, sir, of my innocence, you who know nothing of me?"
"I've seen you," replied Ambler shortly, "and I know you didn't do it."
Philip Guise's pallor was stained with a painful flush.
"I thank you for that," he replied, then added with an odd touch of good humour, "The clerk was young and new to the work, he was easily confused and confounded by the Crown attorney into swearing it was I to whom he handed the money—disguised with a patch and a pair of dark spectacles—methinks an easy thing for any man to put on. It seems this fellow was something of my height and make and had a black peruke, at which I told my lord the judge that I had never been able to be at the charge for a wig, but wore my own hair, and showed him as much. But that was put aside as frivolous together with the testimony from some poor acquaintance of mine—by the by, sir," Philip Guise broke in upon himself eagerly, "have you heard of one Captain Cameron and if he took 'The Flanders Lion' at Wapping Stairs, or is fallen under some mischance, for I do not believe he would entirely forsake me? At the trial he did not appear."
"If he was a friend of yours," said Ambler sombrely, "no doubt the prosecution have got him out of the way, for I don't disguise from you, sir, that you were doomed from the moment you was arrested—my lord intended you to swing."
Philip Guise, still alert and wary, asked:
"And what is your part in that intrigue, sir? Are you his friend or mine, and do you intend to betray one to another. Forgive me, sir, but I have no time for anything but plain speaking."
"Before God," said Ambler, staring at him, "you seem to take your plight very lightly."
"It may be I don't realize it," smiled Philip Guise. "Death's an abstraction—dying's real enough. At present I only face an idea. I've felt detached from it all from the first—a spectator of my own downfall—curious, almost amused."
"But it's unendurable what you suffer, what you must suffer!"
"Unendurable? I don't know. I've seen men meet ends as ugly, and not pitied 'em overmuch. I've often thought, sir, that only in a crisis of misfortune doth a man know himself and I've often thought, too, sir, how detestable to meet in that other self an ignoble fellow."
"Are you then prepared to die?"
"Prepared? As unprepared as any other sinner," replied the prisoner, "with all my faults and errors on my soul, and nothing but darkness blowing in my face. How shall lamentations help me now? If I cannot find serenity in my disaster I am no better than a beast."
Ambler stood over him in that dismal half-light, stood shaking, sickened, ashamed.
"But the rope, the cart—thou wilt not die like one of the Jacks, babbling of a king and of a God, offering thy blood as a sacrifice to an earthly or a heavenly master, with a weeping crowd around thee listening to thy dying prayers; nay, rather thou wilt be hustled out of life in company with rogues and scoundrels, mocked at by a mob of brutes! What hope, what comfort wilt thou have, Philip Guise, in that moment of lonely, desolate shame?"
"Mayhap none," replied the prisoner undaunted. "But is this all you have to say?"
"Nay, you are right, I fritter time, and I have a good deal to say and must put it bluntly into coarse and common words."
A turnkey entered with food and wine for which Ambler had extravagantly paid; Philip Guise refused both, but drank some fresh water avidly. The deputy-marshal, the turnkey said, granted two requests which Ambler had made on Philip Guise's behalf when he first entered the prison. The prisoner, properly manacled to his chair, might be shaved, and Ambler might send him clean linen. For both these favours Philip Guise expressed much warm courteous gratitude that Ambler, thinking he mocked, sharply bid him cease.
"You don't know who I am, you don't know what I've done, and I've only a short space in which to tell you. Listen, and don't be squeamish. You know, and I know, that Shalford has contrived all this. He is quite aware that you are innocent, but the forged bill played into his hands. He was seeking you out to challenge you or, even as I believe, to murder you or have you transported or spirited away, when this chance came by. You know, or think you know, Mr. Guise, the reason of this hate?"
"Is it hate?" asked the prisoner sadly.
"It is no less. There is a name I'll not say—a name I need not say—but it's very important in this case, the name of a gentlewoman, Mr. Guise."
The prisoner drank again from the earthenware mug of water and the overbrimming drops ran on to his fetters before he answered.
"So you know," he said in a low voice. "Who told you?"
"Nobody. I guessed, knowing human nature fairly well, and my lord better than fairly."
Philip Guise set his mug back on the table, then asked:
"Is she well?"
"I don't know," said Ambler sincerely. "They keep her close; there's been no scandal or public outcry, she still stands publicly betrothed to my lord, but what he intends I can't guess."
"And you know nothing of her mind?"
"It is so difficult to know the mind of a young gentlewoman. So often these silly creatures seem to have no mind or will of their own."
"You have not seen her? You do not know if she seems content?"
"Nay," Ambler shook his head impatiently. "They keep her close, I tell you; there is some talk of an illness—the vapours, nay, it is nothing. I heard she has been abroad frequently. She is down at his place, Wraxham, attended by his womenfolk and hers."
"She doth not know of my—plight?"
"I cannot believe she does. It would be very easy for him to keep that from her. But, listen, time is so short. I must tell you much, I have been too long in beginning. This gentlewoman is not the only reason for Lord Shalford having contrived your destruction."
Philip Guise asked instantly:
"What other cause could he have to hate me?"
"You're his elder brother," confessed Ambler wearily.
The monstrous truth, so long hidden, sounded in his own ears dull and flat when brought thus to speech.
"This is more like Moorfields than Newgate!" cried Philip Guise, and laughed for sheer amusement.
"Don't laugh, did ye never guess as much yourself?" demanded Ambler impatiently. "What did ye think his interest in you was? Now, prithee, tell me. Where did you think that hundred a year came from? Did ye not consider it strange that you was never sent to school, but brought up close by the old minister? It never occurred to you to search the parish register at Islington to see if your birth was there?"
"No, I saw nothing odd in any of these things save in the sudden interest that my lord took in me, and that I put down to his feather-headedness and my own fooling with music."
He clasped his chained hands on the table and exclaimed:
"O God, if this were true! How all would fit in—how all would be explained!"
"It is true," sighed Ambler.
The prisoner stared at him with all the earnestness of a man seeking in agony for a vital truth; their faces were close together in the murky light, and Ambler did not lower his eyes.
"Ye would not lie to me?" asked Philip Guise intently. "I am, as I take it, a dying man. I am not guilty of the crime for which I am condemned. I do solemnly conjure thee not to dally with me, deceive or confuse me."
"Why d'ye suppose I'm here?" asked Amble-harshly. "All this is loathsome to me. I thought to die peacefully without mixing any more in other men's sins—but I've some dregs of conscience left in me. I'm worth nothing. I lie very often."
"Don't lie now, before God, I implore you!"
"I was your father's led buffoon, he had nothing to do with you; I mean my late noble patron—the Earl of Shalford—you're his lawful son."
"Swear that to me," cried the prisoner; his chained hand grasped the old man's trembling wrist.
"I can swear it—you're the present Earl."
In a violent access of fury at the coil in which he found himself Ambler shrilled, "May the soul of your father, my honourable patron, be blasted and rotted in hell as his body is festering in Wraxham vaults! And if the old ape walks, I hope he is squatting near to hear me!—"
IN the twilight of the cell Philip Guise listened to the truth from the dry lips of Laurence Ambler, or that portion of the truth that may be got into hurried words; and old wickednesses reared their heads from ancient dust and made the foul air more noisome.
