Eight—nine—ten—eleven.The old clock on the stairs in the west wing clanged asthmatically, hesitating between the strokes as one who doubted its ability to make the final effort. It was out of repair and past use, like most of the furniture of Glune. But Richard loved it. In Prince Charlie's days the worn clock-case had sheltered one of his forbears, a Farquharson who, while carrying despatches to the Prince, was tracked and discovered by the enemy. Richard loved to poke his fingers into breathing holes which had been hastily bored at the back of the case, while armed men were clamouring for admittance at the very gates of Glune.From the first, it was to the call of valour and endurance that the boy's heart leapt. Hunting about in an old lumber-room he had once come upon a box of marvels—forgotten papers and documents which he looked at, and went back to, and wept salt tears over, time after time. Every relic in the house was dear to him. The torn plaid upon which Charlie Stuart's bonny head had lain, in the days before that brave heart had turned to water, and innocence was drowned in a flood of despair and shame—the tattered fragment of silk, once a flag, which a Farquharson had died upholding, a century before; a sporran stained quite lately with the blood of his grandfather—and a host of like treasures, witnesses of what a man should do, and of what alone was worth attempting.Richard slept in a little attic near the tower, far from his mother's and the nurse's rooms. Bare as a monk's cell, it was "all his own." He swept it out and tidied it for himself daily; no woman's foot, so far as he knew, had ever trod the staircase which led to it since he was first moved there four years before.Eight—nine—ten—eleven—midnight at last.The boy, with a start, shook himself free from his dreams and woke, as was his habit, to full and immediate consciousness of his surroundings. This eve of his twelfth birthday was a crisis in his life, high time for one who had made up his mind to be a leader of men to turn his back on childish things. And Richard, true to that unconsciously dramatic instinct of imaginative childhood which inspires children in the little plays they make from common incidents of every-day life, set about his task dramatically enough.For years he had kept nightly tryst with a certain portrait in the gallery; an image which kept alive in him the only spark of tenderness that remained after long months of frozen silence and reserve. It was an unnatural tryst for a boy of twelve, but Richard's life was all unnatural. And love, which craves so passionately for outlet, has sometimes to content itself with the inanimate, instead of what is living and responsive.We have our favourites, even among ancestors. It was a certain Margaret Cunningham, daughter of that Earl of Glencairn who, being of the Privy Council of James V, was taken prisoner by the English in the year 1542, at the battle of Solway, who had won Richard's heart. Marrying a Farquharson, she died six months later, "whereat," tradition said, "she waxed exceedingly joyful, since her whole heart's love had been given since childhood to her cousin of Kilmaurs, but her parents, being worldly, would not permit the marriage, since Farquharson of Glune had more land and a finer heritage."True to his sex, Richard had been vanquished by the most tender, the most lovable little face in the whole gallery. It was to this picture that he confided his dreams, his ambitions; it was to this one of all others that he found it so infinitely hard to say farewell. But say farewell he would, notwithstanding, for the hardening process had already begun in him. He had to make his way in life; and such a way could not be carried out at home. Beyond the park gates and the empty lodge lay a world from which he meant to wrest power to restore Glune to her former beauty. Tragic and broken, she was to him as a living woman, who needed his help and claimed it as her due. And the one way he could really help her was to go.He had packed a chosen few of his belongings; of money he had none. But he was strong on the bread of hardship. Dan would, of course, be his companion; no one else. Richard had guessed the secret of this life's success. Unhampered by ties of kinship or love, alone, a man may hope to find the key of that secret cupboard in which the world conceals her few prizes.Richard pushed the door of the picture-gallery wide, and stood on the threshold for a moment, a look of resolve on his stern young face. These—his best loved—would understand what it cost him to leave them. The older faces seemed to turn to him, expectant. Through the stained glass windows with their emblazoned coat-of-arms, a steady stream of moonlight flowed triumphantly, taking the colour of the glass it came through—now rose and now pallid green. Not less steadfast the light in the painted eyes of some of the men he looked upon, martyrs in their way—men who had fought and died for a Cause—whose purposes, like his, nor tears, nor smiles, nor force could turn.With his hands clenched very firmly and an uncomfortable tightening of the throat, Richard looked straight and long at the portrait of his ancestress to-night, and thought again, as he had often thought before, how strange it was that God did not make mothers in a mould like this. And in that moment he committed every line of the portrait to memory, never to be erased—the oval face, and soft hair, a dark curtain, banded over the low white forehead; the grave eyes that pursued you to the door, eyes painted with a hint of tears, a favourite trick in a certain school of art; the turn of the proud head, the white neck visible beneath a veil of drapery. The moonlight fell upon all lovingly. One little beam of light travelled upwards and tried to linger in the shadows of the misty eyes.[image]"GRAVE EYES THAT PURSUED YOU TO THE DOOR"Richard turned, his heart throbbing convulsively. Was that a footfall? He crept for shelter to the picture of a malignant-looking gentleman of the tenth century, whose full-length portrait moved on pulleys, and which was now drawn out to an acute angle, half across the gallery, as Dan started forward. Both waited in silence for some time, but the sound—if sound it were—was light at best, and did not return.Richard came back to Margaret Cunningham. Sentimentality was childish, the sort of thing a future empire-builder must infallibly renounce."Good-bye," Richard said gravely; "Dan and I shan't be here again for ever so long. We're going away—both of us—but we mean some day to come back. I'm growing up, you see; I'm going to make my name, and a big future, and keep Glune."In spite of the brave words he walked away from the picture drearily enough, fancying that Margaret's eyes were extraordinarily misty, because his own were drowned in tears.... He shivered. How cold it had become! He must have been there far longer than he intended; his bare feet on the parquet floor were cold as death. He whistled to Dan, who had, contrary to his usual custom, scampered away to snuffle anxiously at the door.Outside, through one light pane of glass, Richard could see the snow thick on the white stone balustrade. How silently and swiftly it must have fallen! When he came in there were only a few flakes. Eager to be off, he ran down the gallery. But Dan, evading his master's hand with a whine, leapt forward again, scenting eagerly, and then scratched at the door with a low whine of terror.Something had fallen in the corridor beyond the gallery, something heavy and dark. Something that pressed against the door that Richard strove to open, at first gently, then with a sudden sickening dread that taxed his self-control. As the door gave way at last, it pressed the unknown obstacle back with it slowly—the unknown obstacle at the sight of which the boy fell on his knees with a cry. For it was a woman's figure—his mother's—which lay prone in the moonlight, with thin arms stretched towards him, giving way too late to the longing they had crushed for years.Face to face with death for the second time, Richard found himself more wondering than pitiful, more perplexed than sad. How swiftly God's arrows struck—how unerringly! The terrified, staring eyes were fixed in their last challenge of the Almighty Power. Even in death there was no peace.The hand—cold as of old—fell from his grasp.He tried to close the dreadful eyes, but failed; tried once again, and failed, and then rose, panting. His cry had awakened his old nurse. She came to him feebly, candle in hand, with Dan sniffing at her ankles. At sight of his master the dog ran forward, and then, as if aware of mourning, crouched quietly on the floor beside the dead. And Richard, looking down upon his mother, and hearing Nurse Ailsa's lamentation shrill out of the silence, realized that this was indeed the end of the old hampering life, that he had put away "childish things" once and for all.PART IITHE SPUR"He had stamped with steady hand God's arrow-markOf dedication to the human need;He thought it should be so, too, with his love.He, passionately loving, would bring downHis love, his life, his best (because the best),His bride of dreams, who walked so still and highThrough flowery poems as through meadow-grass,The dust of golden lilies on her feet,That she should walk beside him on the rocks,In all that clang, and hewing out of men,And help the work of help which was his life,And prove he kept back nothing—not his soul."E. B. BROWNING.CHAPTER I"You and I are the only mortals that I know of who ever found a way to each other's inner being by the touch of the hands."—GEORGE DU MAURIER.Making as it does for desultory conversation and tempered criticism of your neighbour's failings, the half-hour after tea in a country house is one of the most pleasant of the day. Confidences spring from it, and intimacies ripen. Lovers drift happily away from their chaperones, knowing their absence will be unnoticed. The elder folk, who find interest and joy in each other's company, move together with no conscious effort into friendly nooks and corners where they are unobserved. Silences fall quite naturally on such occasions. Nobody minds them. They are, indeed, keys of that deeper confidence which is one of life's most beautiful gifts.The five or six members of Lord Creagh's house-party who collected in his study day after day at the same hour, ostensibly to admire the tropical plants for whose cultivation he was famed, had come to look upon this reunion as the most vital of the day."Wit and brilliance depend almost as much on the furniture of a room as on the furniture of a mind," thought Evelyn Brand, one of the two women in the group, giving herself up, as Celts do, to the characteristic atmosphere. "Even Lady Mary Wortley-Montague herself could never have made her brilliant epigrams on a black horse-hair sofa backed by magenta curtains and stuffed birds in glass cases. The Nonconformist conscience, if it did but know it, owes quite half of its solidity to the mahogany four-poster in which it came to life. 