"By Jove! I believe it could be done!"
Mr. Rodney Railton took the cigarette out of his mouth and sent a puff of smoke into the air.
"I believe it could, by Jove!"
Another puff of smoke.
"I'll write to Mac."
He drew a sheet of paper towards him and penned the following:--
"DEAR ALEC,--Can you give me some dinner to-night? Wire me if you have a crowd. I shall be in the House till four. Have something to propose which will make your hair stand up.
"Yours, R. R."
This he addressed "Alexander Macmathers, Esq., 27, Campden Hill Mansions." As he went downstairs he gave the note to the commissionaire, with instructions that it should be delivered at once by hand.
That night Mr. Railton dined with Mr. Macmathers. The party consisted of three, the two gentlemen and a lady--Mrs. Macmathers, in fact. Mr. Macmathers was an American--a Southerner--rather tall and weedy, with a heavy, drooping moustache, like his hair, raven black. He was not talkative. His demeanour gave a wrong impression of the man--the impression that he was not a man of action. As a matter of fact, he was a man of action before all things else. He was not rich, as riches go, but certainly he was not poor. His temperament was cosmopolitan, and his profession Jack-of-all-trades. Wherever there was money to be made, he was there. Sometimes, it must be confessed, he was there, too, when there was money to be lost. His wife was English--keen and clever. Her chief weakness was that she would persist in looking on existence as a gigantic lark. When she was most serious she regarded life leastau sérieux.
Mr. Railton, who had invited himself to dinner, was a hybrid--German mother, English father. He was quite a young man--say thirty. His host was perhaps ten, his hostess five years older than himself. He was a stockjobber--ostensibly in the Erie market. All that he had he had made, for he had, as a boy, found himself the situation of a clerk. But his clerkly days were long since gone. No one anything like his age had a better reputation in the House; it was stated by those who had best reason to know that he had never once been left, and few had a larger credit. Lately he had wandered outside his markets to indulge in little operations in what he calledLa Haute Finance. In these Mr. Macmathers had been his partner more than once, and in him he had found just the man he wished to find.
When they had finished dinner, the lady withdrew, and the gentlemen were left alone.
"Well," observed Mr. Macmathers, "what's going to make my hair stand up?"
Mr. Railton stroked his chin as he leaned both his elbows on the board.
"Of course, Mac, I can depend on you. I'm just giving myself away. It's no good my asking you to observe strict confidence, for, if you won't come in, from the mere fact of your knowing it the thing's just busted up, that's all."
"Sounds like a mystery-of-blood-to-thee-I'll-now-unfold sort of thing."
"I don't know about mystery, but there'll be plenty of blood."
Mr. Railton stopped short and looked at his friend.
"Blood, eh? I say, Rodney, think before you speak."
"I have thought. I thought I'd play the game alone. But it's too big a game for one."
"Well, if you have thought, out with it, or be silent evermore."
"You know Plumline, the dramatist?"
"I know he's an ass."
"Ass or no ass, it's from him I got the idea."
"Good Heavens! No wonder it smells of blood."
"He's got an idea for a new play, and he came to me to get some local colouring. I'll just tell you the plot--he was obliged to tell it me, or I couldn't have given him the help he wanted."
"Is it essential? I have enough of Plumline's plots when I see them on the stage."
"It is essential. You will see."
Mr. Railton got up, lighted a cigar, and stood before the fireplace. When he had brought the cigar into good going order he unfolded Mr. Plumline's plot.
"I'm not going to bore you. I'm just going to touch upon that part which gave me my idea. There's a girl who dreams of boundless wealth--a clever girl, you understand."
"Girls who dream of boundless wealth sometimes are clever," murmured his friend. Perhaps he had his wife in his mind's eye.
"She is wooed and won by a financier. Not wooed and won by a tale of love, but by the exposition of an idea."
"That's rather new--for Plumline."
"The financier has an idea for obtaining the boundless wealth of which she only dreams."
"And the idea?"
"Is the bringing about of a war between France and Germany."
"Great snakes!" The cigarette dropped from between Mr. Macmather's lips. He carefully picked it up again. "That's not a bad idea--for Plumline."
"It's my idea as well. In the play it fails. The financier comes to grief. I shouldn't fail. There's just that difference."
Mr. Macmathers regarded his friend in silence before he spoke again.
"Railton, might I ask you to enlarge upon your meaning? I want to see which of us two is drunk."
"In the play the man has a big bear account--the biggest upon record. I need hardly tell you that a war between France and Germany would mean falling markets. Supposing we were able to calculate with certainty the exact moment of the outbreak--arrange it, in fact--we might realise wealth beyond the dreams of avarice--hundreds of thousands of millions, if we chose."
"I suppose you're joking?"
"How?"
"That's what I want to know--how."
"It does sound, at first hearing, like a joke, to suppose that a couple of mere outsiders can, at their own sweet will and pleasure, stir up a war between two Great Powers."
"A joke is a mild way of describing it, my friend."
"Alec, would you mind asking Mrs. Macmathers to form a third on this occasion?"
Mr. Macmathers eyed his friend for a moment, then got up and left the room. When he returned his wife was with him. It was to the lady Mr. Railton addressed himself.
"Mrs. Macmathers, would you like to be possessed of wealth compared to which the wealth of the Vanderbilts, the Rothschilds, the Mackays, the Goulds, would shrink into insignificance?"
"Why, certainly."
It was a peculiarity of the lady's that, while she was English, she affected what she supposed to be American idioms.
"Would you stick at a little to obtain it?"
"Certainly not."
"It would be worth one's while to run a considerable risk."
"I guess."
