48CHAPTER IVANGELA
The Featherstones were a remarkable family—remarkable in their unparalleled irresponsibility. They had a house in Grosvenor Place and another in Devonshire. The latter, like the Featherstones, was gorgeous in its external aspect, but thoroughly unstable in its foundations. The instability of Lord Featherstone was of a financial character. He, like the rest of his family, believed in giving a wide berth to such sordid considerations as money. Whenever he wanted money he called in the family solicitor, who promptly raised another mortgage on something.
Featherstone was so used to signing his name on pieces of paper that custom grew into habit. Lady Featherstone still gave expensive house parties, and the Honorable Angela acted as49though all the wealth of the Indies was behind those magic signatures of papa.
Young Claude, with a liberal allowance per annum, managed to wring a few thousands overdraft from his banker by dint of a plausible tongue and a charm of manner. When the crash came and Featherstone was forced to face realities, the house was like a mortuary.
“But surely you can raise the wind, my dear Ayscough?”
The aged solicitor, an intimate friend of the family, shook his head.
“There’s Little Badholme.”
“Mortgaged to the last penny. It was never worth the ten thousand they advanced.”
Featherstone paced up and down and blew rings of smoke into the air.
“We shall have to economize, my dear Ayscough. We shall have to economize.”
He had said that so many times before, that like the production of his autograph it had become a habit. Ayscough, seeing Carey Street looming in the distance, was unusually glum. Economy was scarcely an antidote at this stage, for mortgagees were threatening foreclosure.50
“I rely upon you, Ayscough. I rely on you absolutely.”
Ayscough looked blank. It was no use trying to explain to Featherstone the exact state of the family’s finance. Generations of Featherstones had eaten well into the coffers. Prodigality was their outstanding characteristic.
“If I might make a suggestion——”
Featherstone was in the mood to consider the wildest suggestion. He had none of his own.
“There is—er—Miss Angela.”
“There is, Ayscough. Precisely—there is.” Then he suddenly halted and looked at the lawyer. “By Jove! I see your point. But it won’t avail us. Angela is a queer girl. She has distinct aversions to marriage.”
“But if she knew that a wealthy—er—fortunate marriage would save you and Lady Featherstone a certain amount of anxiety——?”
“I doubt it. Besides, wealthy husbands are not so easily picked up. There are a dozen girls after every man of ample means. No, I think we may discard that possibility. Think it over, my dear Ayscough. I leave it entirely in your hands.”51
Ayscough had been thinking it over for the last three years. He went away with visions of the fall of the house of Featherstone at no very distant date.
At that moment the Honorable Angela was busily engaged sending out invitations to a dinner party. She was two years older than Claude, a typical Featherstone, fair and straight of limb, with finely chiseled features and delicate complexion. Her eyes were large and long-lashed, but somewhat cold. A life of indolence and luxury had bred a certain air of imperiousness in her. She was known to her friends as Angela the frigid. But this appellation was not quite justified. At times she was far from frigid. Under different circumstances she might have been as warm-blooded as any Southern peasant-girl, but pride of birth and breeding had dampered down most of the natural emotions. She was exquisite in every physical detail.
She had almost finished her list of invitations when Claude burst into the library. She turned her head for a second and went on writing. He strode up to the table and began to read the cards.52
“Please go away, Claude. Don’t touch them. They’re still wet.”
“Great heavens! You aren’t asking Mrs. Carruthers!” he ejaculated.
“Why not?”
“She’s simply impossible. Angela, take her off the list.”
“This is mother’s list, not mine.”
“But that woman—Angela, she isn’t proper.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know.”
“I don’t.”
“Well, ask any of her friends. Oh, by the way, I want one of those cards. Thanks!”
He took one, to her great annoyance, and then asked for a pen. She gave it to him with a little sigh. He filled in the blank card and read it with a grin.
“Mother will be annoyed if you send out invitations without consulting her.”
“I’ll tell her when I’ve posted it. It’s to a fellow I know very well.”
Angela took the pen. She began to write the last card, hesitated, and then asked:
“Who is he?”53
“Man named Conlan.”
The pen dropped from her fingers.
“Not your cowboy friend?”
“Even so, fair sister. And why not? I tell you Jim—Conlan is the greatest thing on earth. Oh, you’ll love him.”
She frowned.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Claude. You simply can’t ask that man here. You told me he swore and——”
“But only when he’s annoyed. You swear when you are annoyed, don’t you? I’ve heard you.”
“Claude!” She jerked her beautiful head upward.
“Swearing isn’t a matter of words entirely—it’s an emotion. You say ’bother,’ I should say ’damn,’ and Conlan would say something far more effective, and they each express exactly the same emotion. But you can’t judge a man by his vocabulary.”
“I judge him by your description of him—a retired cowboy, with few manners and less morals——”54
Claude put the card into an envelope and sealed the latter with a heavy blow of his fist.
“Angela, you are perfectly cattish at times. Why shouldn’t I ask Conlan here? He’s as good as you or I, or any of the people who visit us. That he is rough in his ways and speech is due to the fact that he has had to work for his living.”
Angela’s lips curled a little.
“And, moreover, unless something happens to prevent it, I shall in all probability have to solicit orders for motor-cars, or some other necessary evil. You, Angela, may have to write figures in a ledger, or look after somebody else’s children.”
Angela treated him to a withering glance.