'Victorian suites' make you formal and stilted, just as chintz and lavender and lattice windows compel discretion and a modest blush. How I love lavender! Why, age itself would fall quite tenderly upon the occupant of such a house as I would furnish if I could—a tender place of peace and perfume. Grey hair and gentle influences go together; old age should win one as a lover instead of capturing one as an enemy."Under the spell of her idea, Evelyn fell into one of those quiet abstractions which her husband had found so convenient before marriage and so melancholy after.And yet discriminating eyes looking at her for the first time would have seen mystery rather than melancholy in her gaze, thought the man who was sitting beside her watching the progress of her dream with a gentle smile. Creagh, many years before, had lost the woman whom he loved so well that for her sake all other women could count upon his friendship. But he had his favourites. He was, for instance, one of Evelyn's staunchest admirers. Belonging to the type of man who achieves nothing very vital himself, he was always the cause of achievement in others. Many years ago Evelyn's husband, who had a dangerous habit of epigram, nicknamed Lord Creagh "The Holy Freak," and the name stuck.Creagh's head and body looked like two balls, one large, one little. They grew together with no perceptible join. He had so short a neck as to make a turn-down collar appear positively high, whilst his legs were as out of proportion to his body as most men's incomes are to their desires. His plain face was withal so genial that a woman must have been prejudiced indeed to look upon it without pleasure; his words took weight from their sincerity.Each member of the little group which had gathered in the study was, in his way, a celebrity. Creagh's invitations attracted interesting persons. As the head of one of the oldest families in Great Britain, his rank secured him from small aims, even in friendship. Unlike most men, he chose his acquaintances with more care than his dinner. Himself an ardent Roman Catholic, he took the widest pleasure in the companionship of those whose openly professed beliefs ran absolutely counter to his own. Your next-door neighbour at his table was as likely to be a Parsee as a Protestant, and his widowed sister, who kept house for him at Creagh, had once been present at a luncheon where one of the guests was a small Brixton tradesman (captured in the very act of trespassing on the estate), and the other the new British Minister at Rome.Beadon, Colonial Secretary in the late Ministry, sitting on the left of Mrs. Brand, was probably the best known man present. Comic papers made him familiar to the public; he had a clever face, which lent itself to caricature. Clean shaven and wiry, he looked rather like a dapper priest. His eyes were alert and keen; his friends said that upon one occasion only had his judgment been proved to be false. His enemies were naturally as the sands of the sea; they bit and snapped at him in the House of Commons like so many angry curs, but generally withdrew the worse for the fray. His heel of Achilles was his only child, Dora, a lady who had received more proposals than the average American heiress—partly because of her mother's fortune, and partly because of her father's position—and complacently believed them all to be the tribute of her personal charms.Short and squat, sallow, and of bad figure, with colourless hair, which the products of the hairdresser and the attention of a maid alone made passable, Miss Beadon was one of those extremely plain women whom men call "a good sort" for lack of a more distinctive term; a type which too often after marriage proves the exact antithesis of early promise. A woman is not necessarily amiable because she has no personal attractions. Miss Beadon was chattering just now with much animation to Lord Meavy, a new-comer, home on leave for the first time since his appointment as Governor of South Africa. Long experience had shown her the advantage of being first in the field with a possible "lion."Meavy was more like a poet than a statesman. Slender and romantic, with pointed beard, he had the tired eyes of a man who has persistently cut short his sleep until Nature, in revenge, denies him rest in the few remaining hours he might otherwise snatch. He liked Miss Beadon; she was negative, so did not tax his brain, and he was susceptible, like most men, to her obvious appreciation of his society.Washington Hare, who had the fourth seat in the circle, leading literary critic of theTimes, was a complete contrast in type to Meavy. Seventy-three years old, gaunt and rugged, his intellect was as mature, his judgment as virile, as that of a man in the prime of life. He called his art a trade, with a grim smile, and loved it passionately. Bad craftsmen fled his presence as if it conjured before them a grim array of the infinitives they had split and the phrases they had worn too well.His voice, breaking in raucously upon a discussion in which he had hitherto taken no part, attracted Mrs. Brand's attention."Carlyle summed up the question," he said, "when he called universal history the history of great men who had worked in the world. The nation needs great men just now. Mediocrity and indifference are the curses of the empire. Mediocrity produces cheap content with small successes, and indifference is deadly poison—a kind of gangrene of the soul. Indifference is infectious. Unluckily, the men who catch its breath do not die swiftly. Themselves immeasurably corrupt, they live to corrupt others.""Come now, I can recall the names of three great men, all living," suggested Creagh good-humouredly."Oh—well—you are indulgent," said Beadon dryly. "Two of them are bitter enemies, and the third celebrated his seventieth birthday lately.""I suppose there are some younger men somewhere," Dora Beadon put in gaily. "Father won't let them come to our parties because he's so afraid they will all want to marry me! But surely they exist.""Take our young politicians," Hare continued, ignoring Miss Beadon's interruption, and warming to his subject as the babble of talk died down. "Not an ounce of stamina in the lot. One particularly young gentleman in the Ministry happens to have pushed himself to the fore, but he won't stay there. The party, as a whole, is hypnotized by those of its members who have a few sparks of magnetic force. On our own side it's as bad. We've got men of average intelligence, and average intelligence is a most stultifying quality. Two-thirds of sublime folly and a fraction of wisdom produce a better leader than any amount of average intelligence can compass. And as for the sacred fount, immortal fire, food of the gods, call it what you will, that undefined quality that leads men on to dare forlorn hopes and brave martyrdom—the House of Commons would not recognize it if it were there. And yet without it, men are impotent. They themselves move and have their being, but cannot produce life in others.""Isn't your vital element patriotism?" asked Evelyn. "I always think a man should love his country like his wife, with knowledge and tenderness and passion and forbearance. In nine cases out of ten, nations fail just as women do, for trivial causes. Both may slur common duties, but the big crisis finds them ready. If her husband's love is waning a woman will strain every nerve to keep it, just as a nation will appeal to her sons when the enemy has issued his ultimatum.""Very soon the nation's appeal will be vain," said Meavy. "We forget as no other nation does.""Is that because, as every Englishman is an embryo hero, we count upon him in our hour of need?"Meavy laughed."Tactfully turned, Mrs. Brand. It sounds very nice, but I'm afraid it's not really the case. As for patriotism, it's a lost art. Love is not love at all without an element of passion, and passion is a fire which must have fuel to be kept alive. Most modern men and women are incapable of loving anything with ardour, except themselves. If they swear by a special county it's merely because they happen to be landowners, not from tradition nor history. Men back the merits of a manufacturing town, because it gives them daily bread. There is a man on the St. Pancras Board of Guardians now who boasts, 'I made my money 'ere, and 'ere I'll spend it.' The fact of being British does not stir a man; one doubts if he remembers it unless he is on the Continent.""There are those who say England is doomed," said Beadon. "Since we left Gordon to his fate the old fighting spirit waxes more and more frail. For heaven's sake don't quote the South African War as a proof to the contrary. Quite half of that wild enthusiasm was a phase of social hysteria. We are all mad on excitement now; we prostitute our very ardour. If we can't get recreation by one means we get it by another. Drink, drugs, lovers—all come under the same category. At times these fail to allay us. We see red then, like other nations, but we have no national outlet like Southerners, with their bull-fights and the like. So war—in countries to which we can be transported with all the latest comforts of civilization—breaks the monotony.""Aren't you too pessimistic?" said Creagh thoughtfully. "Personally I believe in the hour and the man. We are at a critical point just now, I admit, both individually and as a nation, but I believe that a man will come with the need, as he has always come since the world began.""Oh, England's merely superficially corrupt," said Hare. "If the right surgeon were to operate she would be cured.""And which of us is skilful enough to perform the operation? No one in the present Ministry. We've only got two sound men—men whom we trust. Both have had their day.""England may be corrupt," said Evelyn, "but she's not ignoble. Like a woman, again, she finds herself and loses herself, and then has to find herself once more. Do you remember Borrow's prayer? I found it in some old book as a child, and learnt it by heart; it's wonderful. It seems to apply now. 'If thy doom be at hand, may that doom be a noble one.... May thou sink, if thou dost sink, amidst blood and flame with a mighty noise, causing more than one nation to participate in thy downfall. Of all fates, may it please God to preserve thee from a slow decay, becoming, ere extinct, a scorn and mockery for those self-same foes, who, though they envy and abhor thee, still fear and honour thee even against their will.'"There was a pause."In England's extremity oughtn't we to pray that prayer each day?""'May more than one nation participate in thy downfall,'" repeated Beadon gravely. "Amen to that.""Now, do say it all over again, slowly," said Dora Beadon, who had a knack of reducing any serious conversation to a commonplace level. "Have you got a pencil, Lord Meavy? Oh, thanks so much; how good of you!