He who gives up the smallest part of a secret has the rest no longer in his power.—Jean Paul.
He who gives up the smallest part of a secret has the rest no longer in his power.
—Jean Paul.
The Marchesa's confession made a great and immediate sensation throughout Italy. Everyone who had known Michael, and a great many who had not, proclaimed with one consent that his innocence was no news to them. The possibility that he might be shielding someone had been discussed at the time of the trial, but had found no shred of confirmation.
And now the mystery was solved at last, and in the most romantic manner. Michael had come out with flying colours.
To many minds the romance was enhanced by the fact that the Marchesa was a gentle, middle-aged, grey-haired woman in no way attractive, whose whole interest in life centred in her daughter. Michael's transcendent act of chivalry towards the Marchesa, dramatically acknowledged by her at last upon her deathbed, appealed even to the most unimaginative natures. He became the hero of the hour. Telegrams of congratulation poured in from every quarter. Letters snowed in on him. Even before Wentworth could reach him enthusiastic strangers had tried to force their way into his cell. Determined young reporters came out in gondolas, and it was all the warders and the doctor could do to protect Michael from invasion.
He sat apparently stunned in his cell, the only person unmoved. Every servant and warder in that dreary establishment had come to offer him their congratulations. The other convicts had sent messages. The man in the next cell, slowly dying of gangrene, had crawled from his pallet to beat a tattoo on the wall. The doctor was beside himself with joy.
"You must keep calm," he kept saying in wild excitement. "Your brother will be here to-morrow morning. I implore you to be calm."
And he brought Michael his best pipe, and some of his most cherished tobacco, and a weird suit of black clothes, and urged him to spend the evening with him in his own sitting-room.
But Michael shook his head. He had no hatred of his striped blouse. He was accustomed to it. He said he would prefer to await his brother's arrival in his cell. He was accustomed to that, too. He felt as if he could not bear to have everything torn from him at once, as if he should be lost if all his landmarks were changed. He sat hour by hour, smoking, and every now and then reading Wentworth's telegram.
He tried to realise it. He said to himself over and over again: "I am free. I am going away. Wentworth is coming to take me home." But it was no good. His mind would not take hold.
He looked for the twentieth time at Wentworth's telegram. Wentworth was hurrying towards him at this moment, would be travelling all night, would reach him in the morning. Dear, dear Wenty, he would be happy again now.
Michael groaned.
"It's no kind of use. Ican'tbelieve it."
He tried to think of Fay. He should seehersoon, touch her hand, hear her voice. Poor little darling! She had not the courage of a mouse. Perhaps she was a little glad at his release. Yes. No doubt she had been pleased to hear it. He hoped she would not feel shy of him at seeing him again. He hoped she would not thank him.
The door, no longer locked, was suddenly opened, and the head warder deferentially ushered in a visitor.
A tall, dark man in a tri-coloured sash came in, and the warder withdrew.
The man bowed and looked with fixity at Michael, who stared back at him, dazed and confused. Where had he seen that face before?
Ah!He remembered!
"I perceive that you have not forgotten me," said the Delegato. "It was I who arrested you. It was to me that you confessed to the murder of the Marchese di Maltagliala."
"I remember."
"I never was able to reach any certainty that you were really guilty," continued the Delegato. "I was not even convinced that you had had a quarrel with the Marchese."
"I had no quarrel with him."
"I knew that. That you might be shielding someone occurred forcibly to my mind.But who?"
Michael looked steadily at the official.
"And there was blood upon your hand and sleeve when you confessed."
"There was."
"It was not the Marchese's blood," said the Delegato, drawing a sallow finger across a blue chin. "It remained a mystery. I will own that it had not crossed my mind that that fragile and timid lady had killed her husband, and that as she at last confesses you were shielding her." The Delegato looked piercingly at Michael.
Michael was silent.
"You have always been silent. Is not the moment come to speak?"
Michael shook his head.
The Delegato bowed.
