TIME had advanced to after noon before the selection of Geoffrey’s future wife was accomplished, and before the instructions of Geoffrey’s brother were complete enough to justify the opening of the matrimonial negotiation at Nagle’s Hotel.
“Don’t leave him till you have got his promise,” were Lady Holchester’s last words when her son started on his mission.
“If Geoffrey doesn’t jump at what I am going to offer him,” was the son’s reply, “I shall agree with my father that the case is hopeless; and I shall end, like my father, in giving Geoffrey up.”
This was strong language for Julius to use. It was not easy to rouse the disciplined and equable temperament of Lord Holchester’s eldest son. No two men were ever more thoroughly unlike each other than these two brothers. It is melancholy to acknowledge it of the blood relation of a “stroke oar,” but it must be owned, in the interests of truth, that Julius cultivated his intelligence. This degenerate Briton could digest books—and couldn’t digest beer. Could learn languages—and couldn’t learn to row. Practiced the foreign vice of perfecting himself in the art of playing on a musical instrument and couldn’t learn the English virtue of knowing a good horse when he saw him. Got through life. (Heaven only knows how!) without either a biceps or a betting-book. Had openly acknowledged, in English society, that he didn’t think the barking of a pack of hounds the finest music in the world. Could go to foreign parts, and see a mountain which nobody had ever got to the top of yet—and didn’t instantly feel his honor as an Englishman involved in getting to the top of it himself. Such people may, and do, exist among the inferior races of the Continent. Let us thank Heaven, Sir, that England never has been, and never will be, the right place for them!
Arrived at Nagle’s Hotel, and finding nobody to inquire of in the hall, Julius applied to the young lady who sat behind the window of “the bar.” The young lady was reading something so deeply interesting in the evening newspaper that she never even heard him. Julius went into the coffee-room.
The waiter, in his corner, was absorbed over a second newspaper. Three gentlemen, at three different tables, were absorbed in a third, fourth, and fifth newspaper. They all alike went on with their reading without noticing the entrance of the stranger. Julius ventured on disturbing the waiter by asking for Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn. At the sound of that illustrious name the waiter looked up with a start. “Are you Mr. Delamayn’s brother, Sir?”
“Yes.”
The three gentlemen at the tables looked up with a start. The light of Geoffrey’s celebrity fell, reflected, on Geoffrey’s brother, and made a public character of him.
“You’ll find Mr. Geoffrey, Sir,” said the waiter, in a flurried, excited manner, “at the Cock and Bottle, Putney.”
“I expected to find him here. I had an appointment with him at this hotel.”
The wait er opened his eyes on Julius with an expression of blank astonishment. “Haven’t you heard the news, Sir?”
“No!”
“God bless my soul!” exclaimed the waiter—and offered the newspaper.
“God bless my soul!” exclaimed the three gentlemen—and offered the three newspapers.
“What is it?” asked Julius.
“What is it?” repeated the waiter, in a hollow voice. “The most dreadful thing that’s happened in my time. It’s all up, Sir, with the great Foot-Race at Fulham. Tinkler has gone stale.”
The three gentlemen dropped solemnly back into their three chairs, and repeated the dreadful intelligence, in chorus—“Tinkler has gone stale.”
A man who stands face to face with a great national disaster, and who doesn’t understand it, is a man who will do wisely to hold his tongue and enlighten his mind without asking other people to help him. Julius accepted the waiter’s newspaper, and sat down to make (if possible) two discoveries: First, as to whether “Tinkler” did, or did not, mean a man. Second, as to what particular form of human affliction you implied when you described that man as “gone stale.”
There was no difficulty in finding the news. It was printed in the largest type, and was followed by a personal statement of the facts, taken one way—which was followed, in its turn, by another personal statement of the facts, taken in another way. More particulars, and further personal statements, were promised in later editions. The royal salute of British journalism thundered the announcement of Tinkler’s staleness before a people prostrate on the national betting book.
Divested of exaggeration, the facts were few enough and simple enough. A famous Athletic Association of the North had challenged a famous Athletic Association of the South. The usual “Sports” were to take place—such as running, jumping, “putting” the hammer, throwing cricket-balls, and the like—and the whole was to wind up with a Foot-Race of unexampled length and difficulty in the annals of human achievement between the two best men on either side. “Tinkler” was the best man on the side of the South. “Tinkler” was backed in innumerable betting-books to win. And Tinkler’s lungs had suddenly given way under stress of training! A prospect of witnessing a prodigious achievement in foot-racing, and (more important still) a prospect of winning and losing large sums of money, was suddenly withdrawn from the eyes of the British people. The “South” could produce no second opponent worthy of the North out of its own associated resources. Surveying the athletic world in general, but one man existed who might possibly replace “Tinkler”—and it was doubtful, in the last degree, whether he would consent to come forward under the circumstances. The name of that man—Julius read it with horror—was Geoffrey Delamayn.
Profound silence reigned in the coffee-room. Julius laid down the newspaper, and looked about him. The waiter was busy, in his corner, with a pencil and a betting-book. The three gentlemen were busy, at the three tables, with pencils and betting-books.
“Try and persuade him!” said the waiter, piteously, as Delamayn’s brother rose to leave the room.
“Try and persuade him!” echoed the three gentlemen, as Delamayn’s brother opened the door and went out.
Julius called a cab and told the driver (busy with a pencil and a betting-book) to go to the Cock and Bottle, Putney. The man brightened into a new being at the prospect. No need to hurry him; he drove, unasked, at the top of his horse’s speed.