—and some paper? Now again, Evelyn; don't hurry so, there's a dear; I really like it, and I'm so short of quotations for my extract book just now."But Evelyn was leaning forward. Throughout the little interlude her look, slightly narrowed and anxious, had been fixed on Creagh. She touched his arm suddenly, in triumph."You spoke of the hour and the man—and you are keeping both from us. You've planned the one already, my dear Dick, and you've arranged that the other should appear. It's no use denying it. I've been cudgelling my brains ever since you spoke last, wondering who on earth you could possibly have in view."Hare frowned at her beneath his heavy eyebrows."There you are again, Mrs. Brand, with your visions and dreams. And you're so horribly right too, as a rule! I don't like your uncanny ways. Not so many years ago you would have been burned as a witch, and you'd have richly deserved it.""It's her Celtic blood," Creagh explained, patting her hand affectionately. "I might have talked to you sordid English until doomsday and you would never have guessed what she has just stated as a fact. You're quite right, Evelyn; I've heard of a man who might do. A man of very high intelligence and power. He's young, and has made his way already, out of England. Some of you may even have heard of him; he specializes in the rather uncommon line of empire building.""Well, that's a useful characteristic," said Meavy enviously, thinking of South Africa's many needs."Not a soldier, I hope," Hare grumbled, true to civilian prejudice."His name is Farquharson," said Creagh. "He was once Farquharson of Glune; his brother's story must be familiar to you all. I fancy things have always gone dramatically with him. He ran away from home at twelve years old; just how he kept body and soul together for the next few years no one knows. Then—through some accident—he came across and was of service to Martin Calvert, the millionaire who had just disinherited his heir, Jack Cummings, for becoming a Catholic."Beadon whistled."The man who did so well in the last Indian famine business? A secular priest, isn't he? Self-exiled to the most fever-stricken district in the country?""Yes." Creagh hesitated. "It was a case of what is so often called 'The foolishness of the Cross.' Well, from a human point of view it certainly resulted in one man's loss and another man's gain. Calvert, like David, was cursing God in his heart when he met Farquharson. As for the lad—well, you know some of you how he was brought up in that stern Scotch school which begets defiance of God and enmity of man under some circumstances. I think the fact that Farquharson had thrown off every scrap of faith in things Divine and human appealed to Calvert doubly at that moment, and strengthened his desire to keep him. The Cummings episode was a bad blow.""So he put Mr. Farquharson in his nephew's place?" said Evelyn.Creagh nodded."He carried him off, then and there, put him through his paces with some elementary work to see what he was capable of, then gave him the lowest place in the office, kept him at the mill, ground from him his last grain of work, like the hardest taskmaster, led him on by successive rises to his own private secretaryship, and then shipped him to Taorna and gave him a magnificent chance of making name and fortune."Hare rose, grumbling."Don't pin your faith on such a broken reed. You'll make a mistake. The man's had things too easily. What age is he? Thirty? I thought so. Why, a man worth calling a man ought to contest every inch of the way until he's forty; the law of the survival of the fittest obtains in politics as elsewhere. There ought to be an injunction to prevent people coming into money easily—money, in any case, mars ten men for the one it makes. While Calvert's alive to keep him in order, your young man may possibly play the game for a bit, and even achieve a certain success. Mark my words, after Calvert's death hisprotégéwill marry some designing woman, who will use him as the means to a title, and gratify her ambition at the cost of his career.""Or one who makes him happy," said Beadon grimly. "That's quite as bad, although more rare."Creagh shrugged his shoulders."What a cynical lot you are! So far as Farquharson's methods go, I have had to take them on trust. I only know the results of his work; I should advise you to read them for yourselves in a blue-book which will be out very shortly. But Calvert we all know is as shrewd as any Scotsman, and just as little liable to err. Ask him what he thinks of the man; make him tell you what means Farquharson employed to annex that little island whose pearl fisheries quadrupled Calvert's income." His eyes twinkled. "It's an Arabian Night's tale in its way.""Pearl fisheries! that sounds attractive," said Dora Beadon, her eyes gleaming so far as such pale eyes could gleam."May we really ask Mr. Calvert about it? You expect him to-day, don't you?" asked Evelyn quietly.Creagh looked at his watch."They should be here now. By the way, my dear, Farquharson hates your sex as well as all religion. Both men were on their way up north, so of course I asked them to stay; but their rooted antipathy to Papists won't allow them to spend a night under my roof." He smiled good-humouredly. "They'll dine here instead, and put up at the inn." He looked around at the group. "Seriously, I believe Farquharson to be a great man in his way. I want you all to help him if you can.""I think they have arrived. Hark! they are coming along now," said Evelyn.Creagh, with a startled exclamation, hurried forward to meet the new-comers. The study door opened upon a long corridor, down which footsteps were heard approaching. A little wave of expectation stirred those who stayed behind, but no one spoke.Each member of the group was intent on his own thoughts and conjectures. Meavy watched eagerly; the man might be useful to him, he wanted new blood for South Africa. Beadon's smile was non-committal; he had his doubts of Farquharson's capacity. He knew Lord Creagh's weakness for hero worship, and his new brooms occasionally left more dust behind them than they cleared away. Dora Beadon was interested in the stranger because of his youth and sex and chance of making money. It was perhaps the last factor which weighed heaviest in the scale of her regard. Hare, an acute observer, was the most interested of all; men of character appealed to him; he looked to them to uphold the traditions of the race. Evelyn, with perceptions quickened by the dramatic setting of the scene, followed the young man every step of the way, wondering how its beauty would affect him.The entrance to this house would be for Farquharson the threshold of his career; surely he could not pass along the lovely lanes which led to it hedges festooned with wild blossom, unmoved. Rising, always rising, the way was one of pleasant scents and sounds, its foliage brilliant with the stir of butterflies, and spring's caress. Past deep gorges, and ever winding circuitously up the hill, it opened out at length upon the moor. Evelyn wondered if Farquharson, too, would feel its power, to her as magnetic as that of the Karroo of South Africa, which most people call barren and desolate. Evelyn had given herself up to the Karroo; its immensity, its pathos, had flooded her soul and left traces which would never be washed away. Its wide spaces and streaks of crude colour, the lines of hills in the distance, now curved and rounded as delicately as a woman's breast, now straight and slim, like an index finger pointing to the sky, the peace and awe broken at intervals by a flight of ostriches from a tiny farm, or by the figure of a solitary rider abruptly outlined against the strong yellows and browns and purples and greens which blossomed for such eyes as could distinguish them—all touched her infinitely. She felt as if God's Voice must penetrate the silence, and that to hear the Voice was to obey.But where the Karroo had calmed, Dartmoor always frightened her. She loved Creagh itself, but the moor which one must cross to come to it was surely, as a whole, more cruel than peaceful. It wantonly played with men and women whom it bred, who looked to it for protection. Its bogs had buried little harmless children; it cheated and deceived prisoners trying to escape in the fog, walking round and round in ever-widening circles, only to fall at last, starved and exhausted, to find a cordon of warders drawn about them, and the prison walls in view.She wondered if Farquharson would leave it as gladly as she had done for the valley, to which they must presently descend again.Creagh itself lay low; one came upon it through one of the finest fir plantations in England. There was a natural opening in the hills beyond, and within sight of the study window the little ribbon of water widened to the sea, and was itself lost in the greater power, an augury of life."Up to the hills, down to the valley, and then Eternity," thought Evelyn.Creagh, Farquharson and Calvert stood talking together at the open door for a moment or two more before entering. Calvert's brow was riddled with lines; one would have called him a stern man until his face lit up and became transfigured at some casual remark of Farquharson's. This was a man who had worked hard for his money, you could see; if life had brought him much, it exacted full payment for its every gift.Calvert had begun to help Farquharson because he foresaw that the latter was one who would get on, Evelyn decided quickly; but he helped him now from love, not charity. The world which only knew him in his aspect as a shrewd business man would never divine the later motive. But Evelyn's heart went out to him impulsively, as it always went out to those who gave, whatever the bestowal.Farquharson himself, the prominent factor in the group of figures, alone was in the shadow. Between him and Evelyn, Hare, Beadon and Dora stood; it was not until he was actually within a few feet of her that she saw him clearly. And then it was rather of his mental than of his physical aspect that she received the real impression. Tall and well made, dark and pale, he had presence and distinction, and remarkable composure. Supremely conscious of himself, the knowledge did not disturb him for a moment. Most men depend upon the external view for an effective entry; Farquharson's was attractive. But it was actually the singleness of the man's aim, his sincerity and sense of grip that carried conviction to the critical little group which concentrated its interest in his approach. It saw that he was born to succeed. For he not only had his goal in view, but would attain it."Wait, though," thought Hare. "No strong man yet but can be turned by a slight obstacle."Steady and resourceful, knowing that he was being weighed in the balance, Farquharson busied himself with weighing others. No single detail of his surroundings was lost upon him. Evelyn watched him rapidly gauge and sum up one after another, the character of each person present.In Beadon he recognized a man who might help, for whose favour he must in any case bid openly. He was a necessary factor in his—Farquharson's—career; without him nothing could be done. Between the young man and Hare, the rugged critic, an odd kind of attraction would exist; loyalty even in antagonism. Meavy, the idealist, Farquharson passed over with a cursory glance; a weak man, this, whatever the world might say. Creagh's cordiality he could appreciate, but native caution made him fear to trust it. People did not usually give without some adequate return, and for the moment he did not see how he could serve Creagh. Miss Beadon, as a woman, he ignored; his glance simply disposed of her. Her presence or non-presence meant nothing to him. As for Evelyn, he knew her name, and she had influence. He distrusted women with influence, but they were worth conciliating.Their eyes met. He started slightly.Before him stood a woman whose face changed indescribably, but who always possessed fascination. Slender and pale, Evelyn's one real beauty lay in the shape of her features, the modelling of her face; in the extraordinary light and shadows that made her eyes profound, her look a spur to flick a man's blood into action, or a caress in which