"I came to ask you to discuss the affair openly," he said, "to relieve my perplexity as a matter of courtesy. But you will not speak. Then I will speak instead. When first I read the Marchesa's confession it came into my mind that the Marchesa, who I believe was your friend, might for some reason, possibly the sentimental devotion of an older woman for a young man—such things have been—that shemighthave confessed on her deathbed to a crime which she had not committed in order to save you from—this"—he touched the wall of the cell. "I doubted that she really murdered her husband.But she did.I sought out the maid who had been with her when the Marchese died, and she, before the confession was published, informed me that she had not undressed the Marchesa on her return from the Colle Alto party. And that next morning part of the cloak which was not hers, and part of her gown were found to be burnt as stated in her confession. It was indeed necessary to burn them. The Marchesa murdered the Marchese."
There was a long silence.
"I cannot tell whether you witnessed the crime or not. At first I thought the blood on your hands and clothes might have come from helping her to drag the body into the garden. But it was not so. At the time I attached a great importance to the garden door being unlocked. Too great. It led me astray. The gardener, in spite of his oath that he had locked it, had probably left it unlocked. We now know from the Marchesa that the murder took place within the garden, and the locking and unlocking of the door was an accident which looked like a clue.... But, if you witnessed the murder, and wished to retire without raising an alarm, or denouncing that unhappy lady, I ask myself why did you not open the garden door from within—the key was in the lock, I saw it—and pass out on to the high road. Why did you, instead, try so hard to escape over the wall behind the ilexes that you tore your hands on the cut glass on the top? I found the place next day. There was blood on it. When you were struggling to escape over that wall you were not anxious to take the Marchesa's guilt upon yourself. When you were hiding behind the screen in the Duchess' apartment you were not—at that moment—very determined to shield the Marchesa from the consequences of her deed. All Italy is ringing with your quixotic, your chivalrous, your superb action.Nevertheless, if I had quitted the Duchess' apartment, if my natural and trained acuteness had not made one last effort respecting the screen,I do not think you would have followed me into the garden to denounce yourself."
The Delegato paused.
Michael was quite unmoved. Everything reached him dimly as through a mist. He partly saw the difficulty in the official's mind, but it did not interest him. He was cleared. That was enough.
"In two years much is forgotten," said the Delegato, sententiously, "and it is, perhaps, I alone who recall the more minute details of the case, because I was present and my interest was overwhelming. I have not spoken of this to anyone but yourself. I shall not speak of it again. I have taken a journey to discuss it with you because I had hoped you would understand my professional interest in unravelling that which remains still obscure, a mystery, which is daily becoming to me a greater mystery than before the Marchesa's confession. You have it in your power to gratify my natural desire for elucidation by an explanation which can no longer injure you in any way. You are innocent. It is proved. But even now you will not speak. You prefer to preserve your attitude of silence to the end. Good! I will intrude on you no longer. I offer you my congratulations. I deplore your inevitable imprisonment. I withdraw."
The Delegato bowed yet again and went to the door.
"That of which you will not speak was known to your friend the Duke of Colle Alto," he said. "The Duke knew."
"The Duke is dead," said Michael.
"I am aware of that," said the Delegato, frigidly. He bowed for the last time, and left the cell, gently closing the door.
Est-ce donc une monnaie que votre amour, pour qu'il puisse passer ainsi de main en main jusqu'à la mort? Non, ce n'est pas même une monnaie; car la plus mince pièce d'or vaut mieux que vous, et dans quelques mains qu'elle passe elle garde son effigée.—A. de Musset.
Est-ce donc une monnaie que votre amour, pour qu'il puisse passer ainsi de main en main jusqu'à la mort? Non, ce n'est pas même une monnaie; car la plus mince pièce d'or vaut mieux que vous, et dans quelques mains qu'elle passe elle garde son effigée.
—A. de Musset.
Wentworth came in the morning, tremulous, eager, holding Michael by the shoulders, as he used to do when Michael was a small boy, as he had never done since.
The brothers looked long at each other with locked hands, water in their eyes.
"Wenty," said Michael at last, with his grave smile.
And that was all.
They sat down together in silence on the little bed. Wentworth tried to speak once or twice, but it was no use.
"Fay cried with joy at the news," he said at last, looking with shy hungry love at his brother. "If you could have seen her radiant face. I never saw any creature so changed, so transfigured."
A faint flush rose to Michael's face.
"I know how she grieved over your imprisonment. She is the most tender-hearted woman in the world. I never knew anyone so sympathetic." Wentworth hesitated. Then he added tremulously. "My great grief has been her grief, too. She helped me to bear it."
"I did not know she had—minded so much," said Michael, almost inaudibly.