As the cab drew near to its destination the signs of a great national excitement appeared, and multiplied. The lips of a people pronounced, with a grand unanimity, the name of “Tinkler.” The heart of a people hung suspended (mostly in the public houses) on the chances for and against the possibility of replacing “Tinkler” by another man. The scene in front of the inn was impressive in the highest degree. Even the London blackguard stood awed and quiet in the presence of the national calamity. Even the irrepressible man with the apron, who always turns up to sell nuts and sweetmeats in a crowd, plied his trade in silence, and found few indeed (to the credit of the nation be it spoken) who had the heart to crack a nut at such a time as this. The police were on the spot, in large numbers, and in mute sympathy with the people, touching to see. Julius, on being stopped at the door, mentioned his name—and received an ovation. His brother! oh, heavens, his brother! The people closed round him, the people shook hands with him, the people invoked blessings on his head. Julius was half suffocated, when the police rescued him, and landed him safe in the privileged haven on the inner side of the public house door. A deafening tumult broke out, as he entered, from the regions above stairs. A distant voice screamed, “Mind yourselves!” A hatless shouting man tore down through the people congregated on the stairs. “Hooray! Hooray! He’s promised to do it! He’s entered for the race!” Hundreds on hundreds of voices took up the cry. A roar of cheering burst from the people outside. Reporters for the newspapers raced, in frantic procession, out of the inn, and rushed into cabs to put the news in print. The hand of the landlord, leading Julius carefully up stairs by the arm, trembled with excitement. “His brother, gentlemen! his brother!” At those magic words a lane was made through the throng. At those magic words the closed door of the council-chamber flew open; and Julius found himself among the Athletes of his native country, in full parliament assembled. Is any description of them needed? The description of Geoffrey applies to them all. The manhood and muscle of England resemble the wool and mutton of England, in this respect, that there is about as much variety in a flock of athletes as in a flock of sheep. Julius looked about him, and saw the same man in the same dress, with the same health, strength, tone, tastes, habits, conversation, and pursuits, repeated infinitely in every part of the room. The din was deafening; the enthusiasm (to an uninitiated stranger) something at once hideous and terrifying to behold. Geoffrey had been lifted bodily on to the table, in his chair, so as to be visible to the whole room. They sang round him, they danced round him, they cheered round him, they swore round him. He was hailed, in maudlin terms of endearment, by grateful giants with tears in their eyes. “Dear old man!” “Glorious, noble, splendid, beautiful fellow!” They hugged him. They patted him on the back. They wrung his hands. They prodded and punched his muscles. They embraced the noble legs that were going to run the unexampled race. At the opposite end of the room, where it was physically impossible to get near the hero, the enthusiasm vented itself in feats of strength and acts of destruction. Hercules I. cleared a space with his elbows, and laid down—and Hercules II. took him up in his teeth. Hercules III. seized the poker from the fireplace, and broke it on his arm. Hercules IV. followed with the tongs, and shattered them on his neck. The smashing of the furniture and the pulling down of the house seemed likely to succeed—when Geoffrey’s eye lighted by accident on Julius, and Geoffrey’s voice, calling fiercely for his brother, hushed the wild assembly into sudden attention, and turned the fiery enthusiasm into a new course. Hooray for his brother! One, two, three—and up with his brother on our shoulders! Four five, six—and on with his brother, over our heads, to the other end of the room! See, boys—see! the hero has got him by the collar! the hero has lifted him on the table! The hero heated red-hot with his own triumph, welcomes the poor little snob cheerfully, with a volley of oaths. “Thunder and lightning! Explosion and blood! What’s up now, Julius? What’s up now?”
Julius recovered his breath, and arranged his coat. The quiet little man, who had just muscle enough to lift a dictionary from the shelf, and just training enough to play the fiddle, so far from being daunted by the rough reception accorded to him, appeared to feel no other sentiment in relation to it than a sentiment of unmitigated contempt.
“You’re not frightened, are you?” said Geoffrey. “Our fellows are a roughish lot, but they mean well.”
“I am not frightened,” answered Julius. “I am only wondering—when the Schools and Universities of England turn out such a set of ruffians as these—how long the Schools and Universities of England will last.”
“Mind what you are about, Julius! They’ll cart you out of window if they hear you.”
“They will only confirm my opinion of them, Geoffrey, if they do.”
Here the assembly, seeing but not hearing the colloquy between the two brothers, became uneasy on the subject of the coming race. A roar of voices summoned Geoffrey to announce it, if there was any thing wrong. Having pacified the meeting, Geoffrey turned again to his brother, and asked him, in no amiable mood, what the devil he wanted there?
“I want to tell you something, before I go back to Scotland,” answered Julius. “My father is willing to give you a last chance. If you don’t take it,mydoors are closed against you as well ashis.”
Nothing is more remarkable, in its way, than the sound common-sense and admirable self-restraint exhibited by the youth of the present time when confronted by an emergency in which their own interests are concerned. Instead of resenting the tone which his brother had taken with him, Geoffrey instantly descended from the pedestal of glory on which he stood, and placed himself without a struggle in the hands which vicariously held his destiny—otherwise, the hands which vicariously held the purse. In five minutes more the meeting had been dismissed, with all needful assurances relating to Geoffrey’s share in the coming Sports—and the two brothers were closeted together in one of the private rooms of the inn.
“Out with it!” said Geoffrey. “And don’t be long about it.”