he might find peace. And as Farquharson looked another picture rose suddenly before him, a vision of his childhood. The oval face, the dusky hair that waved back from the forehead, the turn of the rounded throat, the shape of the small head, all were familiar. He recognized them. They were his own—he had loved them long ago. He had stood before them night after night in the picture-gallery at Glune."A woman to dream of and to work beside." As Kilmaurs had written about Margaret Cunningham, in a lyric the ink of which had faded many years before, so Richard Farquharson felt now for the woman of his dreams. Here, in the flesh she stood before him, perfect companion, perfect lover and wife. He looked half smiling at her hands—the hands he had loved in the picture—and for the first time wondered what it would be to a man to feel such hands about his throat, drawing him down in mute surrender."Non so dirvi la sensasione che mi danno." A scene in D'Annuncio's play came back to him; the sight of the slender figure recalled Bianca Maria's passionate appeal to Anna, when the blind woman's hands were passing, feature by feature, across the girl's face, feeling for the beauties which she could not see, but for which others hungered.... "Sembra che le vostre dita vedano.... E come uno sguardo che insista, che prema, sembra die tutta l' anima discenda all' estremita delle vostre dita.""Sembra che tutta l' anima discenda all' estremita delle vostre dita."He could not have spoken the words aloud, for no one heard them. But there are thoughts which have wings, like birds, which fly home to nestle in their natural sanctuary. Evelyn drew back, disturbed and tremulous, like a child who stands hesitating at the door of a room which it has always wanted to enter, but which has been barred until now.In the music-room beyond, a professional pianist was playing the opening chords of one of Brahms' preludes. The notes echoed like the accompaniment of powerful thought. Evelyn, moving back unconsciously, swayed with sudden vertigo.Farquharson turned to answer some question of Beadon's. Hare crossed to Evelyn; it seemed to her afterwards that he must have interposed his massive figure between her and Farquharson. He spoke, and the sense of his words came to her vaguely, like a dream."A strong personality—that. The man sees clearly and acts promptly, and will usually get what he wants."CHAPTER II"We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;In feelings, not in figures on a dial.We should count time by heart-throbs. He lives mostWho thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.And he whose heart beats quickest ...Lives in one hour more than in years do someWhose fat blood sleeps as it slips along their veins."PHILIP JAMES BAILY."Is that all I can do for you, ma'am?""You might put another little pearl pin at the back of my bodice, please, Emily; I can't quite reach it. Thank you; that's very nice."The third housemaid—Mrs. Brand had never had a maid of her own in her life—withdrew with a last gratified glance at her handiwork. She thought her "lady" in an inexpensive gown had a better appearance than any other member of the house party. All servants liked Evelyn; she treated them as human beings, not automatons.Mrs. Brand looked at her watch. Yes, there was still a quarter of an hour's grace before dinner. She switched off the electric light, and, drawing a chair beside the open window, leant out to the night and drank in its wonderful perfume. There was never a place so full of sweet scents and sounds as Creagh.Some one else had dressed quickly too. The echo of men's voices rose presently from the verandah below. She recognized them with a start as Creagh's unmistakable chuckle of delight broke out at something Farquharson said. Then the younger man pulled his chair forward—she heard the sound grate on the stone—and took up the thread of talk again with an alert and interested air. Evelyn, curiously tired, listened for a moment to the murmur of voices without taking in the full significance of words which occasionally reached her. Creagh seemed to be unfolding some plan of campaign, to which Farquharson said but little in reply. His tone was deliberate and extraordinarily final; one or two words reached Evelyn clearly. She drew back further into the shadow, fearful of playing the part of eavesdropper.The frayed edge of her gown, mended and adapted almost beyond recognition, caught her eye. She went to her work-basket and mended it mechanically. It was draped with the lace of her mother's and her own wedding veil, and sweet with the scent of lavender bags where it had been laid. The skirt was made from the fifteen-year-old Court train of her bridal gown; a pearl spray clasping the flowers at her breast was one of Creagh's numerous wedding gifts, her fan and handkerchief another. Every appointment of her dress to-night recalled her marriage. The maid had put out another gown upon the bed, which Mrs. Brand had discarded, choosing by preference that which she had worn the night before. Evelyn had to practise every pitiful little shift of poverty "to keep up an appearance."Only Henry Brand knew the precise amount of their income. Its fluctuations and diminutions were a constant terror to his wife. There were times when money, obtained how she did not know, seemed fairly plentiful; again, at other times, her desk was laden with unpaid bills, and she worked far into the night to make the money wherewith to meet them. She photographed and painted, and could turn her hand to journalism as easily as to upholstery. Accustomed to do without from childhood, she had limited her personal wants to absolute necessities; she was, moreover, a practical woman who could cook and sew or do housework better than most of the people she employed.A world which generally expels its social paupers was singularly lenient to the Brands. Some of the great ladies of the land drove down at night to the tiny flat in West Kensington, where Evelyn dispensed hock-cup and home-made cakes, without a murmur; it was said that two young duchesses, rival beauties, had come incognita on one occasion behind thick veils inside a motor 'bus. The latest explorer, the coming man, gravitated naturally to a place where every guest was made to feel individually welcome. Evelyn's reunions recalled something of the famoussalonsof the past. Her tact and sympathy drew opposing bodies together; the little circle had grown from a mere gathering of intimate friends to be the coveted goal of those who wished to meet important persons on an easy and natural footing. Converging opinions met and mixed here like rivers in the sea.Mighty political battles had been fought out in Evelyn's presence. A famous K.C., with more truth than gallantry, boasted openly that she was the one woman in England who was just and temperate in argument, and the present Prime Minister had said he would drive willingly four miles farther out of London to be welcomed by such a hostess at the end. Unlike most women, technicalities did not alarm her. Men who came to discuss their business investments found in her as ready a listener as men of action. Nor did she shun, although she never actually invited, the confidences of her own sex. The pain of others hurt her physically; to give real sympathy is, after all, to let "virtue go out of one." Most men and women shun sorrow as if it were leprosy. But in the bank of feeling Evelyn's account was always overdrawn.It was certainly a point in Henry Brand's favour that he had so early foreseen his wife's possibilities.His one brief hour of popularity had long since passed. There were unpleasant stories about him. He was, for instance, sole trustee under his father's will, and the money was equally divided between himself and the two unmarried daughters, at whose deaths it would revert to him, failing their marriages, in which case the husbands would have life-interests in the estate, and, if there were issue, the children would eventually succeed. The younger of the two Miss Brands was fragile and delicate; a course of the systematic bullying and petty tyrannies by which a man can make his sisters' lives unbearable, made her run away one night and take refuge in a convent, whose sternrégimepresently brought about her death. The elder sister, stronger in will and brain, was more difficult to deal with; but there are many forms of cruelty practised by those amongst whom we live unrecognized by the law, and which the law has so far never punished. Brand made this woman's life a martyrdom; her every action was thwarted, and every pleasure arrested midway towards its fulfilment. In time her spirit broke. She lived with him because she could never break away; unluckily for her, she had none of that special knowledge which enables a better educated woman to make her own way in the world, and defy those enemies of the household who can be the most bitter and unyielding. Marian Brand was found in bed one morning dead, with a broken bottle of chloral at her side. Brand was the first to break into the room. Accustomed to come down late he had missed his sister's usual preparations for his comfort. The frightened servants at his heels never saw him pick up a letter addressed to himself which lay upon the bed, and which he presently destroyed.But trustees who benefit by certain deaths under a will must needs go warily, and facts like these leak out in time, however carefully concealed. Brand, pleasantly aware of the world's forgetfulness found it advisable to travel abroad for a while.It was not, indeed, until after his marriage that he was again universally received. Even now he was only allowed access to the houses where Evelyn was a popular guest because from the first she had refused all invitations which did not include him. The position galled him, although he made the best of it; he had aged of late years, his limp becoming daily more prominent, and the stoop from the shoulders stiffening with time.
Eight—nine—ten—eleven.
The old clock on the stairs in the west wing clanged asthmatically, hesitating between the strokes as one who doubted its ability to make the final effort. It was out of repair and past use, like most of the furniture of Glune. But Richard loved it. In Prince Charlie's days the worn clock-case had sheltered one of his forbears, a Farquharson who, while carrying despatches to the Prince, was tracked and discovered by the enemy. Richard loved to poke his fingers into breathing holes which had been hastily bored at the back of the case, while armed men were clamouring for admittance at the very gates of Glune.
From the first, it was to the call of valour and endurance that the boy's heart leapt. Hunting about in an old lumber-room he had once come upon a box of marvels—forgotten papers and documents which he looked at, and went back to, and wept salt tears over, time after time. Every relic in the house was dear to him. The torn plaid upon which Charlie Stuart's bonny head had lain, in the days before that brave heart had turned to water, and innocence was drowned in a flood of despair and shame—the tattered fragment of silk, once a flag, which a Farquharson had died upholding, a century before; a sporran stained quite lately with the blood of his grandfather—and a host of like treasures, witnesses of what a man should do, and of what alone was worth attempting.