“It’s not so big an exaggeration after all,” he resumed. “You’ve seen Ayscough hanging around of late, haven’t you? What does it convey? We’re broke, Angela. Lord, we are an extraordinary family! Broke, and sending out invitations to scores of the high and mighty as though we owned the earth!”
Angela flushed. Even now the specter of bankruptcy failed to affect her. She had never reckoned luxury in terms of money. Money values she was positively ignorant of. Things55were ordered and delivered, and there was an end of it. She suddenly burst into laughter.
“You are most amusing, Claude. Bring your American Hercules here and we’ll charge half a guinea for a sight of him.”
Claude said nothing. He posted his letter, and meant to make it clear to Angela and the family that Conlan was a friend of his, and therefore should be treated as any other guest would be. When, later, he confessed his escapade to his parents, they were almost too shocked for words.
“You must write and tell him it was a mistake,” urged Her Ladyship.
“My dear Claude!” expostulated Featherstone. “You let impetuosity carry you to the verge of insanity. What can this poor fellow——”
“Poor fellow be hanged!” retorted Claude, now thoroughly roused. “He’s no more poor fellow than you. He’s rich enough to buy us up lock, stock, and barrel; and he is as proud of his name as we are of ours, though he doesn’t make a song about it.”
Featherstone looked hurt at this exhibition of filial revolt. Being a wise man he dropped the56subjectpro tem. Later Claude went in and apologized.
“Pater, I particularly want you to meet Conlan. He isn’t what you think him to be. If, when you see him, you don’t approve of him, I’ll never ask him home again.”
Featherstone gripped his son’s hand.
“Very well, my boy. You can rely upon me. But I do hope he won’t swear—much.”
Jim’s sensations at receiving the invitation were indescribable. Claude’s people were the cream of English aristocracy. At first he decided he wouldn’t go, but second thoughts brought him to realize that Claude must have arranged this, and his regard for Claude was very deep. He hunted out the discarded dress-suit and tried it on again. Certainly he felt more at home in it than of yore. The collar caused him less torture, and he managed to keep the “breastplate” of the shirt from buckling, which it seemed to delight in doing. He had lost some of his facial sun-brown, and this lent him a more refined appearance.
“I’ll go,” he muttered, “if it kills me.”
When the great day arrived he felt as though57some invisible being were pouring quarts of ice-water down his spine. He had already made himself acquainted with “Enquire Within,” and found that Claude’s mother should be addressed as “Lady Featherstone”; but the question of Angela caused him anxious moments. He thought “Honorable Miss” sounded a little too Japanese. He tackled Claude on this delicate problem.
“Oh, call her anything,” said that worthy. “What do you say to ’Angy’?”
Jim didn’t feel like jesting on so serious a subject. He decided that in Angela’s case he would drop the ceremonial form, and call her Miss Featherstone.
The memory of that evening is destined to live as long as the body of James Conlan inhabits this mortal coil. When he gave the servant his hat and stick and the footman his card, and heard that powdered monstrosity bawl “Mr. James Conlan” to a room filled with shimmering gowns and glistening shirt-fronts, Jim’s flesh went cold. But the vigilant Claude helped him through. Claude was like a streak of greased lightning, bouncing Jim here and there to be introduced to58a hundred and one people, leaving our hero a nervous wreck.
Featherstone and his wife acted in the most courteous fashion, her Ladyship having been coerced into accepting the inevitable with as good a grace as possible. Featherstone himself was instantly impressed by this muscular giant, who looked like an enlarged statue of Phœbus Apollo. He adjusted his monocle to get a fuller view.
“Claude has spoken a good deal about you, Mr. Conlan,” he drawled. “It is a pleasure to meet you here.”
Jim, scarcely trusting his voice, carried out a bow, at which much practice had been put in.
“Say, kid, how did I do that?” he whispered.
“Fine!” said Claude.
They found Angela strolling with a girl friend in the conservatory, which was gayly illuminated with Chinese lanterns. They turned at the sound of footsteps. Angela wore a dress of deep mauve, against which her pale Grecian face and her exquisite neck shone with enhanced beauty. The other girl was literally outshone by her59beautiful companion. Jim felt a hot wave run through him. Never in his life had he seen anything so amazingly beautiful as Angela. He heard Claude’s introduction, and bowed automatically. Then Claude did the most outrageous thing: he took the arm of Angela’s companion and tripped away with her.
Jim was horrified. He looked round seeking for some way of escape, but there was none. Angela’s face relaxed in a cold smile as she realized the terrible nervousness of this big uncouth man. It pleased her somewhat to feel that she was the cause of it.
“You are a member of my brother’s club, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Yep—yes,” he stuttered.
He wondered if he ought to offer his arm as Claude had done to the other girl, and escort her back to the house; but he dare not. There was a seat near by. Angela sank into it.
“Won’t you sit down?” she asked.
He did so, with a sigh of relief. He was more at his ease sitting than standing. For the first time in his life he was ashamed of his size.60Angela’s delicate limbs and hands made his, by contrast, appear elephantine.
“Have you been long in England?”
“Few months.”
“And what do you think of it?”
Here was a question that was easy enough to answer.
“I guess it’s a cute little country, but it ain’t big enough for a man to breathe in. There’s no wind, no sunshine. And the people are as cold as the climate.”
Angela laughed.
“So we are cold?”
“Oysters. I came the hul way from Devonshire to London in a train with another guy—man. ’Good-morning,’ says I. ’Good-morning,’ says he—and that’s all there was to it. It beats me, this frostiness—ain’t natural.”