“I won’t be five minutes,” replied Julius. “I go back to-night by the mail-train; and I have a great deal to do in the mean time. Here it is, in plain words: My father consents to see you again, if you choose to settle in life—with his approval. And my mother has discovered where you may find a wife. Birth, beauty, and money are all offered to you. Take them—and you recover your position as Lord Holchester’s son. Refuse them—and you go to ruin your own way.”
Geoffrey’s reception of the news from home was not of the most reassuring kind. Instead of answering he struck his fist furiously on the table, and cursed with all his heart some absent woman unnamed.
“I have nothing to do with any degrading connection which you may have formed,” Julius went on. “I have only to put the matter before you exactly as it stands, and to leave you to decide for yourself. The lady in question was formerly Miss Newenden—a descendant of one of the oldest families in England. She is now Mrs. Glenarm—the young widow (and the childless widow) of the great iron-master of that name. Birth and fortune—she unites both. Her income is a clear ten thousand a year. My father can and will, make it fifteen thousand, if you are lucky enough to persuade her to marry you. My mother answers for her personal qualities. And my wife has met her at our house in London. She is now, as I hear, staying with some friends in Scotland; and when I get back I will take care that an invitation is sent to her to pay her next visit at my house. It remains, of course, to be seen whether you are fortunate enough to produce a favorable impression on her. In the mean time you will be doing every thing that my father can ask of you, if you make the attempt.”
Geoffrey impatiently dismissed that part of the question from all consideration.
“If she don’t cotton to a man who’s going to run in the Great Race at Fulham,” he said, “there are plenty as good as she is who will! That’s not the difficulty. Botherthat!”
“I tell you again, I have nothing to do with your difficulties,” Julius resumed. “Take the rest of the day to consider what I have said to you. If you decide to accept the proposal, I shall expect you to prove you are in earnest by meeting me at the station to-night. We will travel back to Scotland together. You will complete your interrupted visit at Lady Lundie’s (it is important, in my interests, that you should treat a person of her position in the county with all due respect); and my wife will make the necessary arrangements with Mrs. Glenarm, in anticipation of your return to our house. There is nothing more to be said, and no further necessity of my staying here. If you join me at the station to-night, your sister-in-law and I will do all we can to help you. If I travel back to Scotland alone, don’t trouble yourself to follow—I have done with you.” He shook hands with his brother, and went out.
Left alone, Geoffrey lit his pipe and sent for the landlord.
“Get me a boat. I shall scull myself up the river for an hour or two. And put in some towels. I may take a swim.”
The landlord received the order—with a caution addressed to his illustrious guest.
“Don’t show yourself in front of the house, Sir! If you let the people see you, they’re in such a state of excitement, the police won’t answer for keeping them in order.”
“All right. I’ll go out by the back way.”
He took a turn up and down the room. What were the difficulties to be overcome before he could profit by the golden prospect which his brother had offered to him? The Sports? No! The committee had promised to defer the day, if he wished it—and a month’s training, in his physical condition, would be amply enough for him. Had he any personal objection to trying his luck with Mrs. Glenarm? Not he! Any woman would do—provided his father was satisfied, and the money was all right. The obstacle which was really in his way was the obstacle of the woman whom he had ruined. Anne! The one insuperable difficulty was the difficulty of dealing with Anne.
“We’ll see how it looks,” he said to himself, “after a pull up the river!”
The landlord and the police inspector smuggled him out by the back way unknown to the expectant populace in front The two men stood on the river-bank admiring him, as he pulled away from them, with his long, powerful, easy, beautiful stroke.
“That’s what I call the pride and flower of England!” said the inspector. “Has the betting on him begun?”
“Six to four,” said the landlord, “and no takers.”
Julius went early to the station that night. His mother was very anxious. “Don’t let Geoffrey find an excuse in your example,” she said, “if he is late.”
The first person whom Julius saw on getting out of the carriage was Geoffrey—with his ticket taken, and his portmanteau in charge of the guard.
THE Library at Windygates was the largest and the handsomest room in the house. The two grand divisions under which Literature is usually arranged in these days occupied the customary places in it. On the shelves which ran round the walls were the books which humanity in general respects—and does not read. On the tables distributed over the floor were the books which humanity in general reads—and does not respect. In the first class, the works of the wise ancients; and the Histories, Biographies, and Essays of writers of more modern times—otherwise the Solid Literature, which is universally respected, and occasionally read. In the second class, the Novels of our own day—otherwise the Light Literature, which is universally read, and occasionally respected. At Windygates, as elsewhere, we believed History to be high literature, because it assumed to be true to Authorities (of which we knew little)—and Fiction to be low literature, because it attempted to be true to Nature (of which we knew less). At Windygates as elsewhere, we were always more or less satisfied with ourselves, if we were publicly discovered consulting our History—and more or less ashamed of ourselves, if we were publicly discovered devouring our Fiction. An architectural peculiarity in the original arrangement of the library favored the development of this common and curious form of human stupidity. While a row of luxurious arm-chairs, in the main thoroughfare of the room, invited the reader of solid literature to reveal himself in the act of cultivating a virtue, a row of snug little curtained recesses, opening at intervals out of one of the walls, enabled the reader of light literature to conceal himself in the act of indulging a vice. For the rest, all the minor accessories of this spacious and tranquil place were as plentiful and as well chosen as the heart could desire. And solid literature and light literature, and great writers and small, were all bounteously illuminated alike by a fine broad flow of the light of heaven, pouring into the room through windows that opened to the floor.
It was the fourth day from the day of Lady Lundie’s garden-party, and it wanted an hour or more of the time at which the luncheon-bell usually rang.