The prisoner kept his face averted while the rapid tale poured out, till he felt his sleeve pulled and must turn at last.
Ambler had brought a packet of papers and a picture from his pocket and, as he laid them out before the prisoner, he hurried on with his story—a very different story from that he had given to Lord Shalford in the mourning-coach following the hearse to Wraxham Abbey. He held out the miniature of Barbara Pascoe.
"This is your mother. She was truly married to the late Earl of Shalford, and I, Mr. Cramer and St. Clair, the valet, were witnesses ... when he came into his honours there was a conspiracy to conceal the fact of his marriage... you was passed off as the son of Louis Guise; Arabella Guise was induced to bring you with her as her child ... my lord kept in touch with you and used the fact of your existence to blackmail his other two sons. When he placed the proof before his elder son and threatened to cause a scandal by exposing it to the public, that young man shot himself. My lord then held his hand for a while, but on his deathbed he left the proofs again with his second son and heir, the present Earl. Do you understand so far?" he demanded impatiently, for Philip Guise had sat mob and had again turned away his face.
"I understand very well."
"I," went on Ambler, "detested my late lord; we loathed one another, yet fitted so well into each other's company that we were seldom apart. But I was glad when he was dead and very pleased to be rid of the life I had had with him; and, if I hated your father, sir, I was never your mother's friend, there was much ill-will between us, and I was not minded to see her son and his in the place of my present lord, who had ever been kind and courteous to me, and I took him and not you, to be the right person to wear these honours. And so I invented a tale to keep his conscience quiet, but he would not have it, and must nose around for himself and so came to Islington and found you, I think, playing the organ, and must have you to his house as a compromise. I think, in those days, he was not quite persuaded. That rogue, Cramer, came home and began to bleed him, and I believe then he became certain that you, and not he, were the Earl."
The prisoner made no comment, and Ambler wiped his brows, his lips, and sighed into silence.
Philip Guise's chained hands turned over the papers—the original of those copies which Lord Shalford had destroyed on the spot where Edgar had murdered himself ... he gazed long at the picture of Barbara Pascoe... he knew well that a replica of that dark, lively face had glanced at him hundreds of times out of mirrors ... in the Islington lodging, in taverns, in toilet cases in camp and on the march.
"Here," he whispered at last, "is indeed a potent reason for my lord's wish to destroy me. He must," added the prisoner thoughtfully, "have suffered horribly. A soul divided! Why, he must have been in torment, Mr. Ambler."
"Torment?" exclaimed Ambler, "but what of your own torment?"
Philip Guise rose; he appeared to have entirely forgotten his own situation. His presence was commanding, his voice resolute; he had a quick, alert mind, a trained judgment; for all his gaiety and carelessness he was capable of instantly grasping the situation in all its complexities, and of making a quick decision.
He demanded:
"Why have you kept this from me, to tell me now?"
"Because I couldn't see you hanged," said Ambler, almost on a whisper. "I tried to persuade him to get you reprieved. He wouldn't. I went down to see him at Wraxham, we both got drunk, and I thought I'd let it go too. I brought him up to the moment when I could see it in his eyes, that he thought he'd got a chance to redeem everything by saving you. Yet he wouldn't. It was as if my late lord stood between us, and I thought I'd let you swing too. But then I couldn't do it, I had to come here and tell you."
Guise, looking at him, quietly said:
"I doubt if it could be proved now, with Cramer out of the way, not daring, as you say, to come forward; St. Clair transported, the woman and my grandfather (as I thought him) dead."
"But if I was to make it public," replied Ambler, "there'd be a fine scandal at least, and he'd be fairly well blasted."
"And she with him, I suppose," returned Guise dryly. "I imagine she prefers him after all, and they'll be married when I'm out of the way; and that's the sane solution, sir, of the whole miserable affair. There's but your word and these few papers to prove that marriage."
"I could get you a reprieve on the strength of it were I to go to the Crown attorneys, a minister, the King himself," said Ambler. "There's a rent-roll of forty thousand with Shalford's title. People will listen to anything about a fortune like that."
"He's been wronged as much as I, we've got to consider that.... My late lord, as it seems to me, brought about this evil."
"It's strange," muttered Ambler, "the power he he's had to ruin all of us long after he's dead." He turned eagerly, half-cringing, to the prisoner. "Now, what shall I do? I've come to you at last, I put myself in your hands, I await your commands."
Philip Guise shook his head.
"You can do nothing, Mr. Ambler, it's too late."
"You mean you will be hanged?"
"I mean I'll be hanged; don't quibble so, it's a dirty business, and I'm well out of it. If this be truth," and he brought his manacled hands down violently on the papers, "my father was a great rogue and my mother is best forgotten. I had rather have been the son of poor Louis Guise, who was, at least, a better man."
Ambler, who thought he must be stupefied by this fortune or by amazement, leaned towards him and said loudly:
"Don't ye understand you're the Earl and he's nothing but a bastard, and that he 'ud see ye hanged to hush it up?"
"Yes, I understand," flashed Philip Guise, with some contempt, "I'm not so thick in the wits, sir; but I have wronged him, too, and in a tender point. I'll not have the matter laid open. Take me off your conscience, Mr. Ambler; tear up your papers and leave me in peace."
"I've startled you out of your senses," muttered Ambler, "you don't know what you say. Here's life and honours and great wealth offered you, or at least a fair chance at 'em. I don't think you realize where you stand or what is appointed for you next Wednesday.
"I am not run lunatic," replied Philip Guise sternly, "though I have just heard the most amazing thing I could have thought it possible to hear; yet I can believe you, sir, you seem at sufficient pains, nor would there be any object in thus lying to a helpless man. I can believe you, sir, and see that your tale fits in to very dark and difficult circumstances which, hitherto, had puzzled me. But I'll not be perturbed or shaken. I tell you, sir, I pity this brother of mine, if brother he be, and I recommend you to pity him also—"
"And not to speak, not to move?" ejaculated Ambler dully, taking up his papers. "You don't believe me, I suppose?"
Philip Guise smiled.
"I'll think it all over, I'll have opportunity in the condemned cell to-night if those knaves stop howling and the rats stop squealing. Believe you? I've said I do believe you, and I've said I'm sorry for that young wretch who has had more put on him than a man may support.... I must think of her, too, that's only common honour. She would be blasted with him. You say he has the intention to marry her?"
"As far as I know."
"Then, if he may make a strain at so much kindness, I may make a strain at the kindness of bidding you be silent. It's all an ugly matter, and to bring it up is to bruise many memories. Better that one Philip Guise died obscurely than that all this dirty business be made public and fair names soiled."
Ambler, in his wretchedness and confusion, looked at Philip Guise with that relief with which the weak always regard the strong. He said, with a feeble grimace which came near laughter:
"All this pother has been for nothing? All this desperation to keep the truth from you, and you would have done nothing? I saw you as an ambitious man."
"I was ambitious, Mr. Ambler, not as a hot-head, but as a man of some experience. I would to God ye had told me all this when it first began to trouble ye, and ye would have found there was nothing to be feared from me. I would not have shamed and overset that other. I liked him—with his music—and his weakness. I should have pitied him then, as I do now, from the bottom of my heart."