Angela winced at the speech. The mutilated Anglo-Saxon caused her almost physical pain, yet the voice was musical enough and deep as a bassoon.
“All you Americans say the same thing.”
“But I ain’t American. I was born in Cornwall. Went to Colorado in ’82 and sailed round61in a prairie schooner, with wild Injuns after our scalps. I reckon that was no picnic for my people. I was a little fellow then—not big enough to tell an Injun from a bear. We didn’t find gold, but we found God’s own country. Wal, I can’t remember much about it—thank God, I can’t remember much.”
She looked at him, amazed by the tenseness of his words.
“What don’t you wish to remember?”
His brows contracted and the big hands closed till the knuckles almost penetrated the skin that covered them.
“The Injuns got us in the end,” he said huskily. “I jest remember the huge red sun going down on the prairie, with the wagon and two tents down by a stream, where the horses were watering. There was a kind o’ grotto affair beyond the stream. Old Sam, the driver, came and yanked me into that. I was young, but I savvied what it meant.... It was hell arter that—shooting and screaming.... When I came out.... When I came out....”
He said no more. His eyes were staring into nothingness as through his brain flashed the62dreadful scene of youth. He remembered running and crying—running and crying into the wilderness until a party of emigrants rescued him from madness.
Angela sat with parted lips. It was strange to be sitting there listening to such horrors. She was conscious of the giant personality behind his nervousness. The great voice commanded her attention. In those few moments she was afraid of him.
“Let us go in,” she said.
The rest of the evening was a dream to Jim. Occasionally people stared at him as though he were a creature from a menagerie, and several adventurous folks actually talked with him. But all this was like a hazy background against which shone the almost unearthly beauty of Angela. A new phase had been entered in the life of Colorado Jim. Passion, long dampered down by wild living and arduous toil, leaped up in one soul-consuming flame. He was in love with a woman—a woman as far above him, and as unattainable as a star. He moved about like a drunken man, bewildered by this new and terrible desire.63
“What do you think of Angy?” queried Claude.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said fiercely.
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me she was like that.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
Jim shut his mouth with a snap.
“Nothin’,” he said.
These Featherstones knew how to enjoy themselves. For hour after hour the dreamy strains of waltz music came from the string orchestra, and couples moved rhythmically round the big room, as though fatigue was a thing unknown. Once or twice Jim caught sight of the angel of his dreams, with face no longer pale, hanging on some man’s arm, immersed in the all-consuming measure. It was maddening....
He was sitting in the conservatory, smoking, when Featherstone came out. All the evening he had kept an inquisitive eye on Jim. This was Featherstone’s mental day, and one of those rare occasions when he thought about money and things.
“Ah, Mr. Conlan,” he drawled. “So you don’t dance?”64
“No—leastways, not that sort.”
“Pity. Dancing is a fine exercise.”
“I guess I’m not in want of exercise.”
“No?” He looked at Jim’s huge figure. “’Pon my word, I think you’re right.... Are you settling down in this country—buying a small estate, making the most of your fortune, and all that sort of thing?”
“There ain’t no place in this country big enough to hold me long. I could swaller all the oxygen in the Strand in one gulp.”
Featherstone laughed amusedly.
“London isn’t England. It’s a growth upon the land. There is still Wales, Scotland, Devonshire——”
“Ah, Devonshire! Now, that is some pretty little garden, I agree.”
“Oh, you like it?”
“Sure.”
“So do I. Wish I might live there always, but one must consider one’s family, and Bond Street and the Opera have their attractions for the young people. That is why I am selling the Devonshire place. Can’t let good property lie65unoccupied, and letting is so devilishly unsatisfactory.”
He was congratulating himself he had wrapped that pill up not so badly for an unbusiness-like man. Jim took the bait quite well, too. He didn’t want to buy any property, but he wasn’t averse to keeping on the right side of Featherstone. Where Featherstone was there was Angela, and he might extend negotiations over months of time and then “turn down” the proposition if he felt like it.
“Say, is that property sold yet?” he queried casually.
“No. It was only recently that I decided to sell. I have another country place in Kent, much more convenient.”
“Mebbe I could see it?”
“Certainly. My agent will be pleased to show you over.”
As an afterthought he added: “Better still, we are spending a fortnight there, and I should be happy if you would spend the time with us. You could—ah—then examine the place at your leisure.”
Jim’s eyes glistened. The prospect of a fortnight66in close proximity to Angela—it was magnificent, unbelievable! He strove to control his eagerness.
“I’ll be sure pleased,” he said.
Jim went home with his brain in a whirl. Love had come, late, but with tremendous fury. He gained no sleep that night. The star of his desire shone like a mocking mirage before his mind’s eye. It was all impossible, hopeless, but to love and lose were better than to live in ignorance of life’s strongest passion. To dally with the impossible were sheer madness, he knew that. But what was to be done but obey the yearnings of his heart, though it brought its own revenge?
The next morning saw Featherstone in a perfectly angelic mood. The cause was soon revealed.
“My dear,” he confided to his wife, “I have sold Little Badholme.”
“Claude!”
“Ah, I thought that would come in the nature of a surprise.”
“But you said it was mortgaged?”
“Quite so, but I shall get a sum much in excess of the mortgage.”67
“But who——?”
“That American fellow—Conlan; not a bad chap, not at all a bad chap.”
Lady Featherstone looked a trifle hurt. She looked more so when her noble spouse added:
“So I’ve invited him down with us for a fortnight to look over the place.”