The guests at Windygates were most of them in the garden, enjoying the morning sunshine, after a prevalent mist and rain for some days past. Two gentlemen (exceptions to the general rule) were alone in the library. They were the two last gentlemen in the would who could possibly be supposed to have any legitimate motive for meeting each other in a place of literary seclusion. One was Arnold Brinkworth, and the other was Geoffrey Delamayn.
They had arrived together at Windygates that morning. Geoffrey had traveled from London with his brother by the train of the previous night. Arnold, delayed in getting away at his own time, from his own property, by ceremonies incidental to his position which were not to be abridged without giving offense to many worthy people—had caught the passing train early that morning at the station nearest to him, and had returned to Lady Lundie’s, as he had left Lady Lundie’s, in company with his friend.
After a short preliminary interview with Blanche, Arnold had rejoined Geoffrey in the safe retirement of the library, to say what was still left to be said between them on the subject of Anne. Having completed his report of events at Craig Fernie, he was now naturally waiting to hear what Geoffrey had to say on his side. To Arnold’s astonishment, Geoffrey coolly turned away to leave the library without uttering a word.
Arnold stopped him without ceremony.
“Not quite so fast, Geoffrey,” he said. “I have an interest in Miss Silvester’s welfare as well as in yours. Now you are back again in Scotland, what are you going to do?”
If Geoffrey had told the truth, he must have stated his position much as follows:
He had necessarily decided on deserting Anne when he had decided on joining his brother on the journey back. But he had advanced no farther than this. How he was to abandon the woman who had trusted him, without seeing his own dastardly conduct dragged into the light of day, was more than he yet knew. A vague idea of at once pacifying and deluding Anne, by a marriage which should be no marriage at all, had crossed his mind on the journey. He had asked himself whether a trap of that sort might not be easily set in a country notorious for the looseness of its marriage laws—if a man only knew how? And he had thought it likely that his well-informed brother, who lived in Scotland, might be tricked into innocently telling him what he wanted to know. He had turned the conversation to the subject of Scotch marriages in general by way of trying the experiment. Julius had not studied the question; Julius knew nothing about it; and there the experiment had come to an end. As the necessary result of the check thus encountered, he was now in Scotland with absolutely nothing to trust to as a means of effecting his release but the chapter of accidents, aided by his own resolution to marry Mrs. Glenarm. Such was his position, and such should have been the substance of his reply when he was confronted by Arnold’s question, and plainly asked what he meant to do.
“The right thing,” he answered, unblushingly. “And no mistake about it.”
“I’m glad to hear you see your way so plainly,” returned Arnold. “In your place, I should have been all abroad. I was wondering, only the other day, whether you would end, as I should have ended, in consulting Sir Patrick.”
Geoffrey eyed him sharply.
“Consult Sir Patrick?” he repeated. “Why would you have done that?”
“Ishouldn’t have known how to set about marrying her,” replied Arnold. “And—being in Scotland—I should have applied to Sir Patrick (without mentioning names, of course), because he would be sure to know all about it.”
“Suppose I don’t see my way quite so plainly as you think,” said Geoffrey. “Would you advise me—”
“To consult Sir Patrick? Certainly! He has passed his life in the practice of the Scotch law. Didn’t you know that?”
“No.”
“Then take my advice—and consult him. You needn’t mention names. You can say it’s the case of a friend.”
The idea was a new one and a good one. Geoffrey looked longingly toward the door. Eager to make Sir Patrick his innocent accomplice on the spot, he made a second attempt to leave the library; and made it for the second time in vain. Arnold had more unwelcome inquiries to make, and more advice to give unasked.
“How have you arranged about meeting Miss Silvester?” he went on. “You can’t go to the hotel in the character of her husband. I have prevented that. Where else are you to meet her? She is all alone; she must be weary of waiting, poor thing. Can you manage matters so as to see her to-day?”
After staring hard at Arnold while he was speaking, Geoffrey burst out laughing when he had done. A disinterested anxiety for the welfare of another person was one of those refinements of feeling which a muscular education had not fitted him to understand.
“I say, old boy,” he burst out, “you seem to take an extraordinary interest in Miss Silvester! You haven’t fallen in love with her yourself—have you?”
“Come! come!” said Arnold, seriously. “Neither she nor I deserve to be sneered at, in that way. I have made a sacrifice to your interests, Geoffrey—and so has she.”
Geoffrey’s face became serious again. His secret was in Arnold’s hands; and his estimate of Arnold’s character was founded, unconsciously, on his experience of himself. “All right,” he said, by way of timely apology and concession. “I was only joking.”
“As much joking as you please, when you have married her,” replied Arnold. “It seems serious enough, to my mind, till then.” He stopped—considered—and laid his hand very earnestly on Geoffrey’s arm. “Mind!” he resumed. “You are not to breathe a word to any living soul, of my having been near the inn!”
“I’ve promised to hold my tongue, once already. What do you want more?”
“I am anxious, Geoffrey. I was at Craig Fernie, remember, when Blanche came there! She has been telling me all that happened, poor darling, in the firm persuasion that I was miles off at the time. I swear I couldn’t look her in the face! What would she think of me, if she knew the truth? Pray be careful! pray be careful!”
Geoffrey’s patience began to fail him.
“We had all this out,” he said, “on the way here from the station. What’s the good of going over the ground again?”
“You’re quite right,” said Arnold, good-humoredly. “The fact is—I’m out of sorts, this morning. My mind misgives me—I don’t know why.”