He sat down suddenly and took his head in his hands, while Laurence Ambler shuddered to hear the drag of the chains on the table, while he continued with an effort at serenity:
"Look ye, Mr. Ambler, I'm not the man I was; it is the foul air, as I suppose, the confinement to which I am not used, and I'll need some strength; look ye we'll have no more of this strange argument, which, I take it, will soon be at an end, sir, too. And there are two matters I would like to ask of you if you think that you owe me some service. There is that child they call Polly at my house in Islington, who tried to speak for me at the trial, she was hustled and confounded, called a liar and left weeping, which hurt me to the heart to behold, poor fond wretch. Now, if you could get to take her some message of kindness from me—give her, maybe, a gift—and see that she does not leave Islington next Wednesday, I would be beholden to you."
But Ambler could not answer, and Philip Guise continued, holding his brow:
"And the matter of my friend, Captain Cameron, if he hath been taken away by force it was a foul thing, a great injustice, and I look to you and my lord to set it right."
"It's not the only injustice in this case."
"The others may go, but that is gross and wanton," replied Philip Guise sadly. "If you could set that right I'd be your debtor: 'twas a harmless fellow who tried to be a friend to me in trouble—a good trooper and an honest gentleman."
Ambler put up his papers and the portrait of Barbara Pascoe. He fetched a groan and said:
"Perhaps, before it is quite too late, my lord will repent of his evil obstinacy."
Philip Guise shook his head:
"If he doth, then the better for him and the better for me. But if he keep silent, well, so will I, and so must you."
Laurence Ambler stared at him, but it was Philip Guise who again broke the silence by asking under his breath:
"That letter—do you know anything of that letter? Surely it was in her hand?"
"You see what he hath come to," replied Ambler in low, rapid tones. "It was to decoy you to the tavern, wasn't it?"
Philip Guise nodded.
"I don't believe she could have written it," said Ambler, "it's my belief she has forgotten you and intends to marry the Earl."
"I hope she hath.... But the letter?"
"He must have concocted it—a forger, too, eh?"
Ambler laughed weakly.
The prisoner did not answer; he kept his glance down on his manacled hands, and Ambler, observing him with an agony of curiosity, thought he had some trouble with himself. But, before either of them could debate the matter further, the jailers came upon them. The hour for which Ambler had paid so heavily was over; he began to mutter incoherent excuses, but Philip Guise looked up steadily and said:
"Thank you, sir, for what comfort you have brought me. Believe me that I am very well, and shall be obliged to you for attending to those two small matters I have mentioned."
Ambler stammered, hesitated, was distracted. All this seemed to him grotesque in its inadequacy. He wanted to blurt out the whole story in a trembling shrieks before the jailers, but the prisoner's eyes held him steady, kept him to decorum and clarity. But he could bring himself to no formal farewell, nor did he care to look long at the chained man, with his unkempt hair and soiled linen, who was yet, at Ambler's judgment, a creature of uncommon grandeur.
He shuffled out of the cell, sick and shivering, and made his bargain in my lord's name—that Philip Guise was to occupy the cell in which he now rested until the morning of his execution. As he made these terms an impish thought danced in Ambler's bewildered brain ... he would pay for this from the prisoner's own money, for his money came from Lord Shalford, and Lord Shalford's money belonged to the prisoner himself. Feeling his way carefully, like a drunken man, he left Newgate, thinking: "Why didn't we trust him? If we had told him at the first all could have been straight out. They might have loved each other, those two brothers. Yes, I believe they might have loved each other."
He considered: "This Philip hath something of my lord's look, but 'tis the other man hath my lord's disposition."
In the foul, windy, ill-lit street he debated with himself:
"Shall I speak? Should I be listened to if I did?" He felt light-headed, stupid.
"Both of them obstinate—I can't do any more, there's nothing more I ought to do ..." He pulled himself up at that word "ought," which many hold is the very word which proves there is a God.... "But—I don't know..."
He shuffled miserably on foot up to Highgate, where Mignonette Luckett waited for him with food and lights and small comforts.
Laurence Ambler, huddled over the fire, drinking strong tea and whispering in his heart: "My lord will speak before Wednesday, surely he'll speak; oh, yes, I can be sure of that."
"WHAT commission have I from any divinity to interfere in this matter? Let them each perish in their several obstinacies. My own crumb of life is nearly done, and why should I concern myself any more with any ancient or lewd story?"
Laurence Ambler, musing thus, sat at the window in his Highgate house and looked across the garden where all that had been bright and vital was pressed and bowed into the degradation of decay; beyond the garden flaunted the fire and colour of the sunset, a veil of spacious gleam across the fading azure.
"Why should I sugar their wormwood for them? Let them go post to their peculiar darknesses, as all we gamesters must when the candles are out and the tables disarrayed for the play. One more day, then the Tyburn cart for the elder brother, and for the younger something worse than that: a fret and wrangle of the soul, a melancholy which will be as hard to guess at as to cure."
Mignonette Luckett brought in a visitor to the solitary man—a wan and careless creature in a clerical coat; his 'pox-pitted face was dull, but his looks curious. Ambler at once felt a certain fellowship with this man, who was one of the chaplains from Newgate and had brought a letter from Philip Guise. As he handed this billet the minister mentioned that he brought it out of charity and compassion for the prisoner, who seemed of a condition above his state, and whose serenity was remarkable in a man so young and lusty and such as usually went with a fury of regret to death.
"Not that he has not been fetched down. Last night he was sick to retching, and I had thought that he looked about for a means to destroy himself, yet he will not abate of his cheerfulness and good humour."
Laurence Ambler broke the seal of the letter, which was impressed only by the imprint of a thumb, and he thought: "Had my late lord so much power yet that he can bring all three to self-destruction? Edgar slew himself, Philip endeavoured to do so, and I make no doubt that that will be the end of Edmund. Now how is it possible that the evil of my lord hath so much power? There must indeed be a devil.... Now, as I suppose, his constancy has broken and he would have me speak."
Under the inquisitive eyes of the dirty chaplain Laurence Ambler read the billet:
To Laurence Ambler Esq.
Written from the condemned cell in Newgate Prison this Tuesday morning before the day of execution.
To write one's dying confession or one's own elegy is the vogue, and though I have small skill in such affairs I can't forbear a word or so about the matters of which thou toldst me on thy late visit. I have fixed these in my mind and endeavour not to make this a mere tempestuous debate between desire and conscience, but an exercise of reason, and at the end I come to think, even as I thought in the first hurry of surprise, to write much of the matter is to take the part of a ranting actor who declaims his virtues while he does nothing, and I have no heroical part to play, but merely write to assure thee that I would calmly disappear and neither grieve, repine, nor fear, nor blot these last hours with any windy fit of rhetoric. I conjure thee, let no busy fool get at this secret; serve as thou canst the man thou knowest of who will suffer more than I.
Do those small kindnesses I was emboldened to ask you. As for Dick Cameron's case, it was a gross injustice. Now, I wish thee well and beg thy continued silence. Believe of me only that I go where all the brags, conquests and prizes of the world must go, and feel my heart no less steady than that of any other sinner who needs must of a sudden descend into the dust. Kind and calm and without regret let thy remembrance be of
Thy faithful servant
Philip Guise.
"What is this man to you?" asked the prying chaplain curiously, helping himself to the other's snuff.