“Claude! Whatever has taken possession of you? I thought we had done with that man. And besides, I am not going to bury myself in Devonshire at the height of the season.”
“If you don’t, my dear, there is likely to be no season—for us. You must look realities in the face. If I can sell Badholme——”
“But you said you had sold it!”
“Tut—tut! It is as good as sold. He can’t refuse it after having stayed there with us. Besides, the fellow is as rich as Crœsus!”
It was accordingly settled. Featherstone sent volleys over the telephone.
“Get the place thoroughly redecorated, Ayscough. It has to be finished in three weeks. Armies of workers.... And the blue room on the first floor, put in a new ceiling, something elaborate. What’s that? Can’t do it in three68weeks? But ithasto be done. I leave it to you, my dear Ayscough.... Oh, the garden wants seeing to. I must have the garden put straight.... And the paths graveled.... A few sheep in the park might lend a nice effect.... Don’t talk about impossibilities. This is a very urgent matter. Do you think you could hire half a dozen horses?”
When Claude heard the extraordinary news that the family was leaving for Little Badholme in three weeks’ time he wondered what was in the wind. When he subsequently learned that one James Conlan was to visit them as guest, his suspicions overleaped his delight. Angela, the imperturbable, merely went on reading Bernard Shaw.
69CHAPTER VFROST AND FIRE
Little Badholme hung on the sheer edge of a precipice. Its hundred acres of park and meadow wooed the blue waters of the Atlantic on the western side, and climbed dizzy heights on the southern, affording the spectator an uninterrupted view of the Dartmoor Tors. The front of the house faced seawards and, in bad weather, the spindrift, hurled over the cliff, drenched the windows and the rather unsightly stucco which the position of the house rendered necessary.
Featherstone had shown considerable acumen in giving Jim the corner room on the first floor. It looked over country of unparalleled beauty. Patchwork farmlands stretched away, on the one hand, extending to the estuary of the Teign; whilst from the windows on the western side the rolling ocean shone under the summer sun. All70the best furniture had been placed in that room, including a genuine Hepplewhite suite of beautiful design. Jim had no eye for antiques, but he had a fine appreciation of scenery.
Ten days had passed on wings of magic. He saw Angela every day and Claude all day. Featherstone was perfectly charming. He could not have exhibited greater solicitude for the comfort of his guest had he been the Shah of Persia or the Prince of Wales. Lady Featherstone was polite, and no more. Angela was frigid. She seemed to be beyond his power to excite. Once or twice she showed a slight interest in his actions or reminiscences. She had even openly admired his wonderful horsemanship; but she never failed to make perfectly clear the huge gulf that loomed between a “cowboy” and a daughter of British aristocracy.
The ingenuous Claude was feeling extremely uncomfortable. He could not bring himself to believe that his father’s extraordinary behavior was genuine. Politeness was one thing, but flattery was another. All that “attention” seemed so out of place with His Lordship, who was notoriously vain of his name and antecedents.71Claude himself was a little sick of family pride. He had even on one occasion intimated to his mother that he knew for a fact that the first Featherstone got his Letters Patent for the noble act of assassinating a certain Duke whose wife Henry Eighth had taken a violent liking for, a remark which so upset Her Ladyship that she took to bed for ten days.
On convenient occasions Featherstone appropriated Jim to himself and deftly led the conversation into channels most dear to him. What did Conlan think of the property?
It was by pure accident that Claude stumbled across the plot. Featherstone was speaking to Ayscough on the telephone, on the question of the price of Little Badholme. Claude was flabbergasted—£25,000 for a place that was leaky and draughty through half the year, and which showed a tendency to slide seaward! The whole business was disgusting. He waited until his father had finished, and then interrogated him.
“Pater, you—you aren’t trying to sell this place to Conlan?”
Featherstone shrugged his shoulders.
“Mr. Conlan approached me on the matter.”72
“But it’s not worth that price.”
The noble lord resented this remark.
“Claude, isn’t this a matter that concerns Mr. Conlan and me? It’s not at all pleasant to find you—eavesdropping.”
“Eavesdropping—great Scott! You don’t mean you think....”
Featherstone came up to him.
“I didn’t mean that. But this is a matter of business. Mr. Conlan wants to buy and I want to sell. He’s a perfectly free agent in the matter.”
He abruptly left the room. Claude felt sick, humiliated. It was all so perfectly clear. Jim knew nothing about English property. It was only natural he should place himself in Featherstone’s hands. He determined to put a stop to such a swindle as was contemplated. But his plan to warn Jim was frustrated by the later realization that Jim was madly in love with Angela. This astonishing fact was sufficient to drive everything else from his mind. He had no delusion as far as Angela was concerned. Dozens of men had tried their luck on Angela, and Angela remained as frozen as the North73Pole. Poor Jim! He blamed himself for having been instrumental in bringing this meeting about. In her proud heart Angela would merely despise any advances that Jim was foolish enough to make. He watched Jim carefully for the next two days. The evidence thus gained was painful to bear. The honest, magnificent, unsophisticated Jim was torn and tortured by a mad, hopeless love. Claude could stand it no longer.
“Jim,” he said, “don’t think me impertinent. I can’t help noticing—you’re in love.”
Jim started and the color flamed up in his cheeks.
“Wal.”