"Mrs. Macmathers, I want to go a bear, a large bear, to win, say--I want to put it modestly--a hundred millions."
"Pounds?"
"Pounds."
It is to be feared that Mrs. Macmathers whistled.
"Figures large," she said.
"All the world knows that war is inevitable between France and Germany."
"Proceed."
"I want to arrange that it shall break out at the moment when it best suits me."
"I guess you're a modest man," she said.
Her husband smiled.
"If you consider for a moment, it would not be so difficult as it first appears. It requires but a spark to set the fire burning. There is at least one party in France to whom war would mean the achievement of all their most cherished dreams. It is long odds that a war would bring some M. Quelquechose to the front with a rush. He will be at least untried. And, of late years, it is the untried men who have the people's confidence in France. A few resolute men, my dear Mrs. Macmathers, have only to kick up a shindy on the Alsatian borders--Europe will be roused, in the middle of the night, by the roaring of the flames of war."
There was a pause. Mrs. Macmathers got up and began to pace the room.
"It's a big order," she said.
"Allowing the feasibility of your proposition, I conclude that you have some observations to make upon it from a moral point of view. It requires them, my friend."
Mr. Macmathers said this with a certain dryness.
"Moral point of view be hanged! It could be argued, mind, and defended; but I prefer to say candidly, the moral point of view be hanged!"
"Has it not occurred to you to think that the next Franco-German war may mean the annihilation of one of the parties concerned?"
"You mistake the position. I should have nothing to do with the war. I should merely arrange the date for its commencement. With or without me they would fight."
"You would merely consign two or three hundred thousand men to die at the moment which would best suit your pocket."
"There is that way of looking at it, no doubt. But you will allow me to remind you that you considered the possibility of creating a corner in corn without making unpleasant allusions to the fact that it might have meant starvation to thousands."
The lady interposed.
"Mr. Railton, leaving all that sort of thing alone, what is it that you propose?"
"The details have still to be filled in. Broadly I propose to arrange a series of collisions with the German frontier authorities. I propose to get them boomed by the Parisian Press. I propose to give some M. Quelquechose his chance."
"It's the biggest order ever I heard."
"Not so big as it sounds. Start to-morrow, and I believe that we should be within measureable distance of war next week. Properly managed, I will at least guarantee that all the Stock Exchanges of Europe go down with a run."
"If the thing hangs fire, how about carrying over?"
"Settle. No carrying over for me. I will undertake that there is a sufficient margin of profit. Every account we will do a fresh bear until the trick is made. Unless I am mistaken, the trick will be made with a rapidity of which you appear to have no conception."
"It is like a dream of the Arabian nights," the lady said.
"Before the actual reality the Arabian nights pale their ineffectual fires. It is a chance which no man ever had before, which no man may ever have again. I don't think, Macmathers, we ought to let it slip."
They did not let it slip.
Mr. Railton was acquainted with a certain French gentleman who rejoiced in the name--according to his own account--of M. Hippolyte de Vrai-Castille. The name did not sound exactly French--M. de Vrai-Castille threw light on this by explaining that his family came originally from Spain. But, on the other hand, it must be allowed that the name did not sound exactly Spanish, either. London appeared to be this gentleman's permanent place of residence. Political reasons--so he stated--rendered it advisable that he should not appear too prominently upon his--theoretically--belovedboulevards. Journalism--always following this gentleman's account of himself--was the profession to which he devoted the flood-tide of his powers. The particular journal or journals which were rendered famous by the productions of his pen were rather difficult to discover--there appeared to be political reasons, too, for that.
"The man is an all-round bad lot." This was what Mr. Railton said when speaking of this gentleman to Mr. and Mrs. Macmathers. "A type of scoundrel only produced by France. Just the man we want."
"Flattering," observed his friend. "You are going to introduce us to high company."
Mr. Railton entertained this gentleman to dinner in a private room at the Hotel Continental. M. de Vrai-Castille did not seem to know exactly what to make of it. Nothing in his chance acquaintance with Mr. Railton had given him cause to suppose that the Englishman regarded him as a respectable man, and this sudden invitation to fraternise took him a little aback. Possibly he was taken still more aback before the evening closed. Conversation languished during the meal; but when it was over--and the waiters gone--Mr. Railton became very conversational indeed.
"Look here, What's-your-name"--this was how Mr. Railton addressed M. de Vrai-Castille--"I know very little about you, but I know enough to suspect that you have nothing in the world excepting what you steal."
"M. Railton is pleased to have his little jest."
If it was a jest, it was not one, judging from the expression of M. de Vrai-Castille's countenance which he entirely relished.
"What would you say if I presented you with ten thousand pounds?"
"I should say----"
What he said need not be recorded, but M. de Vrai-Castille used some very bad language indeed, expressive of the satisfaction with which the gift would be received.
"And suppose I should hint at your becoming possessed of another hundred thousand pounds to back it?"
"Pardon me, M. Railton, but is it murder? If so, I would say frankly at once that I have always resolved that in those sort of transactions I would take no hand."
"Stuff and nonsense! It is nothing of the kind! You say you are a politician. Well, I want you to pose as a patriot--a French patriot, you understand."
Mr. Railton's eyes twinkled. M. de Vrai-Castille grinned in reply.
"The profession is overcrowded," he murmured, with a deprecatory movement of his hands.
"Not on the lines I mean to work it. Did you lose any relatives in the war?"
"It depends."
"I feel sure you did. And at this moment the bodies of those patriots are sepultured in Alsatian soil. I want you to dig them up again."
"Mon Dieu! Ce charmant homme!"