"Nothing," replied Ambler sullenly, folding up the letter. "As he lies committed on my lord's warrant my lord wished some gentleness shown him, and he has written to thank me for it. Nothing more, my good sir, nothing more."
But some soiled tears lay in Laurence Ambler's wrinkled eyes.
"Some prate of immortality," he murmured, looking at the sunset. "What d'ye think, my good sir? Now, prithee, tell me what can break and bud from such foul clay as some of us be? Yours is a strange task," he added, glancing at the wan chaplain. "You see some hideous sights—the Devil making his truce with humanity. Say, hast thou seen any spangles or gleams of glory in Newgate—any angels descending?"
"I've seen some ugly sights of despair and pain," smiled the chaplain, "but I've seen those men who have not been smirched even by Newgate. This Philip Guise—"
"No more of him," interrupted Ambler; "he'll be hanged on Wednesday."
The man of God fingered his long, rough, half-shaven chaps.
"Well," he said, "I thought perhaps my lord had got him reprieved, or had the sentence changed to transportation; saving your presence, there's been some malice in a great man like my lord the Earl not striving for mercy for one who falls sharply," and he peered at Laurence Ambler pursing up his lips. "Well, it has naught to do with me; I have done what I can."
"In what affair?" sneered Laurence Ambler. "What, sir, do you know, and what, sir, would you insinuate?"
"I know nothing," admitted the melancholy chaplain, "though I may suppose there is some dusty story behind all this. Nay, when I say I know nothing, I am wrong. I do know something, and that is that Philip Guise is innocent of that forgery."
"Why so sure?" mocked the other.
"Because I have some knowledge of mankind. I have been with this particular man frequently for the last few days—"
The chaplain ended abruptly and stole more snuff. "Well, that's enough." He pushed his wig back to scratch his pimpled forehead. "There's no answer to that letter?"
"None," replied Ambler. "Tell Philip Guise I will do as he asks me and no more. Come," he added with a rude laugh, "don't vex yourself, my reverend sir, with cares beyond your horoscope."
"I believe I'm richly cozened," replied the chaplain, half angry, half mortified, and, clasping on his greasy hat, he left the house and wandered back uneasy into London, taking his meal at an ordinary where he was not like to meet with acquaintance. He had a mind to be alone that night and sullenly wished he was not so habituated to wine that it was impossible for him to drink away care and vexation. But he did contrive sufficiently, by heavy potations, to confuse his wits and make his knees weak, so that at last, when he came shambling out of the ordinary, he was nearly knocked down by a private post-chaise which was passing at a fierce speed along the ill-lit street. The fuddled chaplain, saving himself with a lurch, cursed the high and haughty rich man as he clumsily endeavoured to wipe the mire from his coat tails and adjust his crooked filthy wig with the five tiers of threadbare curls. He was further enraged by a glimpse of the occupant of the coach—a stout, purple-faced gentleman, very handsomely attired, who was beating on the window with a gold-headed cane and shouting to the coachman and postillions to: "make haste! more haste!"
As the soured chaplain shambled back to Newgate this stout gentleman proceeded violently on his errand; his limbs ached exceedingly, for he had come at express haste from the North, along bad roads and through frequent foul weather. But he had not been niggardly with his coin and he had travelled luxuriously, like a man of breeding; his top-coat was furred, his inner-coat silver braided, his wig neat, clean and new-curled, his cocked hat set on jauntily. He was an elderly man, much disabled by a corpulent habit of the body and by gout; he had in every particular the bearing of a gentleman, and an air of authority. His expression was one of resolution, but occasionally his gross features twitched in amusement and with ironic satisfaction as he rehearsed over again and again certain sentences he must soon bring out with forceful effect.
As the watch was crying: "Two o'clock and a fair, cold night," this gentleman reached his destination, towards which he had been pressing for so many hurried days. This was the mansion of a Minister, the most influential man in England. The stout gentleman, shouting commands from the lowered window, sent the postillion to thunder upon the door of the residence of this august personage, so that the lackeys came flying at the summons, thinking this must be some great matter of State, or at least a message from some foreign potentate ... some king dead, some mistress dismissed, or a riot in the colonies....
The stout gentleman alighted with many a groan but a stern air from the coach, leaning heavily on the arm of the groom as he descended the step. He bid the equipage wait.
"Though I know not if I may require your services when I leave," he added with a twinkle; "but in any case you have been well fee'd for a crew of as unlikely rascals as ever 'scaped whipping."
There was some murmuring on the part of the lackeys standing in the great man's vestibule, and some denials from secretaries, demands as to who and what was this insistent stranger at such an hour of the night. But the traveller had gone up the steps and was firmly in my lord's doorway, bawling out:
"D'ye think, ye rapscallions, that I've broken my limbs travelling furiously, exposed to all the dangers of the roads, to be denied at the end? My God, if I were one of your damned Whig ministers, I'd keep your stony highways in better condition. What d'ye suppose it's cost me to come from the North? My ears are stiff from hearing the horses cried and beaten at.... Now, get away from me, knaves, and give me passage!"
With faces sharpened by curiosity they let him pass.... He was richly dressed, he had the grand air; surely a personage? He thumped on the ground with the handsome stick he earned and demanded if my lord was within, and on hearing that he was he seemed gratified and relieved. "But I had found him if he had been in the Elector's Cabinet; aye, I say Elector, mark it!"
At the sound of the word "Elector" there was again trouble, some talk of a plot, a conspiracy ... the stranger had forced his way to the stairhead, and on to this came the great man himself, roused by the tumult, pompous and stuttering ... thinking of a crisis, a revolution, some old sin or mistake suddenly discovered by an enemy.
"Hullo, Jack; how d'ye do?" cried the stranger loudly. "Thou art somewhat changed from the old Corpus Christi days; thy knees are dropped a little I'll warrant a few storms have beat on that bald pate of thine, for bald thou must be, old crow, beneath that fine periwig."
At this boisterous greeting the great man stood with chattering teeth, his head thrown back in affront, while the new-comer pushed him out of the doorway and hustled him into the cabinet, being by much the stronger.
"Look ye here, Jack, get over thy stupid amazement. You was at college with me, and well you recall it; I believe to this day you owe me twenty pounds. Come, you've been up to some rough ploys in your time; so have I, and I've a mind that ye should do one good deed before the Devil catches ye."
The great man recovered some of his equanimity, but stammered, blinking and angry:
"I don't know you, sir, but if you was at college with—"
"I was—I was!" roared the other and, without the great man's permission, took a seat and with a curse nursed his swollen leg. "There's a damned dirty piece of work going on, and there's some things a gentleman can't do, d'ye see? Ah, Jack, a sorry scoundrel thou must be to rise into power clinging to the skirts of this pack of filthy German sneaking Whigs—'tis a government for dogs; but that's to insult the curs."
The great man stammered and blabbered, sharp-eyed, protesting.
"I'm Tom Cramer, your humble servant," announced his visitor. "Ye've had a warrant out against me since the '45, and I've been too clever for ye, old fox; I'd have been off to France by this time if I hadn't seen in one of your 'Gazettes'—lying rags that they be, written by mischievous unprincipled hirelings—that ye have a man condemned to death for altering a bill written by Lord Shalford as you think him."
"Damme," cried the Minister when he could get a word in, "why have ye put your neck in danger for that, ye old fool? Get out, for the love of Heaven, Tom, before some knave marks ye down."