“It’s mad, Jim, mad. She has no heart. You don’t know her as I do. She’s my sister and I love her, but I can’t bear to see you living on hopes that are doomed to be fruitless. If you speak of this to her she’ll hurt you. She doesn’t mean it. It’s her temperament. Don’t you see that to a girl of Angela’s social status a proposal from a man—like you is——”
Jim’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t like this.
“Jim,” added Claude swiftly, “don’t do me74an injustice. I’d be damned proud to have you as a brother-in-law. But don’t court disappointment and pain by speaking to her——”
“Who said I was going to speak?”
“I can see it—in your eyes.”
Jim shrugged his shoulders.
“You’re right. I am,” he jerked out.
Claude drew in his breath with a little hiss. Jim suddenly swung round on him.
“See here, I’m not quitting on this. I’ve never been a quitter and I’ve clinched bigger propositions than this. What’s wrong with me, eh? I guess I’ve bin taking a lot lying down of late. Last night I see it all—cut and dried. There ain’t nothin’ in this blood business—nothin’. If your family sprang from William the Conqueror I guess mine was there at the time. If there’s anything in that Adam and Eve yarn, I reckon they were my grandparents as well as yours. What’s wrong with me? Am I blind, lame, consumptive? See here, kid, I know what it is to work. I know what it is to starve. I’ve never stolen or lied or murdered.... There’s never been a gal on this earth that had cut any ice with me. I’ve bin too busy working to go galivanting75after skirts. But this ’ere’s different. I—I—wal, I guess I love her some. Oh, I know she’s proud and cold and thinks there ain’t nothin’ in trousers good enough for her. But I’m obstinate and I’m free with my tongue—at times. So we both got our faults. They kinder equalize. Anyway, I love her, and that’s good enough excuse for anyone who cares a damn about himself. And there ain’t no law on this earth, sir, that says a man can’t put a straight proposition to a gal he loves—no, by God!”
There was something different about him. He had changed in one day. The old nervousness had gone. He was dogged, determined. There was nothing to be done with him. He meant to speak to Angela, though she took the compliment as a dire insult. Claude, fascinated by the ring of his bass voice and the flash of fire from his amazing eyes, wondered if, after all, he had not cause for courage—and optimism.
But something strange happened the following morning. Angela, with a smile, asked Jim to go riding with her. It was the first time she had expressed the slightest desire for his company, and it sent thrills of delight running down his76spine. They took the best two of the borrowed horses, and under a perfect July sky rode out into the moors.
Jim was like a boy. The intoxication of her presence sent all the foreboding from his brain. He did riding tricks, at her request, and set her marveling at his uncanny control of his mount. He seemed to be on intimate terms with the latter, stranger though it was. Weird “cluckings” from his mouth were understood and obeyed without use of spurs.
“It’s marvelous!” she said. “He seems to understand all those noises.”
“It’s horse language,” he replied simply.
“Oh, come!”
He made no reply, but dismounted. The horse stood perfectly still.
“You watch out,” he said. “I’m going to tell him to walk forrard.”
He made a queer noise, like water running out of a bottle, and the animal walked forward. A slight variation of the sound, and it stopped. He laughed at her mystified expression, and bidding her ride on, ran at his horse and with a magnificent leap sprang clear on to its back. In a77second he was rushing like the wind across the moor. He jerked up the animal until it stood almost perpendicular on its hind-legs, and came back to her.
“It’s jest thinking in horse-sense,” he said. “I ran a ranch for seven years, and you can’t do that without thinking like a horse.”
They sat on the top of Hay Tor, and looked across the tumbling country to where the sea lay like a strip of cloth twenty miles away. Right across the moors came the steady westerly wind, sighing and soughing, touching their cheeks with its fresh fingers.
“Is Colorado better than this?” she queried.
“You shouldn’t ask me that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s your home, and one loves one’s home.”
“One loves one’s home.” The phrase amused her. He must have read that somewhere. She laughed, and instinctively he knew the cause of it. He bit his lips in anger as he realized that she merely mocked his attempts at better speech.
But he forgot that later as they rode home through the gloaming. Once only it occurred to him that to mock her horsemanship would be78scarcely worse than jibing at his mode of expression—a thing which would have seemed sacrilege in his eyes. So all the culture—if culture meant refinement of thoughts and actions—was not confined to the blue-blooded aristocrats!
Sweet dreams, Colorado Jim! Dreams of a pair of blue eyes in the face of a Greek goddess, with limbs that Praxiteles never surpassed. And these to be won by a man from the wilderness! He awoke to despise the day with its uncertainties. She might be cold again this morning—cold as she had been the day before yesterday.
But it proved to be otherwise. She greeted him with a soft “Good-morning,” and walked with him into the garden, among the roses and sweet-smelling things of summer. And then—oh, wonderful, exquisite marvel!—plucked a sprig of mignonette, smelled it, and placed it in his buttonhole.
After breakfast he bought the property; and he bought it in a manner dear to the heart of the vendor. He wrote a cheque, then and there, for £25,000, and took a receipt, intimating that the “lawyer-man” would see to all the details later.
79
Something wonderful and mysterious had happened to Angela. Jim was too dazed to do anything but sit and gasp. He had held her hand, and she had let him do it. He had, with amazing intrepidity, taken her arm walking down the long avenue of trees, and she made no attempt to withdraw it. Quick work was needed before some fly came and settled in the ointment! He got in his quick work that evening after dinner.
“Won’t you come to the top of the hill? It’s a full moon and a fine night,” he whispered.