"I want you to form a league for the recovery of the remains of those noble spirits who died for their native land, and whose bones now lie interred in what was France, but which now, alas! is France no more. I want you to go in for this bone recovery business as far as possible on a wholesale scale."
"Ciel! Maintenant j'ai trouvé un homme extraordinaire!"
"You will find no difficulty in obtaining the permission of the necessary authorities sanctioning your schemes; but at the very last moment, owing to some stated informality, the German brigands will interfere even at the edge of the already open grave; patriot bones will be dishonoured, France will be shamed in the face of all the world."
"And then?"
"The great heart of France is a patient heart, my friend, but even France will not stand that. There will be war."
"And then?"
"On the day on which war is declared, one hundred thousand pounds will be paid to you in cash."
"And supposing there is no war?"
"Should France prefer to cower beneath her shame, you shall still receive ten thousand pounds."
The following extract is from theTimes'Parisian correspondence--
"The party of La Revanche is taking a new departure. I am in a position to state that certain gentlemen are putting their heads together. A league is being formed for the recovery of the bodies of various patriots who are at present asleep in Alsace. I have my own reasons for asserting that some remarkable proceedings may be expected soon. No man knows better than myself that there is nothing some Frenchmen will not do."
On the same day there appeared inLa Patriea really touching article. It was the story of two brothers--one was, the other was not; in life they had been together, but in death they were divided. Both alike had fought for their native land. One returned--désolé!--to Paris. The other stayed behind. He still stayed behind. It appeared that he was buried in Alsace, in a nameless grave! But they had vowed, these two, that they would share all things--among the rest, that sleep which even patriots must know, the unending sleep of death. "It is said," said the article in conclusion, "that that nameless grave, in what was France, will soon know none--or two!" It appeared that the surviving brother was going for that "nameless grave" on the principle of double or quits.
The story appeared, with variations, in a considerable number of journals. TheDaily Telegraphhad an amusing allusion to the fondness displayed by certain Frenchmen for their relatives--dead, for the "bones" of their fathers. But no one was at all prepared for the events which followed.
One morning the various money articles alluded to heavy sales which had been effected the day before, "apparently by a party of outside speculators." In particular heavy bear operations were reported from Berlin. Later in the day the evening papers came out with telegrams referring to "disturbances" at a place called Pont-sur-Leaune. Pont-sur-Leaune is a little Alsatian hamlet. The next day the tale was in everybody's mouth. Certain misguided but well-meaning Frenchmen had been "shot down" by the German authorities. Particulars had not yet come to hand, but it appeared, according to the information from Paris, that a party of Frenchmen had journeyed to Alsace with the intention of recovering the bodies of relatives who had been killed in the war; on the very edge of the open graves German soldiers had shot them down. Telegrams from Berlin stated that a party of body-snatchers had been caught in the very act of plying their nefarious trade; no mention of shooting came from there. Although the story was doubted in the City, it had its effect on the markets--prices fell. It was soon seen, too, that the bears were at it again. Foreign telegrams showed that their influence was being felt all round; very heavy bear raids were again reported from Berlin. Markets became unsettled, with a downward tendency, and closing prices were the worst of the day.
Matters were not improved by the news of the morrow. A Frenchman had been shot--his name was Hippolyte de Vrai-Castille, and a manifesto from his friends had already appeared in Paris. According to this, they had been betrayed by the German authorities. They had received permission from those authorities to take the bodies of certain of their relatives and lay them in French soil. While they were acting on this permission they were suddenly attacked by German soldiers, and he, their leader, that patriot soul, Hippolyte de Vrai-Castille, was dead. But there was worse than that. They had prepared flags in which to wrap the bodies of the dead. Those flags--emblems of France--had been seized by the rude German soldiers, torn into fragments, trampled in the dust. The excitement in Paris appeared to be intense. All that day there was a falling market.
The next day's papers were full of contradictory telegrams. From Berlin the affair was pooh-poohed. The story of permission having been accorded by the authorities was pure fiction--there had been a scuffle in which a man had been killed, probably by his own friends--the tale of the dishonoured flags was the invention of an imaginative brain. But these contradictions were for the most part frantically contradicted by the Parisian Press. There was a man in Paris who had actually figured on the scene. He had caught M. de Vrai-Castille in his arms as he fell, he had been stained by his heart's blood, his cheek had been torn open by the bullet which killed his friend. Next his heart he at that moment carried portions of the flags--emblems of France!--which had been subjected to such shame.
But it was on the following day that the situation first took a definitely serious shape. Placards appeared on every dead wall in Paris, small bills were thrust under every citizen's door--on the bills and placards were printed the same words. They were signed "Quelquechose." They pointed out that France owed her present degradation--like all her other degradations--to her Government. The nation was once more insulted; the Army was once more betrayed; the national flag had been trampled on again, as it had been trampled on before. Under a strong Government these things could not be, but under a Government of cowards----! Let France but breathe the word, "La Grande Nation" would exist once more. Let the Army but make a sign, there would be "La Grande Armée" as of yore.
That night there was a scene in the Chamber. M. de Caragnac--à propos des botte--made a truly remarkable speech. He declared that permission had been given to these men. He produced documentary evidence to that effect. He protested that these men--true citizens of France!--had been the victims of a "Prussian" plot. As to the outrage to the national flag, had it been perpetrated, say, in Tonkin, "cannons would be belching forth their thunders now." But in Alsace--"this brave Government dare only turn to the smiters the other cheek." In the galleries they cheered him to the echo. On the tribune there was something like a free fight. When the last telegrams were despatched to London, Paris appeared to be approaching a state of riot.