“Mind?” repeated Geoffrey, in high contempt. “It’s flesh—that’s what’s the matter withyou.You’re nigh on a stone over your right weight. Mind he hanged! A man in healthy training don’t know that he has got a mind. Take a turn with the dumb-bells, and a run up hill with a great-coat on. Sweat it off, Arnold! Sweat it off!”
With that excellent advice, he turned to leave the room for the third time. Fate appeared to have determined to keep him imprisoned in the library, that morning. On this occasion, it was a servant who got in the way—a servant, with a letter and a message. “The man waits for answer.”
Geoffrey looked at the letter. It was in his brother’s handwriting. He had left Julius at the junction about three hours since. What could Julius possibly have to say to him now?
He opened the letter. Julius had to announce that Fortune was favoring them already. He had heard news of Mrs. Glenarm, as soon as he reached home. She had called on his wife, during his absence in London—she had been inv ited to the house—and she had promised to accept the invitation early in the week. “Early in the week,” Julius wrote, “may mean to-morrow. Make your apologies to Lady Lundie; and take care not to offend her. Say that family reasons, which you hope soon to have the pleasure of confiding to her, oblige you to appeal once more to her indulgence—and come to-morrow, and help us to receive Mrs. Glenarm.”
Even Geoffrey was startled, when he found himself met by a sudden necessity for acting on his own decision. Anne knew where his brother lived. Suppose Anne (not knowing where else to find him) appeared at his brother’s house, and claimed him in the presence of Mrs. Glenarm? He gave orders to have the messenger kept waiting, and said he would send back a written reply.
“From Craig Fernie?” asked Arnold, pointing to the letter in his friend’s hand.
Geoffrey looked up with a frown. He had just opened his lips to answer that ill-timed reference to Anne, in no very friendly terms, when a voice, calling to Arnold from the lawn outside, announced the appearance of a third person in the library, and warned the two gentlemen that their private interview was at an end.
BLANCHE stepped lightly into the room, through one of the open French windows.
“What are you doing here?” she said to Arnold.
“Nothing. I was just going to look for you in the garden.”
“The garden is insufferable, this morning.” Saying those words, she fanned herself with her handkerchief, and noticed Geoffrey’s presence in the room with a look of very thinly-concealed annoyance at the discovery. “Wait till I am married!” she thought. “Mr. Delamayn will be cleverer than I take him to be, if he gets much of his friend’s companythen!”
“A trifle too hot—eh?” said Geoffrey, seeing her eyes fixed on him, and supposing that he was expected to say something.
Having performed that duty he walked away without waiting for a reply; and seated himself with his letter, at one of the writing-tables in the library.
“Sir Patrick is quite right about the young men of the present day,” said Blanche, turning to Arnold. “Here is this one asks me a question, and doesn’t wait for an answer. There are three more of them, out in the garden, who have been talking of nothing, for the last hour, but the pedigrees of horses and the muscles of men. When we are married, Arnold, don’t present any of your male friends to me, unless they have turned fifty. What shall we do till luncheon-time? It’s cool and quiet in here among the books. I want a mild excitement—and I have got absolutely nothing to do. Suppose you read me some poetry?”
“Whileheis here?” asked Arnold, pointing to the personified antithesis of poetry—otherwise to Geoffrey, seated with his back to them at the farther end of the library.
“Pooh!” said Blanche. “There’s only an animal in the room. We needn’t mindhim!”
“I say!” exclaimed Arnold. “You’re as bitter, this morning, as Sir Patrick himself. What will you say to Me when we are married if you talk in that way of my friend?”
Blanche stole her hand into Arnold’s hand and gave it a little significant squeeze. “I shall always be nice toyou,” she whispered—with a look that contained a host of pretty promises in itself. Arnold returned the look (Geoffrey was unquestionably in the way!). Their eyes met tenderly (why couldn’t the great awkward brute write his letters somewhere else?). With a faint little sigh, Blanche dropped resignedly into one of the comfortable arm-chairs—and asked once more for “some poetry,” in a voice that faltered softly, and with a color that was brighter than usual.
“Whose poetry am I to read?” inquired Arnold.
“Any body’s,” said Blanche. “This is another of my impulses. I am dying for some poetry. I don’t know whose poetry. And I don’t know why.”
Arnold went straight to the nearest book-shelf, and took down the first volume that his hand lighted on—a solid quarto, bound in sober brown.
“Well?” asked Blanche. “What have you found?”
Arnold opened the volume, and conscientiously read the title exactly as it stood:
“Paradise Lost. A Poem. By John Milton.”
“I have never read Milton,” said Blanche. “Have you?”
“No.”
“Another instance of sympathy between us. No educated person ought to be ignorant of Milton. Let us be educated persons. Please begin.”
“At the beginning?”
“Of course! Stop! You musn’t sit all that way off—you must sit where I can look at you. My attention wanders if I don’t look at people while they read.”
Arnold took a stool at Blanche’s feet, and opened the “First Book” of Paradise Lost. His “system” as a reader of blank verse was simplicity itself. In poetry we are some of us (as many living poets can testify) all for sound; and some of us (as few living poets can testify) all for sense. Arnold was for sound. He ended every line inexorably with a full stop; and he got on to his full stop as fast as the inevitable impediment of the words would let him. He began:
“Of Man’s first disobedience and the fruit.Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste.Brought death into the world and all our woe.With loss of Eden till one greater Man.Restore us and regain the blissful seat.Sing heavenly Muse—”
“Beautiful!” said Blanche. “What a shame it seems to have had Milton all this time in the library and never to have read him yet! We will have Mornings with Milton, Arnold. He seems long; but we are both young, and wemaylive to get to the end of him. Do you know dear, now I look at you again, you don’t seem to have come back to Windygates in good spirits.”