She nodded and, getting a scarf, went out with him. Blue, brilliant moonlight flooded the country. From out of the trees came the eerie cry of owls, and crickets sang out of nowhere. A few bars of gold still lingered in the western sky, deepening as the world moved over.
“I’m going back to-morrow,” he said suddenly.
“Ah——!”
Was it a sigh, or merely an indifferent ejaculation?
“This holiday has been right down beautiful.”
“I’m glad of that.”
A slight breeze blew the scarf from her neck. He took it and replaced it, and his hand touched80the soft warm flesh. It stayed there. He had no power to remove it. This girl of unearthly beauty and fascination paralyzed him. To think that he should be sitting there with the perfectest woman God ever made——! The storm within him broke. His body quivered, and his great hand took the warm slim one and held it like a vice.
“Angela—I’ve gotta tell you. I—love you. I’ve loved you since the first night I saw you. I’ve never wanted anything in my life like I want you.”
He stopped, realizing that he was gabbing at a terrific rate.
“I’m rough—real rough, I know. But a man’s a man for all that, I guess. And what can any man offer you better’n love—love that ... I’m no good at words—you’ll understand that. Chin music ain’t my line. But I’m sure crazy about you.”
The hand he held trembled a little, but it stayed there.
“Angela—will you marry me?”
Her head turned. He saw the moon reflected in two glorious eyes.81
“Yes,” she said slowly.
“You mean—you mean that?” he gasped, his voice almost choked with unutterable joy.
“Yes—I mean that.”
In another second she was swept up in his arms. All the world went out in that passionate embrace. For the first time in his life his mouth touched a woman’s lips.
Featherstone paced up and down the library under the strain of considerable emotion, not to say excitement. Her Ladyship sat with an unread book on her knees gazing into nothingness.
“They’re a long time,” said Featherstone.
“Perhaps Angela——”
“Angela was sure,” he interrupted. “Dear, dear! I wish they’d come back.”
Lady Featherstone fidgeted.
“Claude, I don’t like this business at all. Oh heaven! to think of Angela married to a parvenu—a commonnouveau riche!”
“She might do far worse. Angela herself realizes that. Conlan undoubtedly loves her. It’s for him to win her love. Once the marriage is celebrated, she need see him no more—er—that82is to say, they can make arrangements whereby they do not become a nuisance to each other. He is apparently fond of this place, and Angela is not. What could be more natural than for Angela to take a flat in town and Conlan to live here?”
Lady Featherstone shivered.
“You think this man will reconcile the situation, once it becomes plain to him? Claude, he is a veritable giant. I—I don’t like the look of him at all.... Oh, why couldn’t we have waited and found a husband for Angela in her own set!”
Featherstone shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
“Time brooks no delay. We are, my dear, in a pretty devilish position. Thank God Angela realizes that. Rich husbands are not to be picked up every day, and it is essential that Angela marries a wealthy man, and that immediately.”
“But to marry a—a cowboy!”
“He may make the best of husbands. Titles are to be bought. I think I could arrange that. No, on the whole I think it is a perfectly happy arrangement for us—and for him. As Angela’s83husband he will have access to certain houses and clubs that otherwise would be closed to him.”
Lady Featherstone lapsed into gloomy silence.
“Claude was coming back to-night, too,” said Featherstone. “I don’t like the idea of that boy spending nights in Town. He’s getting blasé, and at times very out of hand. What business could he have in Town——?”
Voices drifted in through the open window. A few minutes later Jim came into the library. Lady Featherstone immediately departed.
“I’d like a word with you, Lord Featherstone.”
“Certainly. Take a seat.”
Jim sat heavily in the armchair which Featherstone offered.
“To come to the point right now—I’m in love with Angela, and we want to get hitched up—er—married.”
Featherstone looked surprised.
“I guess it’s a bit of a blow. But you needn’t fly off the handle. I love her all right, and I ain’t ’xactly penniless.”
Featherstone stroked his chin.
“There are certain conditions to my approval. You will realize that Angela occupies a prominent84position in the social world, and I should naturally like to be assured that you are in a position to provide for her in a way commensurate with her needs. There would be, of course, some marriage settlement. But I do not wish to deal with that side. My lawyer, Mr. Ayscough, is a very old family friend. He has Angela’s interest at heart no less than I. His assurance on the—er—financial side would be sufficient guarantee. In such circumstances I should see no reason to withhold my consent.”
“Thanks. Put it there!” said Jim. “Now, where does he hang out?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Where does he live?”
“Oh, Ayscough? Lincoln’s Inn Fields.”
“Good. I’m off. I’ll be along there first thing in the morning and get that settlement fixed up. I ain’t a man that wastes time.”
The meeting between Ayscough and Jim was very brief. Ayscough explained the position in choice language, and hit up for £50,000 marriage settlement. Jim, who didn’t quite see why he couldn’t be trusted to look after his own wife,85agreed without demur and went out like a whirlwind.
“Gee, it’s all over bar shouting,” he muttered. “Jim, you husky, you’re sure a lucky feller!”
86CHAPTER VITHE GREAT AWAKENING
The marriage of Colorado Jim with the Honorable Angela created no great stir, for the simple reason that it took place in a registry office and received but two lines’ notice in the “social” column of the press.
Jim was surprised that the family should wish to keep it so quiet, but as he himself much preferred that method of getting “hitched up” he made no complaint. He drove away with his beautiful bride, feeling that the greatest step in his life had been taken—which was certainly the case. Where that step was to lead him he was fortunately unable to foresee.