"I came back to be marked down," replied the other with a grin and a glare. "'Twas I altered that bill."
"You? Then why the devil don't you be silent about it? You deserve to be damned for bringing yourself to this pass!"
"Bah!" snorted Cramer contemptuously, "you wasn't used to be so depraved, Jack; but one may believe anything of an Elector's man. I tell ye I'm going to-morrow before a magistrate with my depositions, but first you've got to get a reprieve for the man in Newgate now. I did it light-heartedly; I wanted the money, and I didn't think the young blackguard 'ud squeal.... Five hundred guineas—and he's got one of the biggest fortunes in the kingdom!"
"I know all about that," replied the great man dryly, pricking up his ears, thinking after all there might be something important in the case. "Shalford? He's done nothing but behave himself—was in Dublin—safe, dull, a huge estate."
"Well, and it ain't his ... and I didn't think he'd yelp at losing a few hundreds of it, and I didn't think he'd let that other man be hanged. He's shown what he is, Jack: a cur—not fit to call himself a peer of England, and I'll show that he isn't too. It's the other man, my lord, in Newgate, who should be in his shoes. But I'll prove it—"
"Prove it then," interrupted the Minister sharply. "You was a man of parts once, Tom, and of honour, as we used to name it. I remember ye at college—a merry scoundrel. But I thought you was dead long since; eh, Lord, I know not how the time slips by."
The two old men considered each other curiously; on a secretary coming to the door the Minister turned him away, saying he was with a friend and must not be disturbed, while Mr. Cramer quizzed round the neat cabinet, sarcastically reminding himself that this was the very last place on earth where he had thought to find himself. Fatigue overcame him, his head sank aside; his face bore traces of his long-endured loneliness, his hunted, exiled life.
The Minister looked at his visitor and pushed his wig from his forehead. He was a little omnipotent man, purple-lipped, with the sharpest snub nose; he had all the qualities which make for success; few know what these be, but this man had them as surely as the other had those which make for failure. They had nothing in common but some boyhood memories and a sense of humour; this was sufficient.
"Well, well, tell a plain tale, Tom," advised my lord.
Mr. Cramer told it, comforted by a glass of sack and a good fire and the Minister's attention. My lord cared nothing for jail-birds, and very little if an innocent man suffered (was not this too often the case to make a pother of?), but he was interested in the Shalford fortune and the Shalford influence; just as well to know who was the Earl, eh? Besides, he saw that Tom Cramer was resolute to split, and in that case it would be wiser to help him and gain the new lord for the Government.
Mr. Cramer found some relish in relating this ancient history to this congenial audience.
Wretched as the tale was he made it droll and piquant, so that the two old men would sometimes laugh together over the dead loves, the decayed follies and the stink of old rascalities, as those laying out a corpse may laugh at the comic distortions of the dead.
Nor did Mr. Cramer admit my late Lord Shalford to be the cruel devil he appeared in Mr. Ambler's melancholy tales; he had become embittered, maybe, and done a bad action or two in his time, but Mr. Cramer would have it that he had been a good companion, witty, generous to his friends.
"'Twas the cloddish tradesmen stock he married into ruined him, with their airs of virtue and pragmatical ways, and their clutching of the money bags. As to his sons, why, the first blew his brains out in a temper, and the second—'Tis no credit to a good old name—to let this Philip Guise be hanged, knowing who he is—and for a paltry five hundred guineas. Bah!"
"Art thou so disgusted with this wrongdoing, Tom," asked the Minister shrewdly, "that thou wilt hang to set it right?"
"I'd prefer Tower Hill—and ye might be so serviceable to an old friend as to contrive as much—to being turned off at Tyburn; but rather that than let the other swing—well, dammit, he hath been wronged enough already. Now, stir thy old shanks, Jack, and get him out of the condemned hole at Newgate."
"You'll swear to all this? You've your proofs?"
"A few more than young Edmund thinks; I can rake up enough to shove him out of the saddle—confound him for a whey-faced canting trader's brat!"
The Minister smiled.
"Thou art very well set off, Tom. Where didst thou get so much means?"
"Why, 'tis what I had left of the hoard I got from Shalford's bill," grinned Cramer, "and I've spent every penny piece of it on comfortable journeys, since it is like to be the last time I shall travel, save at your master's expense."
"We must see about that," said my lord. "You seem to have got into a confounded pickle and I suppose I must get you out, but the devil knows how I'll do it; you must break prison, I fear, Tom—but we'll contrive; this Shalford affair will be a complication of scandals. Meanwhile I must get that man out of Newgate."
Ringing for his secretary, the Minister asked thoughtfully:
"What is he like, this Philip Guise?"
Cramer smiled to himself with recollections of that dark young man in the Holborn tavern who had so carelessly (no doubt on some private pique) tossed away a despised bounty.
"He's worth a hundred of his brother, a proper gentleman."
"Well, Tom, well, this must be considered—let's in to supper and talk of something trifling and comfortable—after thy tedious journey," said my lord dryly, "and thy startling confession."
ABOUT the hour that Mr. Cramer's coach drew up at the Minister's pompous mansion, bringing a violent journey to an end, another travelling chaise was coming post-haste to London. When Laurence Ambler, whose conscience kept him in a broil, came creeping, early on the Wednesday morning, to the mansion in the Fields, he met the Earl descending from his carriage, the horses lathered, mud on the polished sides; my lord huddled in a coat over rich, disordered clothes.
"Have you, too, been awake all night?" muttered Ambler wearily. He followed the young Earl, who did not appear to see him, into the house; they ascended to the room where my late lord's invalid chair still stood in the window-place, stumbling, each of them, for the shadows were thick.
"Many times during the night," sighed Shalford, "hath my benumbed spirit fallen and risen again, and I know not where it leads me, but I was impelled to come here."
"But ye have come here to speak?" The young man answered: "No—"; and pulled the heavy curtains that shut out the vague sombre London dawn; some late link-men were crossing the square, their lights showed tawny.
"'Tis a fine morning," added Shalford, and Ambler shot a furious glance at his white, comely hand as it moved aimlessly up and down the folds of harsh, stiff brocade he had dragged aside.
My lord's words were commonplace, but his demeanour was both vehement and melancholic. Ambler, in cowardly affright, peering into his face, saw that his features looked small and deathlike beneath his curled long locks, whitened with pomade, which were half escaping from the buckle; the muslin was loosened at his throat. It was plain he had been up all night.
Ambler plucked from his pocket the letter Philip Guise had written in Newgate, and thrust it, with unapt hand, before my lord, who read it, and changed nothing of his countenance.
Ambler stammered:
"God's mercy, you'll speak, after reading that, you'll speak?"
The young man replied dully: "I shall say nothing."
He seated himself in his father's invalid chair, leant back, with his hands clasped behind his head and the drab light full over his person.
"Without prudence, without purport, without direction you act," remarked Ambler brokenly; "indeed, I think you must be damned."
Shalford dropped his swollen lids over his listless eyes.
"You can't speak either, d'ye hear?" he remarked.
Without moving he turned his head slightly so that he could see out of the window; the yellow skies were fading into grey, the outline, blackened with soot, of the boughs of the tall trees in the Fields began to show distinctly; the sunless light discovered the grime of the city, and the beggars were gathering in the gutters.