Richard slept in a little attic near the tower, far from his mother's and the nurse's rooms. Bare as a monk's cell, it was "all his own." He swept it out and tidied it for himself daily; no woman's foot, so far as he knew, had ever trod the staircase which led to it since he was first moved there four years before.
Eight—nine—ten—eleven—midnight at last.
The boy, with a start, shook himself free from his dreams and woke, as was his habit, to full and immediate consciousness of his surroundings. This eve of his twelfth birthday was a crisis in his life, high time for one who had made up his mind to be a leader of men to turn his back on childish things. And Richard, true to that unconsciously dramatic instinct of imaginative childhood which inspires children in the little plays they make from common incidents of every-day life, set about his task dramatically enough.
For years he had kept nightly tryst with a certain portrait in the gallery; an image which kept alive in him the only spark of tenderness that remained after long months of frozen silence and reserve. It was an unnatural tryst for a boy of twelve, but Richard's life was all unnatural. And love, which craves so passionately for outlet, has sometimes to content itself with the inanimate, instead of what is living and responsive.
We have our favourites, even among ancestors. It was a certain Margaret Cunningham, daughter of that Earl of Glencairn who, being of the Privy Council of James V, was taken prisoner by the English in the year 1542, at the battle of Solway, who had won Richard's heart. Marrying a Farquharson, she died six months later, "whereat," tradition said, "she waxed exceedingly joyful, since her whole heart's love had been given since childhood to her cousin of Kilmaurs, but her parents, being worldly, would not permit the marriage, since Farquharson of Glune had more land and a finer heritage."
True to his sex, Richard had been vanquished by the most tender, the most lovable little face in the whole gallery. It was to this picture that he confided his dreams, his ambitions; it was to this one of all others that he found it so infinitely hard to say farewell. But say farewell he would, notwithstanding, for the hardening process had already begun in him. He had to make his way in life; and such a way could not be carried out at home. Beyond the park gates and the empty lodge lay a world from which he meant to wrest power to restore Glune to her former beauty. Tragic and broken, she was to him as a living woman, who needed his help and claimed it as her due. And the one way he could really help her was to go.
He had packed a chosen few of his belongings; of money he had none. But he was strong on the bread of hardship. Dan would, of course, be his companion; no one else. Richard had guessed the secret of this life's success. Unhampered by ties of kinship or love, alone, a man may hope to find the key of that secret cupboard in which the world conceals her few prizes.
Richard pushed the door of the picture-gallery wide, and stood on the threshold for a moment, a look of resolve on his stern young face. These—his best loved—would understand what it cost him to leave them. The older faces seemed to turn to him, expectant. Through the stained glass windows with their emblazoned coat-of-arms, a steady stream of moonlight flowed triumphantly, taking the colour of the glass it came through—now rose and now pallid green. Not less steadfast the light in the painted eyes of some of the men he looked upon, martyrs in their way—men who had fought and died for a Cause—whose purposes, like his, nor tears, nor smiles, nor force could turn.
With his hands clenched very firmly and an uncomfortable tightening of the throat, Richard looked straight and long at the portrait of his ancestress to-night, and thought again, as he had often thought before, how strange it was that God did not make mothers in a mould like this. And in that moment he committed every line of the portrait to memory, never to be erased—the oval face, and soft hair, a dark curtain, banded over the low white forehead; the grave eyes that pursued you to the door, eyes painted with a hint of tears, a favourite trick in a certain school of art; the turn of the proud head, the white neck visible beneath a veil of drapery. The moonlight fell upon all lovingly. One little beam of light travelled upwards and tried to linger in the shadows of the misty eyes.
[image]"GRAVE EYES THAT PURSUED YOU TO THE DOOR"
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"GRAVE EYES THAT PURSUED YOU TO THE DOOR"
Richard turned, his heart throbbing convulsively. Was that a footfall? He crept for shelter to the picture of a malignant-looking gentleman of the tenth century, whose full-length portrait moved on pulleys, and which was now drawn out to an acute angle, half across the gallery, as Dan started forward. Both waited in silence for some time, but the sound—if sound it were—was light at best, and did not return.
Richard came back to Margaret Cunningham. Sentimentality was childish, the sort of thing a future empire-builder must infallibly renounce.
"Good-bye," Richard said gravely; "Dan and I shan't be here again for ever so long. We're going away—both of us—but we mean some day to come back. I'm growing up, you see; I'm going to make my name, and a big future, and keep Glune."
In spite of the brave words he walked away from the picture drearily enough, fancying that Margaret's eyes were extraordinarily misty, because his own were drowned in tears.... He shivered. How cold it had become! He must have been there far longer than he intended; his bare feet on the parquet floor were cold as death. He whistled to Dan, who had, contrary to his usual custom, scampered away to snuffle anxiously at the door.
Outside, through one light pane of glass, Richard could see the snow thick on the white stone balustrade. How silently and swiftly it must have fallen! When he came in there were only a few flakes. Eager to be off, he ran down the gallery. But Dan, evading his master's hand with a whine, leapt forward again, scenting eagerly, and then scratched at the door with a low whine of terror.
Something had fallen in the corridor beyond the gallery, something heavy and dark. Something that pressed against the door that Richard strove to open, at first gently, then with a sudden sickening dread that taxed his self-control. As the door gave way at last, it pressed the unknown obstacle back with it slowly—the unknown obstacle at the sight of which the boy fell on his knees with a cry. For it was a woman's figure—his mother's—which lay prone in the moonlight, with thin arms stretched towards him, giving way too late to the longing they had crushed for years.
Face to face with death for the second time, Richard found himself more wondering than pitiful, more perplexed than sad. How swiftly God's arrows struck—how unerringly! The terrified, staring eyes were fixed in their last challenge of the Almighty Power. Even in death there was no peace.
The hand—cold as of old—fell from his grasp.
He tried to close the dreadful eyes, but failed; tried once again, and failed, and then rose, panting. His cry had awakened his old nurse. She came to him feebly, candle in hand, with Dan sniffing at her ankles. At sight of his master the dog ran forward, and then, as if aware of mourning, crouched quietly on the floor beside the dead. And Richard, looking down upon his mother, and hearing Nurse Ailsa's lamentation shrill out of the silence, realized that this was indeed the end of the old hampering life, that he had put away "childish things" once and for all.
PART II
THE SPUR
"He had stamped with steady hand God's arrow-markOf dedication to the human need;He thought it should be so, too, with his love.He, passionately loving, would bring downHis love, his life, his best (because the best),His bride of dreams, who walked so still and highThrough flowery poems as through meadow-grass,The dust of golden lilies on her feet,That she should walk beside him on the rocks,In all that clang, and hewing out of men,And help the work of help which was his life,And prove he kept back nothing—not his soul."E. B. BROWNING.
"He had stamped with steady hand God's arrow-markOf dedication to the human need;He thought it should be so, too, with his love.He, passionately loving, would bring downHis love, his life, his best (because the best),His bride of dreams, who walked so still and highThrough flowery poems as through meadow-grass,The dust of golden lilies on her feet,That she should walk beside him on the rocks,In all that clang, and hewing out of men,And help the work of help which was his life,And prove he kept back nothing—not his soul."E. B. BROWNING.
"He had stamped with steady hand God's arrow-mark
Of dedication to the human need;
He thought it should be so, too, with his love.
He, passionately loving, would bring down
His love, his life, his best (because the best),
His bride of dreams, who walked so still and high
Through flowery poems as through meadow-grass,
The dust of golden lilies on her feet,
That she should walk beside him on the rocks,
In all that clang, and hewing out of men,
And help the work of help which was his life,
And prove he kept back nothing—not his soul."
E. B. BROWNING.
E. B. BROWNING.
CHAPTER I
"You and I are the only mortals that I know of who ever found a way to each other's inner being by the touch of the hands."—GEORGE DU MAURIER.
Making as it does for desultory conversation and tempered criticism of your neighbour's failings, the half-hour after tea in a country house is one of the most pleasant of the day. Confidences spring from it, and intimacies ripen. Lovers drift happily away from their chaperones, knowing their absence will be unnoticed. The elder folk, who find interest and joy in each other's company, move together with no conscious effort into friendly nooks and corners where they are unobserved. Silences fall quite naturally on such occasions. Nobody minds them. They are, indeed, keys of that deeper confidence which is one of life's most beautiful gifts.
The five or six members of Lord Creagh's house-party who collected in his study day after day at the same hour, ostensibly to admire the tropical plants for whose cultivation he was famed, had come to look upon this reunion as the most vital of the day.
"Wit and brilliance depend almost as much on the furniture of a room as on the furniture of a mind," thought Evelyn Brand, one of the two women in the group, giving herself up, as Celts do, to the characteristic atmosphere. "Even Lady Mary Wortley-Montague herself could never have made her brilliant epigrams on a black horse-hair sofa backed by magenta curtains and stuffed birds in glass cases. The Nonconformist conscience, if it did but know it, owes quite half of its solidity to the mahogany four-poster in which it came to life. 'Victorian suites' make you formal and stilted, just as chintz and lavender and lattice windows compel discretion and a modest blush. How I love lavender! Why, age itself would fall quite tenderly upon the occupant of such a house as I would furnish if I could—a tender place of peace and perfume. Grey hair and gentle influences go together; old age should win one as a lover instead of capturing one as an enemy."