The attitude of Claude puzzled him. Since that day in Devonshire, when Claude had endeavored to intervene, the latter had spoken scarcely a dozen words to him. He shook hands87with Jim at the station and with Angela, but his congratulations sounded weak and insincere.
Jim speedily forgot him in the thrill of the moment. Nice was their destination—Nice in all her October glory. He was actually on honeymoon with the object of his dreams and ambitions!
This chapter in Jim’s life need scarcely be dwelled upon in any detail. It was so amazing, so unexpectedly baffling, that it sent him clean off his pivot of balance. All that marvelous happiness in his heart was shattered little by little. The first night at the hotel at Nice left him pondering. It wasn’t due to the fact that Angela occupied a separate room, but that he heard herturn the key in the lock! He sat up half the night “browsing” on that singular occurrence. The second night, and every night after, the same thing happened. Nothing else was needed to send him into fits of inward rage. Not for all the wealth of the Indies would he have touched the handle of that door! Verily he was learning. Each day drove home the lesson, until he writhed under the lash of it. He had married an iceberg.88
He found himself very much alone. In Nice Angela met scores of familiar faces. She spent most of her time with these friends, leaving Jim to the terrible naked truth—to wrestle with it as best he might. He had kissed her at Little Badholme, had apparently thawed for ever the chilly heart of her. But here it was again—the frigid exterior that no kisses could melt. What had happened to her? Was it that she had never cared at all—that her acceptance of his marriage offer was dictated by ulterior motives?
Before it was time for them to return to England the last scrap of illusion was knocked out of him. More miserable than ever he had been in his life, he sought for some solution. It was so obvious she didn’t care for him. He saw that, in the company of her “high-browed” friends, she despised him. He found himself sitting down under this contempt—meekly accepting the rôle of enslaved husband, hand-servant to a beautiful and presumably soulless woman.
On the night before they left she came back to the hotel very late, to find him sitting in a brown study. He watched her, furtively, discarding the expensive cloak, and taking off the heavy pearl89necklace he had been fool enough to buy. He stood up and stared for a moment, in silence, out over the moonlit sea. When he turned she was going to her room.
“Angela!”
She stopped, not liking the imperative note in his voice.
“What’s wrong?”
“Wrong?”
“Yep—with us?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“I wasn’t aware that anything was wrong.”
He leaned across the table.
“Angela. Why did you marry me?”
“Because you asked me.”
“No other reason, eh?”
“Isn’t that reason enough?”
His mouth set in a grim smile.
“I thought that when wimmen married men there was usually another reason. To take a man and not to tell him the truth ain’t ’xactly on the level.”
“Don’t begin recriminations,” she retorted.
“I’m not beginning anything,” he growled. “I’m jest telling you we can’t go on like this,90living in the same place and acting like strangers. I’m beginning to get wise to this queer shuffle of your family’s——”
She shivered a little as his intense gaze searched her face.
“It wasn’t a straight proposition, because all the perticlers wasn’t put in. I didn’t know I was buying a woman——”
She flared up in an instant.
“How dare you——!”
“Wal, put it how you wish, it comes to the same thing in the end. I fell to it all right, and I ain’t squealing. If I was the sort o’ man you, no doubt, take me for, I might want value for money, and I’m big enough to get it.... No need to get scared. Though you love me like you might a rattlesnake, I happen to love you. You might as well know it.”
His calmness amazed her. She had half expected a furious onslaught. On one point she wanted to put him right.
“You think I despise you, but that’s not true,” she said. “I couldn’t have married you had I despised you. But I can’t love you—I can’t. Can’t you see that our ways lie far apart? All91your life, your very mode of thought and speech, are the direct antithesis of mine. Isn’t it plain—wasn’t it plain at first that it was a mere bargain? You and I can be nothing to each other but—friends.”
“No, it wasn’t,” he growled. “If you’d have told me that, I’d have seen you to hell before I married you, or even kissed you. Blood is blood, and nature’s nature, and passion’s passion, and gew-gaws don’t count—no, nor polite chin-music either. You were my woman, and I wanted you before all the other wimmen on God’s earth. It’s the little things that don’t matter that fills your mind. If men were all tea-slopping, thin-spined, haw-hawing creatures like some I seen here, with never a darned notion of how to dig for their daily bread, though they talked like angels and acted like cardboard saints, this world ’ud be a darned poor show.... Anyway, you’ve got to learn that.... We’re going back to-morrow, and I guess we’d better finish this play-acting. Devonshire’s good enough for me if you’ll take the London house.”
She nodded. That had been her own innermost desire. She was glad he made the suggestion92himself. Before coming away he had leased a house in Maida Vale, and had given instructions to Liberty’s to furnish it. It would be pleasanter there, in the midst of friends, than planted away in the wilds of Devonshire with a “cowpuncher.”
The months that followed were purgatory to Jim. Once or twice he ran up to the club, where he heard things that were not conducive to a happy state of mind. Angela was entertaining on a lavish scale. Cholmondeley told him of the extraordinary “success” of his wife’s parties. According to Cholmondeley every other hostess was completely outshone by the beautiful Angela, whose photograph was now an almost permanent feature in the daily press.
It was on one of these visits that he met Claude. The latter shook hands with him heartily, but seemed ill at ease.
“What’s wrong, young feller?” queried Jim.