“Don’t I? I can’t account for it.”
“I can. It’s sympathy with Me. I am out of spirits too.”
“You!”
“Yes. After what I saw at Craig Fernie, I grow more and more uneasy about Anne. You will understand that, I am sure, after what I told you this morning?”
Arnold looked back, in a violent hurry, from Blanche to Milton. That renewed reference to events at Craig Fernie was a renewed reproach to him for his conduct at the inn. He attempted to silence her by pointing to Geoffrey.
“Don’t forget,” he whispered, “that there is somebody in the room besides ourselves.”
Blanche shrugged her shoulders contemptuously.
“What doeshematter?” she asked. “What doesheknow or care about Anne?”
There was only one other chance of diverting her from the delicate subject. Arnold went on reading headlong, two lines in advance of the place at which he had left off, with more sound and less sense than ever:
“In the beginning how the heavens and earth.Rose out of Chaos or if Sion hill—”
At “Sion hill,” Blanche interrupted him again.
“Do wait a little, Arnold. I can’t have Milton crammed down my throat in that way. Besides I had something to say. Did I tell you that I consulted my uncle about Anne? I don’t think I did. I caught him alone in this very room. I told him all I have told you. I showed him Anne’s letter. And I said, ‘What do you think?’ He took a little time (and a great deal of snuff) before he would say what he thought. When he did speak, he told me I might quite possibly be right in suspecting Anne’s husband to be a very abominable person. His keeping himself out of my way was (just as I thought) a suspicious circumstance, to begin with. And then there was the sudden extinguishing of the candles, when I first went in. I thought (and Mrs. Inchbare thought) it was done by the wind. Sir Patrick suspects it was done by the horrid man himself, to prevent me from seeing him when I entered the room. I am firmly persuaded Sir Patrick is right. What doyouthink?”
“I think we had better go on,” said Arnold, with his head down over his book. “We seem to be forgetting Milton.”
“How you do worry about Milton! That last bit wasn’t as interesting as the other. Is there any love in Paradise Lost?”
“Perhaps we may find some if we go on.”
“Very well, then. Go on. And be quick about it.”
Arnold wassoquick about it that he lost his place. Instead of going on he went back. He read once more:
“In the beginning how the heavens and earth.Rose out of Chaos or if Sion hill—”
“You read that before,” said Blanche.
“I think not.”
“I’m sure you did. When you said ‘Sion hill’ I recollect I thought of the Methodists directly. I couldn’t have thought of the Methodists, if you hadn’t said ‘Sion hill.’ It stands to reason.”
“I’ll try the next page,” said Arnold. “I can’t have read that before—for I haven’t turned over yet.”
Blanche threw herself back in her chair, and flung her handkerchief resignedly over her face. “The flies,” she explained. “I’m not going to sleep. Try the next page. Oh, dear me, try the next page!”
Arnold proceeded:
“Say first for heaven hides nothing from thy view.Nor the deep tract of hell say first what cause.Moved our grand parents in that happy state—”
Blanche suddenly threw the handkerchief off again, and sat bolt upright in her chair. “Shut it up,” she cried. “I can’t bear any more. Leave off, Arnold—leave off!”
“What’s, the matter now?”
“‘That happy state,’” said Blanche. “What does ‘that happy state’ mean? Marriage, of course! And marriage reminds me of Anne. I won’t have any more. Paradise Lost is painful. Shut it up. Well, my next question to Sir Patrick was, of course, to know what he thought Anne’s husband had done. The wretch had behaved infamously to her in some way. In what way? Was it any thing to do with her marriage? My uncle considered again. He thought it quite possible. Private marriages were dangerous things (he said)—especially in Scotland. He asked me if they had been married in Scotland. I couldn’t tell him—I only said, ‘Suppose they were? What then?’ ‘It’s barely possible, in that case,’ says Sir Patrick, ‘that Miss Silvester may be feeling uneasy about her marriage. She may even have reason—or may think she has reason—to doubt whether it is a marriage at all.’”
Arnold started, and looked round at Geoffrey still sitting at the writing-table with his back turned on them. Utterly as Blanche and Sir Patrick were mistaken in their estimate of Anne’s position at Craig Fernie, they had drifted, nevertheless, into discussing the very question in which Geoffrey and Miss Silvester were interested—the question of marriage in Scotland. It was impossible in Blanche’s presence to tell Geoffrey that he might do well to listen to Sir Patrick’s opinion, even at second-hand. Perhaps the words had found their way to him? perhaps he was listening already, of his own accord?
(Hewaslistening. Blanche’s last words had found their way to him, while he was pondering over his half-finished letter to his brother. He waited to hear more—without moving, and with the pen suspended in his hand.)