"See how they stray out into the light," murmured Shalford, "with parade of misery and blare of woe, and there is one, the filthiest of all, with darkened eyes who sings 'My beautiful dream, O my beautiful dream!' Prithee now, didst ever hear the like of that mockery?"
Ambler whimpered: "Have ye understood the import of that letter I have shown ye? Do you understand that I have told him?"
"I supposed you would," replied Shalford indifferently, "tell him; but, as you see, 'tis useless, neither of us can interfere with this day's work."
Ambler began to whine petulantly to himself and lament that he was sick, his stomach turned; he believed that he had been poisoned by those Newgate stenches ...
"You have been drinking," said the Earl without turning his head, "so have I, and that, too, is useless. You'll require a stronger potation than any we wot of to drown your wicked thoughts, eh?"
"What of the Day of Judgment?" asked Ambler foolishly.
The young man replied:
"Judgment hath already fallen."
Ambler stared about the room; all the splendour appeared formal and dingy. "How stupid of the young man not to have altered this heavy, old-fashioned furnishing; and why did he so continuously use my late lord's chaise-longue?—damn all these trifles that buzzed round a man's sick brain like flies round carrion ... there was nothing to be done with that composed, pale, lifeless-looking fellow, with his obstinate silence ... as if his soul had been felled by a palsy ... better go down into the kitchens and see if there were any embers could be blown into a blaze, any drink to be had—maybe even a cup of coffee ... aye, you mulish wretch—is he to be hanged and put on my conscience? I can't speak, it's too late ... supposing one day I do stand on the threshold of the Judgment? Old wives chatter ... but how can they face it? One to be hanged—the other to permit as much."
Shalford turned his head slightly.
"Back to Highgate—unless thou hast a fancy to swell the mob at Tyburn—thou'll get no more from me."
Ambler peered out at the city beyond the window, where all looked sombre and dull, as if even the sunlight was exhausted; a wind had risen with the dawn, and leaves, in loose tattered garlands, were raised by sudden gusts and whirled round the square.
"I'll go and warm myself," shuddered Ambler; "there is large comfort in a fire."
He shambled away; the wind, breaking fitfully in and out of the great house, slammed the door behind him. The young man sat alone, his hands clasped behind his head, and looked out on to the London day.
He thought: "'Tis something to have an end in view and to make for it steadily—he has that consolation ... in a few hours he will have ceased to exist ... and before me there will be but a wilderness ... how once I spoke bravely fine, of honour and courage."
He heard a clock strike, and then another. Footsteps without, lackeys and serving-maids creeping about, inquisitive, prying; how even old Heslop's yellow visage had seemed sharpened by curiosity and fear of late; what did they suspect? What were they afraid of?... A murky day, clouds were blowing up across the vague sunshine ... the harpsichord stood in the corner, a portfolio of music on the stand; careless and negligent as they were, had he not bid them take away all trace of his old, foolish passion?
He heard the door open—not the wind now, a human hand; he did not turn his head, but, like one between sleep and wakening, awaited terror.
The step that crossed the floor was not that of Ambler, nor of Heslop the old butler, nor of any creature whom Shalford imagined to be in the house. But it was a familiar step. Moving his head stiffly he turned and stared at the man who had paused to stare at him, and an exclamation of agony came from him, so swift and transient that he seemed not to have spoken, and the other was not sure that he had been anything but dumb.
It was Philip Guise, who looked at him with a frown of compassion.
"Aye, very well," whispered Shalford, and tried to rise, but could not. "I expected this—"
"Command thyself. Indeed thou hast need of fortitude."
Shalford pressed his hands over his hot eyes and then stared again at Philip Guise.
"Did they hang ye at an earlier hour, and are you already returned to plague me?" Then he recollected himself, as one who angrily catches himself in a folly, and demanded, suddenly sitting erect: "How have you escaped?"
"My warrant is discharged, and I am set at liberty."
"Free, free? You should have died this morning."
"The man who tampered with thy bond hath spoken. One Thomas Cramer, a proscribed Jacobite. I was put in the porter's lodge last night and released at dawn."
Shalford did not speak, he turned his sunken eyes aside; without moving the other spoke again, and with a deep earnestness:
"I have come at once to thee—so that, somehow between us, we may put this matter straight."
"To me? I waited here the news of thy execution."
"Let that go." Philip Guise spoke in a distress and confusion, as if he had been detected in some crime. "This man Cramer, exasperated against thee, hath made a lodgment of all he knoweth. About a certain marriage—the old man, Ambler, informed me—"
Shalford broke in:
"So Cramer hath spoken! And I'm ruined. I lost my chance indeed—as the old rascal said! Robbed even of honour—even of that! The rogue Cramer could speak, when I could not."
"Indeed I pity thee."
"Pity me! But all is false—all are in a story and soon shall be all in a rope together! Neither Cramer nor Ambler can prove anything. I'll see ye all hanged; aye, damned and blasted, before ye move me."
"You mean nothing of that," replied Philip Guise quietly. "And you must face the issue—the story is out now. I believe this man can prove what he says—I had attorneys clamouring after me this morning, but I put them aside. Surely this is between you and I."
Shalford bit his lower lip, which was already sore and bled when he spoke; he seemed to heed very little what the other said.
"So that blackguard Cramer gets this, not I," he muttered. "He can come back and offer his neck ... on a point of honour. I know, he'd say it was the only possible thing for a gentleman to do.... And yet I never thought he'd do it.... Of all things I never thought the forger would come back and speak."
"So," asked Philip Guise, "ye did know I had not done it?"
"Yes—and would have had you hanged—get me clearly for what I am. I would have been thy murderer."
"You were tempted, and provoked."
"I'll have none of thy pity!"
Philip Guise approached him, and spoke strongly, using his name with emphasis.
"Edmund, the Crown and the lawyers have gotten hold of this dismal matter. I can't hush it up. Had you held your hand in the matter of the bond this Cramer had been silent—but now 'tis too late—they'll try to put us on to fight for it."
"Damn thee, I'll make no fight," replied Shalford, with bitter sullenness.
"Nor I." Then, on an outburst of feeling, Philip Guise cried, "If only thou hadst told me from the first, how easily we might have adjusted this!"
"Might we?" asked Shalford stupidly. "Adjusted it?"
And the other answered in a sad passion of scorn and sorrow:
"Didst thou think I would have dispossessed thee?—thou who wert born and bred to it, as wronged as I? I was well enough; nay, content. I had my ambitions—some of those, in kindness, thou mightst have satisfied.... All this pother, all this misery, this cursed mystery.... I tell thee, Edmund," and he used his brother's name with a touching sincerity, "I would rather this man Cramer had been silent than face the hubbub he will put upon us ... why didst thou fall so into error? Thus mistaking me."
With a sly look Shalford bent forward.
"Is it not strange that you and I should be sitting here? This was our father's favourite place. I had thought by now you had been at Tyburn; don't ye know I was waiting for that? I could have got a reprieve, but I never lifted a finger."
"We'll put that out of our minds," returned Philip Guise hoarsely. "There is much evil in all of us, and in thee it got the mastery—"
"Aye, indeed, something hath got the mastery of me. Dost thou believe in evil spirits? I think my late lord left a fiend behind to do his bidding and destroy us all."