The next day there burst a thunderbolt. Five men had been detained by the German authorities. They had escaped--had been detected in the act of flight--had been shot at while running. Two of them had been killed. A third had been fatally wounded. The news--flavoured to taste--was shouted from the roofs of the houses. Paris indulged in one of its periodical fits of madness. The condition of the troops bore a strong family likeness to mutiny. And in the morning Europe was electrified by the news that a revolution had been effected in the small hours of the morning, that the Chambers had been dissolved, and that with the Army were the issues of peace and war.
* * * * * * * *
On the day of the declaration of the war between France and Germany--that heavy-laden day--an individual called on Mr. Rodney Railton whose appearance caused that gentleman to experience a slight sensation of surprise.
"De Vrai-Castille! I was wondering if you had left any instructions as to whom I was to pay that hundred thousand pounds. I thought that you were dead."
"Monsieur mistakes. My name is Henri Kerchrist, a name not unknown in my native Finistère. M. Hippolyte de Vrai-Castille is dead. I saw him die. It was to me he directed that you should pay that hundred thousand pounds."
As he made these observations, possibly owing to some local weakness, "Henri Kerchrist" winked the other eye.
When they asked me to spend the Long with them, or as much of it as I could manage, I felt more than half disposed to write and say that I could not manage any of it at all. Of course a man's uncle and aunt are his uncle and aunt, and as such I do not mean to say that I ever thought of suggesting anything against Mr. and Mrs. Plaskett. But then Plaskett is fifty-five if he's a day, and not agile, and Mrs. Plaskett always struck me as being about ten years older. They have no children, and the idea was that, as Mrs. Plaskett's niece--Plaskett is my mother's brother, so that Mrs. Plaskett is only my aunt by marriage--as I was saying, the idea was that, as Mrs. Plaskett's niece was going to spend her Long with them, I, as it were, might take pity on the girl, and see her through it.
I am not saying that there are not worse things than seeing a girl, single-handed, through a thing like that, but then it depends upon the girl. In this case, the mischief was her mother. The girl was Mrs. Plaskett's brother's child; his name was Riddle. Riddle was dead. The misfortune was, his wife was still alive. I had never seen her, but I had heard of her ever since I was breeched. She is one of those awful Anti-Everythingites. She won't allow you to smoke, or drink, or breathe comfortably, so far as I understand. I dare say you've heard of her. Whenever there is any new craze about, her name always figures in the bills.
So far as I know, I am not possessed of all the vices. At the same time, I did not look forward to being shut up all alone in a country house with the daughter of a "woman Crusader." On the other hand, Uncle Plaskett has behaved, more than once, like a trump to me, and as I felt that this might be an occasion on which he expected me to behave like a trump to him, I made up my mind that, at any rate, I would sample the girl and see what she was like.
I had not been in the house half an hour before I began to wish I hadn't come. Miss Riddle had not arrived, and if she was anything like the picture which my aunt painted of her, I hoped that she never would arrive--at least, while I was there. Neither of the Plasketts had seen her since she was the merest child. Mrs. Riddle never had approved of them. They were not Anti-Everythingite enough for her. Ever since the death of her husband she had practically ignored them. It was only when, after all these years, she found herself in a bit of a hole, that she seemed to have remembered their existence. It appeared that Miss Riddle was at some Anti-Everythingite college or other. The term was at an end. Her mother was in America, "Crusading" against one of her aversions. Some hitch had unexpectedly occurred as to where Miss Riddle was to spend her holidays. Mrs. Riddle had amazed the Plasketts by telegraphing to them from the States to ask if they could give her house-room. And that forgiving, tender-hearted uncle and aunt of mine had said they would.
I assure you, Dave, that when first I saw her you might have knocked me over with a feather. I had spent the night seeing her in nightmares--a lively time I had had of it. In the morning I went out for a stroll, so that the fresh air might have a chance of clearing my head at least of some of them. And when I came back there was a little thing sitting in the morning-room talking to aunt--I give you my word that she did not come within two inches of my shoulder. I do not want to go into raptures. I flatter myself I am beyond the age for that. But a sweeter-looking little thing I never saw! I was wondering who she might be, she seemed to be perfectly at home, when my aunt introduced us.
"Charlie, this is your cousin, May Riddle. May, this is your cousin, Charles Kempster."
She stood up--such a dot of a thing! She held out her hand--she found fours in gloves a trifle loose. She looked at me with her eyes all laughter--you never saw such eyes, never! Her smile, when she spoke, was so contagious, that I would have defied the surliest man alive to have maintained his surliness when he found himself in front of it.
"I am very glad to see you--cousin."
Her voice! And the way in which she said it! As I have written, you might have knocked me down with a feather.
I found myself in clover. And no man ever deserved good fortune better. It was a case of virtue rewarded. I had come to do my duty, expecting to find it bitter, and, lo, it was very sweet. How such a mother came to have such a child was a mystery to all of us. There was not a trace of humbug about her. So far from being an Anti-Everythingite, she went in for everything, strong. That hypocrite of an uncle of mine had arranged to revolutionise the habits of his house for her. There were to be family prayers morning and evening, and a sermon, and three-quarters of an hour's grace before meat, and all that kind of thing. I even suspected him of an intention of locking up the billiard-room, and the smoke-room, and all the books worth reading, and all the music that wasn't "sacred," and, in fact, of turning the place into a regular mausoleum. But he had not been in her company five minutes when bang went all ideas of that sort. Talk about locking the billiard-room against her! You should have seen the game she played. Though she was such a dot, you should have seen her use the jigger. And sing! She sang everything. When she had made our hearts go pit-a-pat, and brought the tears into our eyes, she would give us comic songs--the very latest. Where she got them from was more than we could understand; but she made us laugh till we cried--aunt and all. She was an Admirable Crichton--honestly. I never saw a girl play a better game of tennis. She could ride like an Amazon. And walk--when I think of the walks we had together through the woods, I doing my duty towards her to the best of my ability, it all seems to have been too good a time to have happened in anything but a dream.