Blanche proceeded, absently winding her fingers in and out of Arnold’s hair as he sat at her feet:
“It flashed on me instantly that Sir Patrick had discovered the truth. Of course I told him so. He laughed, and said I mustn’t jump at conclusions We were guessing quite in the dark; and all the distressing things I had noticed at the inn might admit of some totally different explanation. He would have gone on splitting straws in that provoking way the whole morning if I hadn’t stopped him. I was strictly logical. I saidIhad seen Anne, andhehadn’t—and that made all the difference. I said, ‘Every thing that puzzled and frightened me in the poor darling is accounted for now. The law must, and shall, reach that man, uncle—and I’ll pay for it!’ I was so much in earnest that I believe I cried a little. What do you think the dear old man did? He took me on his knee and gave me a kiss; and he said, in the nicest way, that he would adopt my view, for the present, if I would promise not to cry any more; and—wait! the cream of it is to come!—that he would put the view in quite a new light to me as soon as I was composed again. You may imagine how soon I dried my eyes, and what a picture of composure I presented in the course of half a minute. ‘Let us take it for granted,’ says Sir Patrick, ‘that this man unknown has really tried to deceive Miss Silvester, as you and I suppose. I can tell you one thing: it’s as likely as not that, in trying to overreachher,he may (without in the least suspecting it) have ended in overreaching himself.’”
(Geoffrey held his breath. The pen dropped unheeded from his fingers. It was coming. The light that his brother couldn’t throw on the subject was dawning on it at last!)
Blanche resumed:
“I was so interested, and it made such a tremendous impression on me, that I haven’t forgotten a word. ‘I mustn’t make that poor little head of yours ache with Scotch law,’ my uncle said; ‘I must put it plainly. There are marriages allowed in Scotland, Blanche, which are called Irregular Marriages—and very abominable things they are. But they have this accidental merit in the present case. It is extremely difficult for a man to pretend to marry in Scotland, and not really to do it. And it is, on the other hand, extremely easy for a man to drift into marrying in Scotland without feeling the slightest suspicion of having done it himself.’ That was exactly what he said, Arnold. Whenweare married, it sha’n’t be in Scotland!”
(Geoffrey’s ruddy color paled. If this was true he might be caught himself in the trap which he had schemed to set for Anne! Blanche went on with her narrative. He waited and listened.)
“My uncle asked me if I understood him so far. It was as plain as the sun at noonday, of course I understood him! ‘Very well, then—now for the application!’ says Sir Patrick. ‘Once more supposing our guess to be the right one, Miss Silvester may be making herself very unhappy without any real cause. If this invisible man at Craig Fernie has actually meddled, I won’t say with marrying her, but only with pretending to make her his wife, and if he has attempted it in Scotland, the chances are nine to one (thoughhemay not believe it, and thoughshemay not believe it) that he has really married her, after all.’ My uncle’s own words again! Quite needless to say that, half an hour after they were out of his lips, I had sent them to Craig Fernie in a letter to Anne!”
(Geoffrey’s stolidly-staring eyes suddenly brightened. A light of the devil’s own striking illuminated him. An idea of the devil’s own bringing entered his mind. He looked stealthily round at the man whose life he had saved—at the man who had devotedly served him in return. A hideous cunning leered at his mouth and peeped out of his eyes. “Arnold Brinkworth pretended to be married to her at the inn. By the lord Harry! that’s a way out of it that never struck me before!” With that thought in his heart he turned back again to his half-finished letter to Julius. For once in his life he was strongly, fiercely agitated. For once in his life he was daunted—and that by his Own Thought! He had written to Julius under a strong sense of the necessity of gaining time to delude Anne into leaving Scotland before he ventured on paying his addresses to Mrs. Glenarm. His letter contained a string of clumsy excuses, intended to delay his return to his brother’s house. “No,” he said to himself, as he read it again. “Whatever else may do—thiswon’t!” He looked round once more at Arnold, and slowly tore the letter into fragments as he looked.)
In the mean time Blanche had not done yet. “No,” she said, when Arnold proposed an adjournment to the garden; “I have something more to say, and you are interested in it, this time.” Arnold resigned himself to listen, and worse still to answer, if there was no help for it, in the character of an innocent stranger who had never been near the Craig Fernie inn.
“Well,” Blanche resumed, “and what do you think has come of my letter to Anne?”
“I’m sure I don’t know.”
“Nothing has come of it!”
“Indeed?”
“Absolutely nothing! I know she received the letter yesterday morning. I ought to have had the answer to-day at breakfast.”
“Perhaps she thought it didn’t require an answer.”
“She couldn’t have thought that, for reasons that I know of. Besides, in my letter yesterday I implored her to tell me (if it was one line only) whether, in guessing at what her trouble was, Sir Patrick and I had not guessed right. And here is the day getting on, and no answer! What am I to conclude?”
“I really can’t say!”
“Is it possible, Arnold, that we havenotguessed right, after all? Is the wickedness of that man who blew the candles out wickedness beyond our discovering? The doubt is so dreadful that I have made up my mind not to bear it after to-day. I count on your sympathy and assistance when to-morrow comes!”
Arnold’s heart sank. Some new complication was evidently gathering round him. He waited in silence to hear the worst. Blanche bent forward, and whispered to him.
“This is a secret,” she said. “If that creature at the writing-table has ears for any thing but rowing and racing, he mustn’t hear this! Anne may come to me privately to-day while you are all at luncheon. If she doesn’t come and if I don’t hear from her, then the mystery of her silence must be cleared up; and You must do it!”
“I!”
“Don’t make difficulties! If you can’t find your way to Craig Fernie, I can help you. As for Anne, you know what a charming person she is, and you know she will receive you perfectly, for my sake. I must and will have some news of her. I can’t break the laws of the household a second time. Sir Patrick sympathizes, but he won’t stir. Lady Lundie is a bitter enemy. The servants are threatened with the loss of their places if any one of them goes near Anne. There is nobody but you. And to Anne you go to-morrow, if I don’t see her or hear from her to-day!”