Claude passed off the question with a laugh. Later, however he came to Jim.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Jim looked at him from under his eyebrows.93
“Look here, Jim,” said Claude impetuously, “can’t you make it up with Angela? It seems silly to prolong a quarrel.”
“Eh!”
The ejaculation made Claude start.
“Well, whatever you quarreled about, it can’t be much. Come along and see her now.”
His frank smile dissipated any suspicions in Jim’s mind. Claude actually didn’t know what was wrong with the Conlans! He believed it to be a mere marital squabble, that would blow over sooner or later.
“Kid,” gasped Jim, “you are the pink limit! I guess there ain’t nothing that would stop Angela from regarding me as unsifted muck, just as she has since the first time I saw her.”
“What!”
“And you didn’t know. Wal, it’s all in the family, and you may as well git wise to it.”
“But she’s—she’s your wife——!”
“Yep.... Don’t hurry, youngster. Get it right back and masticate it well. They’ve fine heads for business in your family, not to mention play-acting.”94
Claude flushed. He stood up and gripped a chair by the back.
“Steady,” said Jim. “I’m telling you the truth.... But I thought you knew.”
Claude was realizing it fast enough.
“Then there was no quarrel?” he gasped. “She—she simply left you?”
“I told her she might—and she did. But you needn’t worry none, I’ve staked bad claims afore.”
Claude came over to him, much affected by the deep emotion that had crept into his voice.
“Jim, I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know. I warned you because I didn’t believe she could love and respect you as you deserve. But when I heard you were engaged I believed you had melted her in a strange way.... I see now where the money came from.... God! and she was mean enough to do that—to my—my friend.”
Jim took him by the shoulder and steadied him.
“She saved your people from a big financial crash, anyway—remember that.”
“Is that any mitigation? I’d rather die in the95gutter than live on money that was obtained by a vulgar fraud. She acted a lie—a damned despicable lie. That sort of thing is done every day, but the man usually knows what he is doing, and hasn’t any scruples, and the girl sometimes learns to love him.... So we’re living on the benevolence and innocence of a man who isn’t good enough to be therealhusband of a Featherstone. I wish to God my name were Smith or Jones—or anything that is honest....”
He broke away from Jim, humiliated by the knowledge that had come to him. On the morrow he dropped in at the club, his face set in a way strange to him.
“I dropped in to say good-bye, Jim.”
“Eh!”
“We had it all out last night—a real family gathering. I think I got a little militant. Anyhow, it’s better this way. What sort of chance is there for a chap like me in Canada, Jim?”
Jim put down his newspaper and stared.
“You don’t mean that, kid.”
“I do. I leave Liverpool this evening.”
Jim stood up and took his hand.
“I reckon you’ll do,” he said. “But how’s the96bank? You wouldn’t like a kind o’ sleeping partner on a fifty-fifty basis, eh?”
Claude shook his head.
“I know what you mean, Jim. But I’ve money enough to get started at something. If ever I get a partner out there, I shall consider myself lucky if he’s half the man you are.”
Jim sighed.
“I wish I was coming too.... You’re sure about the dough? Come, I’d like to invest a little in a real promising proposition. Say five thousand—jest a small interest——”
Claude gripped his hand.
“You’re a real brick, Jim, but it can’t be done. No, I can’t stay to lunch. I’ve got one or two calls to make. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
He was about to leave when he turned again.
“You mustn’t mind me saying this, Jim. Meredith is seeing a great deal too much of Angela. There is doubtless nothing in it, but—well, Angela is my sister, and I don’t like Meredith.”
When he had gone Jim sat and pondered over the words. A similar hint had been dropped by97Cholmondeley. So Angela was already considered fair spoil by men like Meredith! Meredith was out to win the love that he had lost. It rankled—it hurt. But behind his fury there lurked the sinister shadow of defeat and humiliation. There were giddy heights to which he could not climb, and to which Meredith was soaring—Meredith, a man he could have taken in his own hands and broken; a cheat, armed with every weapon that culture could forge, and little else.
In the evening he summoned up his failing courage and went to Angela’s house. It was one blaze of light and one tumult of sound. A dapper footman opened the door and took his card. He waited in the hall, running his eyes over the rich decorations. From higher up the hall came sounds of revelry, and now and again he caught sight of figures flitting to and fro. The sound of a string band drifted down to him, and then laughter—cultured, high-toned laughter that grated on his nerves.
When eventually he was shown into the drawing-room, he wished he hadn’t come. Angela was one blaze of glory. Her guests bowed to98him in a fashion that was intended, and succeeded, to make their superiority felt. Angela was cool and remarkably self-possessed.
“I was passing and jest dropped in,” he explained.
“That was very nice of you. Will you take anything to drink?”
He shook his head negatively. He only wanted to get away from these people. They were too polite to whisper to each other, but their silence was eloquent enough. They were laughing in their sleeves at this unfortunate husband. A figure dawdled up, and bowing, took Angela’s arm with a smirking smile. It was Meredith.
It was a pleasure to breathe the fresher air outside. Jim caught the next train to Devonshire, feeling like a dog that has been kicked by its mistress. He arrived home to find a pile of bills—debts incurred by Angela—awaiting him. He glared at them, half inclined to return them and repudiate responsibility. But he didn’t. He wrote numerous checks for considerable sums and sent them away.
“What a pace! But it’s got to stop. God, why can’t I get a holt on myself. Jim, you ain’t99a man. They’re putting you through your paces like a circus dog, and you’re taking it all lying down.”
He jammed on his hat and went striding out into the country.