Do not think she was a rowdy girl, one of these "up-to-daters," or fast. Quite the other way. She had read more books than I had--I am not hinting that that is saying much, but still she had. She loved books, too; and, you know, speaking quite frankly, I never was a bookish man. Talking about books, one day when we were out in the woods alone together--we nearly always were alone together!--I took it into my head to read to her. She listened for a page or two; then she interrupted me.
"Do you call that reading?" I looked at her surprised. She held out her hand. "Now, let me read to you. Give me the book."
I gave it to her. Dave, you never heard such reading. It was not only a question of elocution; it was not only a question of the music that was in her voice. She made the dry bones live. The words, as they proceeded from between her lips, became living things. I never read to her again. After that, she always read to me. Many an hour have I spent, lying at her side, with my head pillowed in the mosses, while she materialised for me "the very Jew, which Shakespeare drew." She read to me all sorts of things. I believe she could even have vivified a leading article.
One day she had been reading to me a pen picture of a famous dancer. The writer had seen the woman in some Spanish theatre. He gave an impassioned description--at least, it sounded impassioned as she read it--of how the people had followed the performer's movements, with enraptured eyes and throbbing pulses, unwilling to lose the slightest gesture. When she had done reading, putting down the book, she stood up in front of me. I sat up to ask what she was going to do.
"I wonder," she said, "if it was anything like this--the dance which that Spanish woman danced."
She danced to me. Dave, you are my "fidus Achates," my other self, my chum, or I would not say a word to you of this. I never shall forget that day. She set my veins on fire. The witch! Without music, under the greenwood tree, all in a moment, for my particular edification, she danced a dance which would have set a crowded theatre in a frenzy. While she danced, I watched her as if mesmerised; I give you my word I did not lose a gesture. When she ceased--with such a curtsy!--I sprang up and ran to her. I would have caught her in my arms; but she sprang back. She held me from her with her outstretched hand.
"Mr. Kempster!" she exclaimed. She looked up at me as demurely as you please.
"I was only going to take a kiss," I cried. "Surely a cousin may take a kiss."
"Not every cousin--if you please."
With that she walking right off, there and then, leaving me standing speechless, and as stupid as an owl.
The next morning as I was in the hall, lighting up for an after breakfast smoke, Aunt Plaskett came up to me. The good soul had trouble written all over her face. She had an open letter in her hand. She looked up at me in a way which reminded me oddly of my mother.
"Charlie," she said, "I'm so sorry."
"Aunt, if you're sorry, so am I. But what's the sorrow?"
"Mrs. Riddle's coming."
"Coming? When?"
"To-day--this morning. I am expecting her every minute."
"But I thought she was a fixture in America for the next three months."
"So I thought. But it seems that something has happened which has induced her to change her mind. She arrived in England yesterday. She writes to me to say that she will come on to us as early as possible to-day. Here is the letter. Charlie, will you tell May?"
She put the question a trifle timidly, as though she were asking me to do something from which she herself would rather be excused. The fact is, we had found that Miss Riddle would talk of everything and anything, with the one exception of her mother. Speak of Mrs. Riddle, and the young lady either immediately changed the conversation, or she held her peace. Within my hearing, her mother's name had never escaped her lips. Whether consciously or unconsciously, she had conveyed to our minds a very clear impression that, to put it mildly, between her and her mother there was no love lost. I, myself, was persuaded that, to her, the news of her mother's imminent presence would not be pleasant news. It seemed that my aunt was of the same opinion.
"Dear May ought to be told, she ought not to be taken unawares. You will find her in the morning-room, I think."
I rather fancy that Aunt and Uncle Plaskett have a tendency to shift the little disagreeables of life off their own shoulders on to other people's. Anyhow, before I could point out to her that the part which she suggested I should play was one which belonged more properly to her, Aunt Plaskett had taken advantage of my momentary hesitation to effect a strategic movement which removed her out of my sight.
I found Miss Riddle in the morning-room. She was lying on a couch, reading. Directly I entered she saw that I had something on my mind.
"What's the matter? You don't look happy."
"It may seem selfishness on my part, but I'm not quite happy. I have just heard news which, if you will excuse my saying so, has rather given me a facer."
"If I will excuse you saying so! Dear me, how ceremonious we are! Is the news public, or private property?"
"Who do you think is coming?"
"Coming? Where? Here?" I nodded. "I have not the most remote idea. How should I have?"
"It is some one who has something to do with you."
Until then she had taken it uncommonly easily on the couch. When I said that, she sat up with quite a start.
"Something to do with me? Mr. Kempster! What do you mean? Who can possibly be coming here who has anything to do with me?"
"May, can't you guess?"
"Guess! How can I guess? What do you mean?"
"It's your mother."
"My--mother!"
I had expected that the thing would be rather a blow to her, but I had never expected that it would be anything like the blow it seemed. She sprang to her feet. The book fell from her hands, unnoticed, on to the floor. She stood facing me, with clenched fists and staring eyes.
"My--mother!" she repeated, "Mr. Kempster, tell me what you mean."
I told myself that Mrs. Riddle must be more, or less, of a mother even than my fancy painted her, if the mere suggestion of her coming could send her daughter into such a state of mind as this. Miss Riddle had always struck me as being about as cool a hand as you would be likely to meet. Now all at once, she seemed to be half beside herself with agitation. As she glared at me, she made me almost feel as if I had been behaving to her like a brute.