"He'll not destroy us," asserted Philip Guise firmly. "Thou and I will be free of him and his designs. Listen, Edmund, now prithee do, I am indeed thy elder brother, 'tis proved, and I feel for thy torment, but what man hath destroyed man can amend, as we will amend this."
"You speak bravely," whispered Shalford faintly, holding on to the back of the chair. "I know not how I did what I did. I was afraid but, despite myself, driven on. Can you understand that?... I remember once, in Austria, in the pit of the night I was lost on some sucking marshy ground, then came out, I know not how, on a dark waste where there were living bodies of crying men and half-devoured horses, over which I stumbled; with every attempt to escape fresh dreadful sights assailed me, yet I must go on and hold my lantern high...." As he stared at Philip Guise, his face was enfevered and full of yearning. "Why should I try to make plain to thee," he added, "what is in the recesses of my heart? Not only is it impossible, but it is too late—all is over."
Philip Guise considered this anguished creature, meagre, wan and wretched, with a frowning and affectionate anxiety. He had so far forgotten himself and his own late fortunes, the violent change in his circumstances, that there seemed to him nothing unnatural that he should be sitting in this great room endeavouring in a measured and constant manner to comfort the younger man. Since Ambler had first spoken to him he had been consumed with a passion of remorse and pity for one so wronged, so weak, so mistaken, so engulfed in his own fears and hesitancies. "If he could have trusted me, if only I had known sooner!"
Shalford sank down on the chair again, and his elder brother stood over him. Emotion unveiled the two haggard young faces so that, in the puckered brows, the parted lips, the hollowed cheeks, there was a certain likeness. The elder thought: "What the poor lad hath suffered! that monstrous old lord! but surely I am man enough to put it some way right. I won't be defeated by ancient malice—he hath been prevented by fear."
Shalford peered up at him; Philip Guise's linen was besmirched, and though his clothes had been neatened, he was as shabby as in the days when they had first met in the Islington church; his vivacity and colour had gone, the curve of his arching upper lip seemed emphasized, his lids were swollen and reddened, his dark hair, hastily dressed, lay negligently on his brow; but 'twas the same Philip Guise, with his generous humour and his charm, his easy mastery of life. Even at this moment he seemed to dominate circumstances ...
With an air of stiff and chilly ceremony Shalford repulsed him:
"What a dumb, blind fool I was—what chance had I with such as he—was she not constrained to prefer him?"
Even now, when all seemed lost for Shalford, he felt (as one bedimmed with pain might feel cold water on parched, dying lips) that something of beauty and strength had entered that cursed room with Philip Guise. Worn, exhausted, marred as that young man was, he possessed that unconscious grandeur that brings comfort in the depth of woe, yet still Shalford turned aside.
"I'll not be thy beggar," he muttered, "thou canst not heal my dark confusion—"
"Yet thou might pity me," replied Philip Guise sorrowfully. "I thought to-day to fall upon a nap, and end strife, but Death has flown again—and left me to face much uneasiness; less difficult indeed to die than take up what I now must. A man doth not have common thoughts when he's expecting a sudden horrid end—I was resolved to it—I could have done it—but this! I feel bested by fortune."
He was silent, and both felt the harsh inadequacy of words, and what Shalford had felt once before—their essential innocency; each held the other guiltless of their common plight.
Philip Guise struggled to pierce their mutual bewilderments.
"Edmund, dost thou not know me yet?"
A piteous smile lifted Shalford's bitter lips.
"I know thee well. I have always known thee."
"Then, don't look at me like that now, prithee, don't, if ye know me, Edmund, ye know I could never contrive thee a mischief."
"My thoughts all stray—how escape the shame and the loss? I'm ruined—indeed, ye know not all—"
"We can escape the tumult—once we understand each other."
Shalford sighed and answered:
"You always had everything, and I nothing. Do you remember how you played the sonata I bungled? So in all. My better. I admired, envied, nearly loved, then hated—or did I? I have so disguised myself to myself. Will you play to me now? They left the harpsichord, after all."
Philip Guise, startled, dreading that his brother's mind was overset, grasped his hand and begged him to compose himself; but the other continued to entreat for the music as one in torment might implore an opiate.
"That pastorale—by Greene, from 'Florimel'—there's all in that—if I could hear it once more."
He appeared to speak from a lethargy of wild wretchedness, yet he smiled.
Philip Guise took his mood and went to the harpsichord, found and played the piece for which his brother had pleaded. The melody was earnest and yearning, full of denied sighs and the fair bleakness of sapless blossom; it said what words must ever fail before.
When Philip Guise had concluded he turned and saw his brother still seated on the invalid chair, very quiet, his hands propping his head, his elbows on his knee.
Philip Guise had been soothed with the music, and dared to believe that their mutual dis-eases and wretchednesses might be comforted. He came forward with an impulsive glance of beseeching friendship, but Shalford, turning, made a movement with his right hand that held him in his place, and said:
"She died last night."
Philip Guise knew that he spoke of Cecilia Torrance, but, till that moment he had been so obsessed with the other man and their horrid change of fortune, that he had forgotten the woman. He felt like one who, struggling out of dizzy disaster, and sensing hope, suddenly falls back and finds that hope is not for him. As he heard those words he knew the meaning of despair.
"She's dead," repeated Shalford firmly, "and with her, thy child."
"My child?"
"Thy child—I knew—and would neither save you nor her ... she loved you, she could wait no longer for your return, and I lied to her—d'ye see? She wrote that letter in good faith—the one that trapped you... she was always waiting, waiting for news. I prevented her a few nights ago from destroying herself, but they could not keep her alive ... she died in their hands last night."
Philip Guise gave a great sigh and stammered:
"Now indeed it seems as if I must kill you!"
"Yes," said Shalford, rising, "I know, what else?—but will that ease thee or me?" he added curiously. "In some other damnation we may still face each other with our problems unsolved—how easy if we could be sure death was the end."
Philip Guise stumbled to the harpsichord, sat down, and hid his face on his outflung arms. He was spent, defeated. Burning tears rushed to his eyes, dreadful sobs clutched his throat. He wept the difficult tears of manhood, as his brother had wept in Newgate jail.
"She had youth, constancy and beauty," said Shalford dully, "and she must be packed to dust and darkness.... Yes, you will kill me, no doubt, and I suppose our father would be satisfied. I've lost all! You're the Earl—now you'll have everything. I'm only a damned villain's bastard, and myself worse than a villain."
"Don't talk," stammered Philip Guise, his face still hidden, "don't talk!"
"Edgar would have been sorry for this," murmured Shalford, moving wearily to the door. "I'll not try to escape, give me five minutes—I go where I must."
He opened the door, went out, and the wind slammed it after him.
"Dead! and I thought of her so little—such suffering, and I did not know! How may I contend with it, how adjust anything? Why, this makes of my life a mere mistake. How could he act so cruelly? And I am as much to blame."
He held up his head and struggled with his shocking torment as if it was a living enemy with whom he wrestled; he was a man who could not long be confounded. She was beyond his help, poor fond, silly, sweet creature. He might rage as he would, he would never be able to comfort her; he believed he'd break his heart over it presently, such cruelty, such suffering ... but there was that most wretched man, his brother—his look as he had told his news. "If I could master myself sufficiently I might be able to save him, even now. I can't endure his pain, 'tis intolerable."