Under the spell of her idea, Evelyn fell into one of those quiet abstractions which her husband had found so convenient before marriage and so melancholy after.
And yet discriminating eyes looking at her for the first time would have seen mystery rather than melancholy in her gaze, thought the man who was sitting beside her watching the progress of her dream with a gentle smile. Creagh, many years before, had lost the woman whom he loved so well that for her sake all other women could count upon his friendship. But he had his favourites. He was, for instance, one of Evelyn's staunchest admirers. Belonging to the type of man who achieves nothing very vital himself, he was always the cause of achievement in others. Many years ago Evelyn's husband, who had a dangerous habit of epigram, nicknamed Lord Creagh "The Holy Freak," and the name stuck.
Creagh's head and body looked like two balls, one large, one little. They grew together with no perceptible join. He had so short a neck as to make a turn-down collar appear positively high, whilst his legs were as out of proportion to his body as most men's incomes are to their desires. His plain face was withal so genial that a woman must have been prejudiced indeed to look upon it without pleasure; his words took weight from their sincerity.
Each member of the little group which had gathered in the study was, in his way, a celebrity. Creagh's invitations attracted interesting persons. As the head of one of the oldest families in Great Britain, his rank secured him from small aims, even in friendship. Unlike most men, he chose his acquaintances with more care than his dinner. Himself an ardent Roman Catholic, he took the widest pleasure in the companionship of those whose openly professed beliefs ran absolutely counter to his own. Your next-door neighbour at his table was as likely to be a Parsee as a Protestant, and his widowed sister, who kept house for him at Creagh, had once been present at a luncheon where one of the guests was a small Brixton tradesman (captured in the very act of trespassing on the estate), and the other the new British Minister at Rome.
Beadon, Colonial Secretary in the late Ministry, sitting on the left of Mrs. Brand, was probably the best known man present. Comic papers made him familiar to the public; he had a clever face, which lent itself to caricature. Clean shaven and wiry, he looked rather like a dapper priest. His eyes were alert and keen; his friends said that upon one occasion only had his judgment been proved to be false. His enemies were naturally as the sands of the sea; they bit and snapped at him in the House of Commons like so many angry curs, but generally withdrew the worse for the fray. His heel of Achilles was his only child, Dora, a lady who had received more proposals than the average American heiress—partly because of her mother's fortune, and partly because of her father's position—and complacently believed them all to be the tribute of her personal charms.
Short and squat, sallow, and of bad figure, with colourless hair, which the products of the hairdresser and the attention of a maid alone made passable, Miss Beadon was one of those extremely plain women whom men call "a good sort" for lack of a more distinctive term; a type which too often after marriage proves the exact antithesis of early promise. A woman is not necessarily amiable because she has no personal attractions. Miss Beadon was chattering just now with much animation to Lord Meavy, a new-comer, home on leave for the first time since his appointment as Governor of South Africa. Long experience had shown her the advantage of being first in the field with a possible "lion."
Meavy was more like a poet than a statesman. Slender and romantic, with pointed beard, he had the tired eyes of a man who has persistently cut short his sleep until Nature, in revenge, denies him rest in the few remaining hours he might otherwise snatch. He liked Miss Beadon; she was negative, so did not tax his brain, and he was susceptible, like most men, to her obvious appreciation of his society.
Washington Hare, who had the fourth seat in the circle, leading literary critic of theTimes, was a complete contrast in type to Meavy. Seventy-three years old, gaunt and rugged, his intellect was as mature, his judgment as virile, as that of a man in the prime of life. He called his art a trade, with a grim smile, and loved it passionately. Bad craftsmen fled his presence as if it conjured before them a grim array of the infinitives they had split and the phrases they had worn too well.
His voice, breaking in raucously upon a discussion in which he had hitherto taken no part, attracted Mrs. Brand's attention.
"Carlyle summed up the question," he said, "when he called universal history the history of great men who had worked in the world. The nation needs great men just now. Mediocrity and indifference are the curses of the empire. Mediocrity produces cheap content with small successes, and indifference is deadly poison—a kind of gangrene of the soul. Indifference is infectious. Unluckily, the men who catch its breath do not die swiftly. Themselves immeasurably corrupt, they live to corrupt others."
"Come now, I can recall the names of three great men, all living," suggested Creagh good-humouredly.
"Oh—well—you are indulgent," said Beadon dryly. "Two of them are bitter enemies, and the third celebrated his seventieth birthday lately."
"I suppose there are some younger men somewhere," Dora Beadon put in gaily. "Father won't let them come to our parties because he's so afraid they will all want to marry me! But surely they exist."
"Take our young politicians," Hare continued, ignoring Miss Beadon's interruption, and warming to his subject as the babble of talk died down. "Not an ounce of stamina in the lot. One particularly young gentleman in the Ministry happens to have pushed himself to the fore, but he won't stay there. The party, as a whole, is hypnotized by those of its members who have a few sparks of magnetic force. On our own side it's as bad. We've got men of average intelligence, and average intelligence is a most stultifying quality. Two-thirds of sublime folly and a fraction of wisdom produce a better leader than any amount of average intelligence can compass. And as for the sacred fount, immortal fire, food of the gods, call it what you will, that undefined quality that leads men on to dare forlorn hopes and brave martyrdom—the House of Commons would not recognize it if it were there. And yet without it, men are impotent. They themselves move and have their being, but cannot produce life in others."
"Isn't your vital element patriotism?" asked Evelyn. "I always think a man should love his country like his wife, with knowledge and tenderness and passion and forbearance. In nine cases out of ten, nations fail just as women do, for trivial causes. Both may slur common duties, but the big crisis finds them ready. If her husband's love is waning a woman will strain every nerve to keep it, just as a nation will appeal to her sons when the enemy has issued his ultimatum."
"Very soon the nation's appeal will be vain," said Meavy. "We forget as no other nation does."
"Is that because, as every Englishman is an embryo hero, we count upon him in our hour of need?"
Meavy laughed.
"Tactfully turned, Mrs. Brand. It sounds very nice, but I'm afraid it's not really the case. As for patriotism, it's a lost art. Love is not love at all without an element of passion, and passion is a fire which must have fuel to be kept alive. Most modern men and women are incapable of loving anything with ardour, except themselves. If they swear by a special county it's merely because they happen to be landowners, not from tradition nor history. Men back the merits of a manufacturing town, because it gives them daily bread. There is a man on the St. Pancras Board of Guardians now who boasts, 'I made my money 'ere, and 'ere I'll spend it.' The fact of being British does not stir a man; one doubts if he remembers it unless he is on the Continent."
"There are those who say England is doomed," said Beadon. "Since we left Gordon to his fate the old fighting spirit waxes more and more frail. For heaven's sake don't quote the South African War as a proof to the contrary. Quite half of that wild enthusiasm was a phase of social hysteria. We are all mad on excitement now; we prostitute our very ardour. If we can't get recreation by one means we get it by another. Drink, drugs, lovers—all come under the same category. At times these fail to allay us. We see red then, like other nations, but we have no national outlet like Southerners, with their bull-fights and the like. So war—in countries to which we can be transported with all the latest comforts of civilization—breaks the monotony."
"Aren't you too pessimistic?" said Creagh thoughtfully. "Personally I believe in the hour and the man. We are at a critical point just now, I admit, both individually and as a nation, but I believe that a man will come with the need, as he has always come since the world began."
"Oh, England's merely superficially corrupt," said Hare. "If the right surgeon were to operate she would be cured."
"And which of us is skilful enough to perform the operation? No one in the present Ministry. We've only got two sound men—men whom we trust. Both have had their day."
"England may be corrupt," said Evelyn, "but she's not ignoble. Like a woman, again, she finds herself and loses herself, and then has to find herself once more. Do you remember Borrow's prayer? I found it in some old book as a child, and learnt it by heart; it's wonderful. It seems to apply now. 'If thy doom be at hand, may that doom be a noble one.... May thou sink, if thou dost sink, amidst blood and flame with a mighty noise, causing more than one nation to participate in thy downfall. Of all fates, may it please God to preserve thee from a slow decay, becoming, ere extinct, a scorn and mockery for those self-same foes, who, though they envy and abhor thee, still fear and honour thee even against their will.'"
There was a pause.
"In England's extremity oughtn't we to pray that prayer each day?"
"'May more than one nation participate in thy downfall,'" repeated Beadon gravely. "Amen to that."
"Now, do say it all over again, slowly," said Dora Beadon, who had a knack of reducing any serious conversation to a commonplace level. "Have you got a pencil, Lord Meavy? Oh, thanks so much; how good of you!—and some paper? Now again, Evelyn; don't hurry so, there's a dear; I really like it, and I'm so short of quotations for my extract book just now."
But Evelyn was leaning forward. Throughout the little interlude her look, slightly narrowed and anxious, had been fixed on Creagh. She touched his arm suddenly, in triumph.