"My aunt has only just now told me."
"Told you what?"
"That Mrs. Riddle arrived----"
She interrupted me.
"Mrs. Riddle? My mother? Well, go on?"
She stamped on the floor. I almost felt as if she had stamped on me. I went on, disposed to feel that my back was beginning to rise.
"My aunt has just told me that Mrs. Riddle arrived in England yesterday. She has written this morning to say that she is coming on at once."
"But I don't understand!" She really looked as if she did not understand. "I thought--I was told that--she was going to remain abroad for months."
"It seems that she has changed her mind."
"Changed her mind!" Miss Riddle stared at me as if she thought that such a thing was inconceivable. "When did you say that she was coming?"
"Aunt tells me that she is expecting her every moment."
"Mr. Kempster, what am I to do?"
She appealed to me, with outstretched hands, actually trembling, as it seemed to me with passion, as if I knew--or understood her either.
"I am afraid, May, that Mrs. Riddle has not been to you all that a mother ought to be. I have heard something of this before. But I did not think that it was so bad as it seems."
"You have heard? You have heard! My good sir, you don't know what you're talking about in the very least. There is one thing very certain, that I must go at once."
"Go? May!"
She moved forward. I believe she would have gone if I had not stepped between her and the door. I was beginning to feel slightly bewildered. It struck me that, perhaps, I had not broken the news so delicately as I might have done. I had blundered somehow, somewhere. Something must be wrong, if, after having been parted from her, for all I knew, for years, immediately on hearing of her mother's return, her first impulse was towards flight.
"Well?" she cried, looking up at me like a small, wild thing.
"My dear May, what do you mean? Where are you going? To your room?"
"To my room? No! I am going away! away! Right out of this, as quickly as I can!"
"But, after all, your mother is your mother. Surely she cannot have made herself so objectionable that, at the mere thought of her arrival, you should wish to run away from her, goodness alone knows where. So far as I understand she has disarranged her plans, and hurried across the Atlantic, for the sole purpose of seeing you."
She looked at me in silence for a moment. As she looked, outwardly, she froze.
"Mr. Kempster, I am at a loss to understand your connection with my affairs. Still less do I understand the grounds on which you would endeavour to regulate my movements. It is true that you are a man, and I am a woman; that you are big and I am little; but--are those the only grounds?"
"Of course, if you look at it like that----"
Shrugging my shoulders, I moved aside. As I did so, some one entered the room. Turning, I saw it was my aunt. She was closely followed by another woman.
"My dear May," said my aunt, and unless I am mistaken, her voice was trembling, "here is your mother."
The woman who was with my aunt was a tall, loosely-built person, with iron-grey hair, a square determined jaw, and eyes which looked as if they could have stared the Sphinx right out of countenance. She was holding a pair of pince-nez in position on the bridge of her nose. Through them she was fixedly regarding May. But she made no forward movement. The rigidity of her countenance, of the cold sternness which was in her eyes, of the hard lines which were about her mouth, did not relax in the least degree. Nor did she accord her any sign of greeting. I thought that this was a comfortable way in which to meet one's daughter, and such a daughter, after a lengthened separation. With a feeling of the pity of it, I turned again to May. As I did so, a sort of creepy-crawly sensation went all up my back. The little girl really struck me as being frightened half out of her life. Her face was white and drawn; her lips were quivering; her big eyes were dilated in a manner which uncomfortably recalled a wild creature which has suddenly gone stark mad with fear.
It was a painful silence. I have no doubt that my aunt was as conscious of it as any one. I expect that she felt May's position as keenly as if it had been her own. She probably could not understand the woman's cold-bloodedness, the girl's too obvious shrinking from her mother. In what, I am afraid, was awkward, blundering fashion, she tried to smooth things over.
"May, dear, don't you see it is your mother?"
Then Mrs. Riddle spoke. She turned to my aunt.
"I don't understand you. Who is this person?"
I distinctly saw my aunt give a gasp. I knew she was trembling.
"Don't you see that it is May?"
"May? Who? This girl?"
Again Mrs. Riddle looked at the girl who was standing close beside me. Such a look! And again there was silence. I do not know what my aunt felt. But from what I felt, I can guess. I felt as if a stroke of lightning, as it were, had suddenly laid bare an act of mine, the discovery of which would cover me with undying shame. The discovery had come with such blinding suddenness, "a bolt out of the blue," that, as yet, I was unable to realise all that it meant. As I looked at the girl, who seemed all at once to have become smaller even that she usually was, I was conscious that, if I did not keep myself well in hand, I was in danger of collapsing at the knees. Rather than have suffered what I suffered then, I would sooner have had a good sound thrashing any day, and half my bones well broken.
I saw the little girl's body swaying in the air. For a moment I thought that she was going to faint. But she caught herself at it just in time. As she pulled herself together, a shudder went all over her face. With her fists clenched at her side, she stood quite still. Then she turned to my aunt.
"I am not May Riddle," she said, in a voice which was at one and the same time strained, eager, and defiant, and as unlike her ordinary voice as chalk is different from cheese. Raising her hands, she covered her face. "Oh, I wish I had never said I was!"
She burst out crying; into such wild grief that one might have been excused for fearing that she would hurt herself by the violence of her own emotion. Aunt and I were dumb. As for Mrs. Riddle--and, if you come to think of it, it was only natural--she did not seem to understand the situation in the least. Turning to my aunt, she caught her by the arm.