He rose vehemently, with the same unreasoning instinct to snatch and save as had once made him stoop from his plunging horse as he forded a river and catch at a wounded dragoon sinking beneath the blood-tinged water. In the stare of the drowning trooper was the same look he had just seen in his brother's sunken eyes.
A COMPANY of strangers, with insistent demands, had intruded into the mansion: rival attorneys, already on the scent, clamorous, excited; one of my lord the Minister's secretaries, the pock-pitted chaplain from Newgate, some of my late lord's acquaintances come to question, to pry. The news had leapt over London like a squib of wild-fire; Cramer had made his depositions without reserve; eh! here was something for the town to lick its lips over. Newsmongers pressed in amid the others, and Laurence Ambler, fuddled with rum punch, crept up from the kitchens and nosed about in the hubbub.
"What doth it all matter to me; I'm ruined, ain't I? I couldn't speak—I don't care what happens—"
At the bottom of the stairway stood old Heslop, before the door of the little cabinet at the back, and in the attitude of one who stands on guard.
"Where's the real Earl? Where's that fortunate fellow?—and Shalford, as we called him?"
"Here's your new lord, coming down the stairs," whispered Ambler, elbowing in the press. "Don't he look composed? I always said he was the better man."
Philip Guise descended to the hall, the meanest in attire of any there and unconscious of them all; it was this unconsciousness that held them back as he approached.
He spoke to Heslop, the old servant.
"Where is thy master?"
Heslop remained resolutely in his place.
"Give him but five minutes, sir, my lord," he entreated; "let your honour but give him five minutes; he'll take no longer."
"Where is he?"
"In the little cabinet, sir, where his brother—"
"This?"
"In the name of God, sir, don't disturb him—"
Philip Guise motioned aside the strangers, so unimportant to him, and stood over the servant.
"He's in the little cabinet, d'ye say, old man? And where's that?"
"He's where his brother destroyed himself, sir, and for no reason that we could know of, though maybe you can tell, sir—" And Heslop peered into the face of the young man he had been told was the rightful Earl, my late lord's elder son.
"Why hath he gone there? I've got to find him; there's something to settle between us."
Heslop set his back against the door.
"Give him five minutes, sir, Mr. Guise, my lord; then ye can go in, for he'll be dead."
"He means that?"
"Oh, sir, my lord, what else? I saw his face—as he went in—he's ruined, as I take it—"
"I must follow him—stand away from the door—is it locked?"
At the insistent resolution of the other man Heslop did fall back, and with a sparkle of timid hope.
"No, sir; I took the lock off. He was always going in there—he never noticed—that's why I was here "—then, as Philip Guise seized the handle, "you're not his enemy?"
"Nay, his friend. Stand aside and let none follow me."
He flung into the cabinet and drew the door close behind him; the murky daylight filled the closet so that every detail of the furnishings was clear. Shalford was at the bureau by the window, fumbling with a case of pistols; he turned and stammered:
"I can't do it, I can't load 'em—my cursed cowardice—my hand shakes so—I've lost everything, even the common courage of a trooper—give me another five minutes—"
Philip Guise was beside him and had taken the pistols before he answered.
"This is gross weakness—hark ye, the house is full of ugly prying scandalmongers; give me thy weapons—wouldst thou make a ranting Bartholomew show—a public shame before those to whom I and thou art nought but objects of curiosity?"
"I can't live. I've no strength to meet ye in a duel."
"Nor would I have it—we're in a quagmire, but we'll not sink."
The younger man drew away and cried out in a muffled frenzy:
"Hark ye—I am her murderer—I did mean to be worse—I broke into her room to molest her—"
"I'll not listen—I'll not be forced to hate ye—I'll not be defeated, d'ye hear?"
"Edgar killed himself in this closet, and I must also."
"There was the first folly; had thy brother faced it all this had been spared."
He flung the pistols into the bureau, turned up the flap and locked it; Edmund gazed at him in a passion of beseeching curiosity.
"Don't ye loathe me, Philip? Don't ye think me a very base fellow—not fit to live?"
"No. I strive to find some bottom of truth which will save us both—'tis I who am not worthy to judge any. I did not love her—to me she was only a pretty pleasure. I've got that to take with me to my grave."
"She said as much, Philip; she said of the three of us 'twas only she knew what love was. 'Twas true, to me she was but a creature to adorn with dreams, a vapour of fantasy."
"Between us we have destroyed her, don't talk of it; with every word we say too much, yet we must speak."
"Why did ye follow me? What d'ye want with me?"
"I believe I had always an affection for thee—and the pity of it! Hadst thou but trusted me!"
With the uttermost regret and sadness the words sounded in the ill-omened closet. Yet in the truth behind them was a faint hope.
"I should have gone to Tyburn and spoken," whispered Shalford. "I believe I could have conquered the devil who held me dumb—but now, what's left, Philip, what's left?"
The elder man placed his hand on the younger's shoulder and struggled to force the inexpressible into words.
"Not much, as I suppose, we've been too shamed before each other; aye, and she's paid for all, that's bitter, but we've still got our silence to give her, no outcry, no scandal, eh?"
He could say no more, and the tears lay in his eyes for Cecilia Torrance, taken in gaiety, left in error, lost in despair. Unloved and yet destroyed by love; a stranger (what did he know of her even now?) who would walk with him all his days. But his resolution did not sink and he strove on with his purpose, dogged as an exhausted swimmer making for the shore with a helpless burden ... his brother was gazing at him intently, almost with renewed life.
"I say that, some dignity is still possible, d'ye take me, Edmund? A decent front might be put on it, shut the cursed greedy curs up, they can't make us fight if we compound, they can't know about her if we're both silent, d'ye understand? You must understand."
"You want me to confront it?"
"Don't put it on me—you want to confront it." His hand slipped from Edmund's shoulder to his wrist.
"You're a man of breeding, Edmund, a soldier, windy talk and pistol shots won't help, this has got to be lived through."
"I believe I might do it—if you stood my friend—but I feel so cold, dead-hearted."
"I will be with thee always."
They could no longer endure to look at each other; they turned aside; their hands fell apart, but the younger man nursed a little warmth in his heart.
"'Tis not possible," he whispered; "I am too sunk."
He waited to hear this denied, yet how could any deny his utter overthrow; he had been put to complete shame, he was unrecognizable to himself. He recalled a defeat in battle, the shattered colours sinking, one after the other, till all the bravery was trampled in the filth; nothing left for the vanquished but to snatch at oblivion. He had been among the victors then; now he knew the taste of the words "All is lost," uttered in desolation. Yet that faint warmth persisted in his heart and he waited for the voice of Philip Guise while he watched, dully, some light rain-drops break upon the window pane.
His brother came close to him again; he felt his weakness effaced by a strength that encompassed him like a radiance; the sources of his misery became dried up; a firm hand closed again over his shaking fingers; they stood where Edgar had perished. But Edmund was no longer haunted; he knew he could come to think of Edgar and Cecilia as no more dead than grain fallen into the ground; to think, too, of my late lord as a powerless phantom.
He glanced timidly round and, when he saw his elder brother smile at him, his spirit trembled with love.
"Prithee, Edmund, come with me, there's much to do, I need thy help."
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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