"You spoke of the hour and the man—and you are keeping both from us. You've planned the one already, my dear Dick, and you've arranged that the other should appear. It's no use denying it. I've been cudgelling my brains ever since you spoke last, wondering who on earth you could possibly have in view."
Hare frowned at her beneath his heavy eyebrows.
"There you are again, Mrs. Brand, with your visions and dreams. And you're so horribly right too, as a rule! I don't like your uncanny ways. Not so many years ago you would have been burned as a witch, and you'd have richly deserved it."
"It's her Celtic blood," Creagh explained, patting her hand affectionately. "I might have talked to you sordid English until doomsday and you would never have guessed what she has just stated as a fact. You're quite right, Evelyn; I've heard of a man who might do. A man of very high intelligence and power. He's young, and has made his way already, out of England. Some of you may even have heard of him; he specializes in the rather uncommon line of empire building."
"Well, that's a useful characteristic," said Meavy enviously, thinking of South Africa's many needs.
"Not a soldier, I hope," Hare grumbled, true to civilian prejudice.
"His name is Farquharson," said Creagh. "He was once Farquharson of Glune; his brother's story must be familiar to you all. I fancy things have always gone dramatically with him. He ran away from home at twelve years old; just how he kept body and soul together for the next few years no one knows. Then—through some accident—he came across and was of service to Martin Calvert, the millionaire who had just disinherited his heir, Jack Cummings, for becoming a Catholic."
Beadon whistled.
"The man who did so well in the last Indian famine business? A secular priest, isn't he? Self-exiled to the most fever-stricken district in the country?"
"Yes." Creagh hesitated. "It was a case of what is so often called 'The foolishness of the Cross.' Well, from a human point of view it certainly resulted in one man's loss and another man's gain. Calvert, like David, was cursing God in his heart when he met Farquharson. As for the lad—well, you know some of you how he was brought up in that stern Scotch school which begets defiance of God and enmity of man under some circumstances. I think the fact that Farquharson had thrown off every scrap of faith in things Divine and human appealed to Calvert doubly at that moment, and strengthened his desire to keep him. The Cummings episode was a bad blow."
"So he put Mr. Farquharson in his nephew's place?" said Evelyn.
Creagh nodded.
"He carried him off, then and there, put him through his paces with some elementary work to see what he was capable of, then gave him the lowest place in the office, kept him at the mill, ground from him his last grain of work, like the hardest taskmaster, led him on by successive rises to his own private secretaryship, and then shipped him to Taorna and gave him a magnificent chance of making name and fortune."
Hare rose, grumbling.
"Don't pin your faith on such a broken reed. You'll make a mistake. The man's had things too easily. What age is he? Thirty? I thought so. Why, a man worth calling a man ought to contest every inch of the way until he's forty; the law of the survival of the fittest obtains in politics as elsewhere. There ought to be an injunction to prevent people coming into money easily—money, in any case, mars ten men for the one it makes. While Calvert's alive to keep him in order, your young man may possibly play the game for a bit, and even achieve a certain success. Mark my words, after Calvert's death hisprotégéwill marry some designing woman, who will use him as the means to a title, and gratify her ambition at the cost of his career."
"Or one who makes him happy," said Beadon grimly. "That's quite as bad, although more rare."
Creagh shrugged his shoulders.
"What a cynical lot you are! So far as Farquharson's methods go, I have had to take them on trust. I only know the results of his work; I should advise you to read them for yourselves in a blue-book which will be out very shortly. But Calvert we all know is as shrewd as any Scotsman, and just as little liable to err. Ask him what he thinks of the man; make him tell you what means Farquharson employed to annex that little island whose pearl fisheries quadrupled Calvert's income." His eyes twinkled. "It's an Arabian Night's tale in its way."
"Pearl fisheries! that sounds attractive," said Dora Beadon, her eyes gleaming so far as such pale eyes could gleam.
"May we really ask Mr. Calvert about it? You expect him to-day, don't you?" asked Evelyn quietly.
Creagh looked at his watch.
"They should be here now. By the way, my dear, Farquharson hates your sex as well as all religion. Both men were on their way up north, so of course I asked them to stay; but their rooted antipathy to Papists won't allow them to spend a night under my roof." He smiled good-humouredly. "They'll dine here instead, and put up at the inn." He looked around at the group. "Seriously, I believe Farquharson to be a great man in his way. I want you all to help him if you can."
"I think they have arrived. Hark! they are coming along now," said Evelyn.
Creagh, with a startled exclamation, hurried forward to meet the new-comers. The study door opened upon a long corridor, down which footsteps were heard approaching. A little wave of expectation stirred those who stayed behind, but no one spoke.
Each member of the group was intent on his own thoughts and conjectures. Meavy watched eagerly; the man might be useful to him, he wanted new blood for South Africa. Beadon's smile was non-committal; he had his doubts of Farquharson's capacity. He knew Lord Creagh's weakness for hero worship, and his new brooms occasionally left more dust behind them than they cleared away. Dora Beadon was interested in the stranger because of his youth and sex and chance of making money. It was perhaps the last factor which weighed heaviest in the scale of her regard. Hare, an acute observer, was the most interested of all; men of character appealed to him; he looked to them to uphold the traditions of the race. Evelyn, with perceptions quickened by the dramatic setting of the scene, followed the young man every step of the way, wondering how its beauty would affect him.
The entrance to this house would be for Farquharson the threshold of his career; surely he could not pass along the lovely lanes which led to it hedges festooned with wild blossom, unmoved. Rising, always rising, the way was one of pleasant scents and sounds, its foliage brilliant with the stir of butterflies, and spring's caress. Past deep gorges, and ever winding circuitously up the hill, it opened out at length upon the moor. Evelyn wondered if Farquharson, too, would feel its power, to her as magnetic as that of the Karroo of South Africa, which most people call barren and desolate. Evelyn had given herself up to the Karroo; its immensity, its pathos, had flooded her soul and left traces which would never be washed away. Its wide spaces and streaks of crude colour, the lines of hills in the distance, now curved and rounded as delicately as a woman's breast, now straight and slim, like an index finger pointing to the sky, the peace and awe broken at intervals by a flight of ostriches from a tiny farm, or by the figure of a solitary rider abruptly outlined against the strong yellows and browns and purples and greens which blossomed for such eyes as could distinguish them—all touched her infinitely. She felt as if God's Voice must penetrate the silence, and that to hear the Voice was to obey.
But where the Karroo had calmed, Dartmoor always frightened her. She loved Creagh itself, but the moor which one must cross to come to it was surely, as a whole, more cruel than peaceful. It wantonly played with men and women whom it bred, who looked to it for protection. Its bogs had buried little harmless children; it cheated and deceived prisoners trying to escape in the fog, walking round and round in ever-widening circles, only to fall at last, starved and exhausted, to find a cordon of warders drawn about them, and the prison walls in view.
She wondered if Farquharson would leave it as gladly as she had done for the valley, to which they must presently descend again.
Creagh itself lay low; one came upon it through one of the finest fir plantations in England. There was a natural opening in the hills beyond, and within sight of the study window the little ribbon of water widened to the sea, and was itself lost in the greater power, an augury of life.
"Up to the hills, down to the valley, and then Eternity," thought Evelyn.
Creagh, Farquharson and Calvert stood talking together at the open door for a moment or two more before entering. Calvert's brow was riddled with lines; one would have called him a stern man until his face lit up and became transfigured at some casual remark of Farquharson's. This was a man who had worked hard for his money, you could see; if life had brought him much, it exacted full payment for its every gift.
Calvert had begun to help Farquharson because he foresaw that the latter was one who would get on, Evelyn decided quickly; but he helped him now from love, not charity. The world which only knew him in his aspect as a shrewd business man would never divine the later motive. But Evelyn's heart went out to him impulsively, as it always went out to those who gave, whatever the bestowal.
Farquharson himself, the prominent factor in the group of figures, alone was in the shadow. Between him and Evelyn, Hare, Beadon and Dora stood; it was not until he was actually within a few feet of her that she saw him clearly. And then it was rather of his mental than of his physical aspect that she received the real impression. Tall and well made, dark and pale, he had presence and distinction, and remarkable composure. Supremely conscious of himself, the knowledge did not disturb him for a moment. Most men depend upon the external view for an effective entry; Farquharson's was attractive. But it was actually the singleness of the man's aim, his sincerity and sense of grip that carried conviction to the critical little group which concentrated its interest in his approach. It saw that he was born to succeed. For he not only had his goal in view, but would attain it.
"Wait, though," thought Hare. "No strong man yet but can be turned by a slight obstacle."
Steady and resourceful, knowing that he was being weighed in the balance, Farquharson busied himself with weighing others. No single detail of his surroundings was lost upon him. Evelyn watched him rapidly gauge and sum up one after another, the character of each person present.