"Will you be so good as to tell me what is the meaning of these extraordinary proceedings?"
"My dear!" seemed to be all that my aunt could stammer in reply.
"Answer me!" I really believe that Mrs. Riddle shook my aunt. "Where is my daughter--May?"
"We thought--we were told that this was May." My aunt addressed herself to the girl, who was still sobbing as if her heart would break. "My dear, I am very sorry, but you know you gave us to understand that you were--May."
Then some glimmering of the meaning of the situation did seem to dawn on Mrs. Riddle's mind. She turned to the crying girl; and a look came on her face which conveyed the impression that one had suddenly lighted on the key-note of her character. It was a look of uncompromising resolution. A woman who could summon up such an expression at will ought to be a leader. She never could be led. I sincerely trust that my wife--if I ever have one--when we differ, will never look like that. If she does, I am afraid it will have to be a case of her way, not mine. As I watched Mrs. Riddle, I was uncommonly glad she was not my mother. She went and planted herself right in front of the crying girl. And she said, quietly, but in a tone of voice the hard frigidity of which suggested the nether millstone:
"Cease that noise. Take your hands from before your face. Are you one of that class of persons who, with the will to do evil, lack the courage to face the consequences of their own misdeeds? I can assure you that, so far as I am concerned, noise is thrown away. Candour is your only hope with me. Do you hear what I say? Take your hands from before your face."
I should fancy that Mrs. Riddle's words, and still more her manner, must have cut the girl like a whip. Anyhow, she did as she was told. She took her hands from before her face. Her eyes were blurred with weeping. She still was sobbing. Big tears were rolling down her cheeks. I am bound to admit that her crying had by no means improved her personal appearance. You could see she was doing her utmost to regain her self-control. And she faced Mrs. Riddle with a degree of assurance, which, whether she was in the right or in the wrong, I was glad to see. That stalwart representative of the modern Women Crusaders continued to address her in the same unflattering way.
"Who are you? How comes it that I find you passing yourself off as my daughter in Mrs. Plaskett's house?"
The girl's answer took me by surprise.
"I owe you no explanation, and I shall give you none."
"You are mistaken. You owe me a very frank explanation. I promise you you shall give me one before I've done with you."
"I wish and intend to have nothing whatever to say to you. Be so good as to let me pass."
The girl's defiant attitude took Mrs. Riddle slightly aback. I was delighted. Whatever she had been crying for, it had evidently not been for want of pluck. It was plain that she had pluck enough for fifty. It did me good to see her.
"Take my advice, young woman, and do not attempt that sort of thing with me--unless, that is, you wish me to give you a short shrift, and send at once for the police."
"The police? For me? You are mad!"
For a moment Mrs. Riddle looked a trifle mad. She went quite green. She took the girl by the shoulder roughly. I saw that the little thing was wincing beneath the pressure of her hand. That was more than I could stand.
"Excuse me, Mrs. Riddle, but--if you would not mind!"
Whether she did or did not mind, I did not wait for her to tell me. I removed her hand, with as much politeness as was possible, from where she had placed it. She looked at me, not nicely.
"Pray, sir, who are you?"
"I am Mrs. Plaskett's nephew, Charles Kempster, and very much at your service, Mrs. Riddle."
"So you are Charles Kempster? I have heard of you." I was on the point of remarking that I also had heard of her. But I refrained. "Be so good, young man, as not to interfere."
I bowed. The girl spoke to me.
"I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Kempster." She turned to my aunt. One could see that every moment she was becoming more her cool collected self again. "Mrs. Plaskett, it is to you I owe an explanation. I am ready to give you one when and where you please. Now, if it is your pleasure."
My aunt was rubbing her hands together in a feeble, purposeless, undecided sort of way. Unless I err, she was crying, for a change. With the exception of my uncle, I should say that my aunt was the most peace-loving soul on earth. I believe that the pair of them would flee from anything in the shape of dissension as from the wrath to come.
"Well, my dear, I don't wish to say anything to pain you--as you must know!--but if you can explain, I wish you would. We have grown very fond of you, your uncle and I."
It was not a very bright speech of my aunt's, but it seemed to please the person for whom it was intended immensely. She ran to her, she took hold of both her hands, she kissed her on either cheek.
"You dear darling! I've been a perfect wretch to you, but not such a villain as your fancy paints me. I'll tell you all about it--now." Clasping her hands behind her back, she looked my aunt demurely in the face. But in spite of her demureness, I could see that she was full of mischief to the finger tips. "You must know that I am Daisy Hardy. I am the daughter of Francis Hardy, of the Corinthian Theatre."
Directly the words had passed her lips, I knew her. You remember how often we saw her in "The Penniless Pilgrim?" And how good she was? And how we fell in love with her, the pair of us? All along, something about her, now and then, had filled me with a sort of overwhelming conviction that I must have seen her somewhere before. What an ass I had been! But then to think of her--well, modesty--in passing herself off as Mrs. Riddle's daughter. As for Mrs. Riddle, she received the young lady's confession with what she possibly intended for an air of crushing disdain.
"An actress!" she exclaimed.
She switched her skirts on one side, with the apparent intention of preventing their coming into contact with iniquity. Miss Hardy paid no heed.
"May Riddle is a very dear friend of mine."
"I don't believe it," cried Mrs. Riddle, with what, to say the least of it, was perfect frankness. Still Miss Hardy paid no heed.
"It is the dearest wish of her life to become an actress."
"It's a lie!"
This time Miss Hardy did pay heed. She faced the frankly speaking lady.
"It is no lie, as you are quite aware. You know very well that, ever since she was a teeny weeny child, it has been her continual dream."