This to the man who had passed as Anne’s husband at the inn, and who had been forced into the most intimate knowledge of Anne’s miserable secret! Arnold rose to put Milton away, with the composure of sheer despair. Any other secret he might, in the last resort, have confided to the discretion of a third person. But a woman’s secret—with a woman’s reputation depending on his keeping it—was not to be confided to any body, under any stress of circumstances whatever. “If Geoffrey doesn’t get me out ofthis,,” he thought, “I shall have no choice but to leave Windygates to-morrow.”
As he replaced the book on the shelf, Lady Lundie entered the library from the garden.
“What are you doing here?” she said to her step-daughter.
“Improving my mind,” replied Blanche. “Mr. Brinkworth and I have been reading Milton.”
“Can you condescend so far, after reading Milton all the morning, as to help me with the invitations for the dinner next week?”
“Ifyoucan condescend, Lady Lundie, after feeding the poultry all the morning, I must be humility itself after only reading Milton!”
With that little interchange of the acid amenities of feminine intercourse, step-mother and step-daughter withdrew to a writing-table, to put the virtue of hospitality in practice together.
Arnold joined his friend at the other end of the library.
Geoffrey was sitting with his elbows on the desk, and his clenched fists dug into his cheeks. Great drops of perspiration stood on his forehead, and the fragments of a torn letter lay scattered all round him. He exhibited symptoms of nervous sensibility for the first time in his life—he started when Arnold spoke to him.
“What’s the matter, Geoffrey?”
“A letter to answer. And I don’t know how.”
“From Miss Silvester?” asked Arnold, dropping his voice so as to prevent the ladies at the other end of the room from hearing him.
“No,” answered Geoffrey, in a lower voice still.
“Have you heard what Blanche has been saying to me about Miss Silvester?”
“Some of it.”
“Did you hear Blanche say that she meant to send me to Craig Fernie to-morrow, if she failed to get news from Miss Silvester to-day?”
“No.”
“Then you know it now. That is what Blanche has just said to me.”
“Well?”
“Well—there’s a limit to what a man can expect even from his best friend. I hope you won’t ask me to be Blanche’s messenger to-morrow. I can’t, and won’t, go back to the inn as things are now.”
“You have had enough of it—eh?”
“I have had enough of distressing Miss Silvester, and more than enough of deceiving Blanche.”
“What do you mean by ‘distressing Miss Silvester?’”
“She doesn’t take the same easy view that you and I do, Geoffrey, of my passing her off on the people of the inn as my wife.”
Geoffrey absently took up a paper-knife. Still with his head down, he began shaving off the topmost layer of paper from the blotting-pad under his hand. Still with his head down, he abruptly broke the silence in a whisper.
“I say!”
“Yes?”
“How did you manage to pass her off as your wife?”
“I told you how, as we were driving from the station here.”
“I was thinking of something else. Tell me again.”
Arnold told him once more what had happened at the inn. Geoffrey listened, without making any remark. He balanced the paper-knife vacantly on one of his fingers. He was strangely sluggish and strangely silent.
“Allthatis done and ended,” said Arnold shaking him by the shoulder. “It rests with you now to get me out of the difficulty I’m placed in with Blanche. Things must be settled with Miss Silvester to-day.”
“Thingsshallbe settled.”
“Shall be? What are you waiting for?”
“I’m waiting to do what you told me.”
“What I told you?”
“Didn’t you tell me to consult Sir Patrick before I married her?”
“To be sure! so I did.”
“Well—I am waiting for a chance with Sir Patrick.”
“And then?”
“And then—” He looked at Arnold for the first time. “Then,” he said, “you may consider it settled.”
“The marriage?”
He suddenly looked down again at the blotting-pad. “Yes—the marriage.”
Arnold offered his hand in congratulation. Geoffrey never noticed it. His eyes were off the blotting-pad again. He was looking out of the window near him.
“Don’t I hear voices outside?” he asked.
“I believe our friends are in the garden,” said Arnold. “Sir Patrick may be among them. I’ll go and see.”
The instant his back was turned Geoffrey snatched up a sheet of note-paper. “Before I forget it!” he said to himself. He wrote the word “Memorandum” at the top of the page, and added these lines beneath it:
“He asked for her by the name of his wife at the door. He said, at dinner, before the landlady and the waiter, ‘I take these rooms for my wife.’ He madehersay he was her husband at the same time. After that he stopped all night. What do the lawyers call this in Scotland?—(Query: a marriage?)”
After folding up the paper he hesitated for a moment. “No!” he thought, “It won’t do to trust to what Miss Lundie said about it. I can’t be certain till I have consulted Sir Patrick himself.”
He put the paper away in his pocket, and wiped the heavy perspiration from his forehead. He was pale—forhim,strikingly pale—when Arnold came back.
“Any thing wrong, Geoffrey?—you’re as white as ashes.”
“It’s the heat. Where’s Sir Patrick?”
“You may see for yourself.”
Arnold pointed to the window. Sir Patrick was crossing the lawn, on his way to the library with a newspaper in his hand; and the guests at Windygates were accompanying him. Sir Patrick was smiling, and saying nothing. The guests were talking excitedly at the tops of their voices. There had apparently been a collision of some kind between the old school and the new. Arnold directed Geoffrey’s attention to the state of affairs on the lawn.
“How are you to consult Sir Patrick with all those people about him?”
“I’ll consult Sir Patrick, if I take him by the scruff of the neck and carry him into the next county!” He rose to his feet as he spoke those words, and emphasized them under his breath with an oath.
Sir Patrick entered the library, with the guests at his heels.