In Beadon he recognized a man who might help, for whose favour he must in any case bid openly. He was a necessary factor in his—Farquharson's—career; without him nothing could be done. Between the young man and Hare, the rugged critic, an odd kind of attraction would exist; loyalty even in antagonism. Meavy, the idealist, Farquharson passed over with a cursory glance; a weak man, this, whatever the world might say. Creagh's cordiality he could appreciate, but native caution made him fear to trust it. People did not usually give without some adequate return, and for the moment he did not see how he could serve Creagh. Miss Beadon, as a woman, he ignored; his glance simply disposed of her. Her presence or non-presence meant nothing to him. As for Evelyn, he knew her name, and she had influence. He distrusted women with influence, but they were worth conciliating.
Their eyes met. He started slightly.
Before him stood a woman whose face changed indescribably, but who always possessed fascination. Slender and pale, Evelyn's one real beauty lay in the shape of her features, the modelling of her face; in the extraordinary light and shadows that made her eyes profound, her look a spur to flick a man's blood into action, or a caress in which he might find peace. And as Farquharson looked another picture rose suddenly before him, a vision of his childhood. The oval face, the dusky hair that waved back from the forehead, the turn of the rounded throat, the shape of the small head, all were familiar. He recognized them. They were his own—he had loved them long ago. He had stood before them night after night in the picture-gallery at Glune.
"A woman to dream of and to work beside." As Kilmaurs had written about Margaret Cunningham, in a lyric the ink of which had faded many years before, so Richard Farquharson felt now for the woman of his dreams. Here, in the flesh she stood before him, perfect companion, perfect lover and wife. He looked half smiling at her hands—the hands he had loved in the picture—and for the first time wondered what it would be to a man to feel such hands about his throat, drawing him down in mute surrender.
"Non so dirvi la sensasione che mi danno." A scene in D'Annuncio's play came back to him; the sight of the slender figure recalled Bianca Maria's passionate appeal to Anna, when the blind woman's hands were passing, feature by feature, across the girl's face, feeling for the beauties which she could not see, but for which others hungered.... "Sembra che le vostre dita vedano.... E come uno sguardo che insista, che prema, sembra die tutta l' anima discenda all' estremita delle vostre dita."
"Sembra che tutta l' anima discenda all' estremita delle vostre dita."
He could not have spoken the words aloud, for no one heard them. But there are thoughts which have wings, like birds, which fly home to nestle in their natural sanctuary. Evelyn drew back, disturbed and tremulous, like a child who stands hesitating at the door of a room which it has always wanted to enter, but which has been barred until now.
In the music-room beyond, a professional pianist was playing the opening chords of one of Brahms' preludes. The notes echoed like the accompaniment of powerful thought. Evelyn, moving back unconsciously, swayed with sudden vertigo.
Farquharson turned to answer some question of Beadon's. Hare crossed to Evelyn; it seemed to her afterwards that he must have interposed his massive figure between her and Farquharson. He spoke, and the sense of his words came to her vaguely, like a dream.
"A strong personality—that. The man sees clearly and acts promptly, and will usually get what he wants."
CHAPTER II
"We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;In feelings, not in figures on a dial.We should count time by heart-throbs. He lives mostWho thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.And he whose heart beats quickest ...Lives in one hour more than in years do someWhose fat blood sleeps as it slips along their veins."PHILIP JAMES BAILY.
"We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;In feelings, not in figures on a dial.We should count time by heart-throbs. He lives mostWho thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.And he whose heart beats quickest ...Lives in one hour more than in years do someWhose fat blood sleeps as it slips along their veins."PHILIP JAMES BAILY.
"We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He lives most
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
And he whose heart beats quickest ...
Lives in one hour more than in years do some
Lives in one hour more than in years do some
Whose fat blood sleeps as it slips along their veins."
PHILIP JAMES BAILY.
PHILIP JAMES BAILY.
PHILIP JAMES BAILY.
"Is that all I can do for you, ma'am?"
"You might put another little pearl pin at the back of my bodice, please, Emily; I can't quite reach it. Thank you; that's very nice."
The third housemaid—Mrs. Brand had never had a maid of her own in her life—withdrew with a last gratified glance at her handiwork. She thought her "lady" in an inexpensive gown had a better appearance than any other member of the house party. All servants liked Evelyn; she treated them as human beings, not automatons.
Mrs. Brand looked at her watch. Yes, there was still a quarter of an hour's grace before dinner. She switched off the electric light, and, drawing a chair beside the open window, leant out to the night and drank in its wonderful perfume. There was never a place so full of sweet scents and sounds as Creagh.
Some one else had dressed quickly too. The echo of men's voices rose presently from the verandah below. She recognized them with a start as Creagh's unmistakable chuckle of delight broke out at something Farquharson said. Then the younger man pulled his chair forward—she heard the sound grate on the stone—and took up the thread of talk again with an alert and interested air. Evelyn, curiously tired, listened for a moment to the murmur of voices without taking in the full significance of words which occasionally reached her. Creagh seemed to be unfolding some plan of campaign, to which Farquharson said but little in reply. His tone was deliberate and extraordinarily final; one or two words reached Evelyn clearly. She drew back further into the shadow, fearful of playing the part of eavesdropper.
The frayed edge of her gown, mended and adapted almost beyond recognition, caught her eye. She went to her work-basket and mended it mechanically. It was draped with the lace of her mother's and her own wedding veil, and sweet with the scent of lavender bags where it had been laid. The skirt was made from the fifteen-year-old Court train of her bridal gown; a pearl spray clasping the flowers at her breast was one of Creagh's numerous wedding gifts, her fan and handkerchief another. Every appointment of her dress to-night recalled her marriage. The maid had put out another gown upon the bed, which Mrs. Brand had discarded, choosing by preference that which she had worn the night before. Evelyn had to practise every pitiful little shift of poverty "to keep up an appearance."
Only Henry Brand knew the precise amount of their income. Its fluctuations and diminutions were a constant terror to his wife. There were times when money, obtained how she did not know, seemed fairly plentiful; again, at other times, her desk was laden with unpaid bills, and she worked far into the night to make the money wherewith to meet them. She photographed and painted, and could turn her hand to journalism as easily as to upholstery. Accustomed to do without from childhood, she had limited her personal wants to absolute necessities; she was, moreover, a practical woman who could cook and sew or do housework better than most of the people she employed.
A world which generally expels its social paupers was singularly lenient to the Brands. Some of the great ladies of the land drove down at night to the tiny flat in West Kensington, where Evelyn dispensed hock-cup and home-made cakes, without a murmur; it was said that two young duchesses, rival beauties, had come incognita on one occasion behind thick veils inside a motor 'bus. The latest explorer, the coming man, gravitated naturally to a place where every guest was made to feel individually welcome. Evelyn's reunions recalled something of the famoussalonsof the past. Her tact and sympathy drew opposing bodies together; the little circle had grown from a mere gathering of intimate friends to be the coveted goal of those who wished to meet important persons on an easy and natural footing. Converging opinions met and mixed here like rivers in the sea.
Mighty political battles had been fought out in Evelyn's presence. A famous K.C., with more truth than gallantry, boasted openly that she was the one woman in England who was just and temperate in argument, and the present Prime Minister had said he would drive willingly four miles farther out of London to be welcomed by such a hostess at the end. Unlike most women, technicalities did not alarm her. Men who came to discuss their business investments found in her as ready a listener as men of action. Nor did she shun, although she never actually invited, the confidences of her own sex. The pain of others hurt her physically; to give real sympathy is, after all, to let "virtue go out of one." Most men and women shun sorrow as if it were leprosy. But in the bank of feeling Evelyn's account was always overdrawn.
It was certainly a point in Henry Brand's favour that he had so early foreseen his wife's possibilities.
His one brief hour of popularity had long since passed. There were unpleasant stories about him. He was, for instance, sole trustee under his father's will, and the money was equally divided between himself and the two unmarried daughters, at whose deaths it would revert to him, failing their marriages, in which case the husbands would have life-interests in the estate, and, if there were issue, the children would eventually succeed. The younger of the two Miss Brands was fragile and delicate; a course of the systematic bullying and petty tyrannies by which a man can make his sisters' lives unbearable, made her run away one night and take refuge in a convent, whose sternrégimepresently brought about her death. The elder sister, stronger in will and brain, was more difficult to deal with; but there are many forms of cruelty practised by those amongst whom we live unrecognized by the law, and which the law has so far never punished. Brand made this woman's life a martyrdom; her every action was thwarted, and every pleasure arrested midway towards its fulfilment. In time her spirit broke. She lived with him because she could never break away; unluckily for her, she had none of that special knowledge which enables a better educated woman to make her own way in the world, and defy those enemies of the household who can be the most bitter and unyielding. Marian Brand was found in bed one morning dead, with a broken bottle of chloral at her side. Brand was the first to break into the room. Accustomed to come down late he had missed his sister's usual preparations for his comfort. The frightened servants at his heels never saw him pick up a letter addressed to himself which lay upon the bed, and which he presently destroyed.
But trustees who benefit by certain deaths under a will must needs go warily, and facts like these leak out in time, however carefully concealed. Brand, pleasantly aware of the world's forgetfulness found it advisable to travel abroad for a while.
It was not, indeed, until after his marriage that he was again universally received. Even now he was only allowed access to the houses where Evelyn was a popular guest because from the first she had refused all invitations which did not include him. The position galled him, although he made the best of it; he had aged of late years, his limp becoming daily more prominent, and the stoop from the shoulders stiffening with time.