"It was nothing but a childish craze."
Miss Hardy shrugged her shoulders.
"Mrs. Riddle uses her own phraseology; I use mine. I can only say that May has often told me that, when she was but a tiny thing, her mother used to whip her for playing at being an actress. She used to try and make her promise that she would never go inside a theatre, and when she refused, she used to beat her cruelly. As she grew older, her mother used to lock her in her bedroom, and keep her without food for days and days----"
"Hold your tongue, girl! Who are you that you should comment on my dealings with my child? A young girl, who, by her own confession, has already become a painted thing, and who seems to glory in her shame, is a creature with whom I can own no common womanhood. Again I insist upon your telling me, without any attempt at rhodomontade, how it is that I find a creature such as you posing as my child."
The girl vouchsafed her no direct reply. She looked at her with a curious scorn, which I fancy Mrs. Riddle did not altogether relish. Then she turned again to my aunt.
"Mrs. Plaskett, it is as I tell you. All her life May has wished to be an actress. As she has grown older her wish has strengthened. You see all my people have been actors and actresses. I, myself, love acting. You could hardly expect me, in such a matter, to be against my friend. And then--there was my brother."
She paused. Her face became more mischievous; and, unless I am mistaken, Mrs. Riddle's face grew blacker. But she let the girl go on.
"Claud believed in her. He was even more upon her side than I was. He saw her act in some private theatricals----"
Then Mrs. Riddle did strike in.
"My daughter never acted, either in public or in private, in her life. Girl, how dare you pile lie upon lie?"
Miss Hardy gave her look for look. One felt that the woman knew that the girl was speaking the truth, although she might not choose to own it.
"May did many things of which her mother had no knowledge. How could it be otherwise? When a mother makes it her business to repress at any cost the reasonable desires which are bound up in her daughter's very being, she must expect to be deceived. As I say, my brother Claud saw her act in some private theatricals. And he was persuaded that, for once in a way, hers was not a case of a person mistaking the desire to be, for the power to be, because she was an actress born. Then things came to a climax. May wrote to me to say that she was leaving college, that her mother was in America, and that so far as her ever becoming an actress was concerned, so far as she could judge, it was a case of now or never. I showed her letter to Claud. He at once declared that it should be a case of now. A new play was coming out, in which he was to act, and in which, he said, there was a part which would fit May like a glove. It was not a large part; still, there it was. If she chose, he would see she had it. I wrote and told her what Claud said. She jumped for joy--through the post, you understand. Then they began to draw me in. Until her mother's return, May was to have gone, for safe keeping, to one of her mother's particular friends. If she had gone, the thing would have been hopeless. But, at the last moment, the plan fell through. It was arranged, instead, that she should go to her aunt--to you, Mrs. Plaskett. You had not seen her since her childhood; you had no notion of what she looked like. I really do not know from whom the suggestion came, but it was suggested that I should come to you, pretending to be her. And I was to keep on pretending till the rubicon was passed and the play produced. If she once succeeded in gaining a footing on the stage, though it might be never so slight a one, May declared that wild horses should not drag her back again. And I knew her well enough to be aware that, when she said a thing, she meant exactly what she said. Mrs. Plaskett, I should have made you this confession of my own initiative next week. Indeed, May would have come and told you the tale herself, if Mrs. Riddle had not returned all these months before any one expected her. Because, as it happens, the play was produced last night----"
Mrs. Riddle had been listening, with a face as black as a thunder-cloud. Here she again laid her hand upon Miss Hardy's shoulder.
"Where? Tell me! I will still save her, though, to do so, I have to drag her through the streets."
Miss Hardy turned to her with a smile.
"May does not need saving, she already has attained salvation. I hear, not only that the play was a great success, but that May's part, as she acted it, was the success of the play. As for dragging her through the streets, you know that you are talking nonsense. She is of an age to do as she pleases. You have no more power to put constraint upon her, than you have to put constraint upon me."
All at once Miss Hardy let herself go, as it were.
"Mrs. Riddle, you have spent a large part of your life in libelling all that I hold dearest; you will now be taught of how great a libel you have been guilty. You will learn from the example of your daughter's own life, that women can, and do, live as pure and as decent lives upon one sort of stage, as are lived, upon another sort of stage, by 'Women Crusaders.'"
She swept the infuriated Mrs. Riddle such a curtsy.... Well, there's the story for you, Dave. There was, I believe, a lot more talking. And some of it, I dare say, approached to high faluting. But I had had enough of it, and went outside. Miss Hardy insisted on leaving the house that very day. As I felt that I might not be wanted, I also left. We went up to town together in the same carriage. We had it to ourselves. And that night I saw May Riddle, the real May Riddle. I don't mind telling you in private, that she is acting in that new thing of Pettigrewe's, "The Flying Folly," under the name of Miss Lyndhurst. She only has a small part; but, as Miss Hardy declares her brother said of her, she plays it like an actress born. I should not be surprised if she becomes all the rage before long.
One could not help feeling sorry for Mrs. Riddle, in a kind of a way. I dare say she feels pretty bad about it all. But then she only has herself to blame. When a mother and her daughter pull different ways, it is apt to become a question of pull butcher, pull baker. The odds are that, in the end, you will prevail. Especially when the daughter has as much resolution as the mother.
As for Daisy Hardy, whatever else one may say of her proceedings, one cannot help thinking of her--at least, I can't--as, as they had it in the coster ballad, "such a pal." I believe she is going to the Plasketts again next week. If she does I have half a mind----though I know she will only laugh at me, if I do go. I don't care. Between you and me, I don't believe she's half so wedded to the stage as she pretends she is.