"You might have guessed it," said Wentworth, "knowing her to be what she is. She has always been so pale and sad, as if bowed down by trouble. But directly the news came that you were cleared—I went to see her at once—if you could only have seen her face, her tears of joy, her delight."
"Did she send a message, or a note? Just a line. Perhaps you have a letter with you."
"No, she did not write," said Wentworth, self conscious, but beaming. "There was not time. There was time for nothing. It was all such a rush. I only saw her on my way to the station. But I know she won't mind my telling you, Michael—you ought to know first of anyone—it all seems so wonderful. But I daresay—no, I see you have guessed it—I daresay I have said things in my letters that showed you it was coming—it was the grief about you that first drew us together. Fay and I are going to be married."
Michael put his hand to his head.
"Everything has come at once," said Wentworth. "I have you again. And I have her. I've nothing left to wish for."
Michael did not leave the prison in the gondola which had brought Wentworth, and which was waiting to take them both away. The excitement of his brother's arrival had proved too great, and he fell from one fainting fit into another. Wentworth was greatly alarmed, but the doctor was reassuring and cheerful. He said that Michael had borne the news with almost unnatural calmness, but that the shock must have been great, and a breakdown was to be expected. Helaughed at Wentworth's anxiety even while he ministered to Michael, and assured him that no one in his experience had died of joy.
But later in the evening when Wentworth, somewhat pacified, had returned to Venice for the night, the doctor felt yet again for the twentieth time that the young Englishman baffled him.
It seemed to him that he was actually relieved when the kind, awkward, tender elder brother had reluctantly taken his departure, promising to come back early in the morning.
"Do not distress yourself, you will be quite well enough to leave to-morrow," the doctor said to him many times. "I expected this momentary collapse. It is nothing."
Michael's eyes dwelt on the kind face and then closed. There was that in them which the doctor could not fathom.
He took the food that was pressed on him, and then turned his face to the wall, and made as if he slept.
And the walls bent over him, and whispered to him, "Stay with us. We are not so cruel as the world outside."
And that night the dying convict in the next cell, nearly as close on freedom as Michael, heard all through the night a low sound of strangled anguish that ever stifled itself into silence, and ever broke forth anew, from dark to dawn.
The next morning Michael went feebly down the prison steps, calm and wan, leaning on Wentworth's careful arm, and smiling affectionately at him.
Les caractères faibles ne montrent de la décision que quand il s'agit de faire un sottise.—Daniel Darc.
Les caractères faibles ne montrent de la décision que quand il s'agit de faire un sottise.
—Daniel Darc.
A week or two after the news of Michael's proved innocence had convulsed Hampshire, and before Michael and Wentworth had returned to Barford, Aunt Aggie might have been seen on a fine May afternoon walking slowly towards "The Towers." She had let her cottage at Saundersfoot for an unusually long period, and was marking time with the Blores. Whatever Aunt Mary's faults might be she was always ready to help her sister in this practical manner, when Aunt Aggie was anxious to add to the small, feebly frittered away income, on which her muddled, impecunious existence depended.
In spite of the most pertinent remarks to the contrary from her sister, Aunt Aggie believed herself to be an unsurpassed manager of restricted means. She constantly advised young married couples as to the judicious expenditure of money, and pressed on Magdalen the necessity of retrenching in exasperating directions, namely, where a minute economy entailed a colossal inconvenience.
In her imagination she saw herself continually consulted, depended on, strenuously implored to give her opinion on matters of the utmost delicacy, fervently blessed for her powerful spiritual assistance of soulsin jeopardy, and always gracefully attributing the marvellous results of her intervention to a Higher Power of which she was but the unworthy channel.
These imaginary scenes were the unfailing solace of Aunt Aggie's somewhat colourless life, and the consciousness of them in the background gave her a certain meek and even patient self-importance, the basis of which was hidden from Lady Blore.
Aunt Aggie had also another perennial source of chastened happiness in recalling the romance of her youth, those halcyon days before the Archdeacon had been unsuccessfully harpooned and put to flight by Lady Blore.
Her clerical love affair perfumed her conversation, as a knife which has once associated with an onion inevitably reveals, even in estrangement, that bygone intimacy.
No one could breathe the word Margate without Aunt Aggie remarking that she had had a dear friend who had evinced a great partiality for Margate. Were the clergy mentioned in her presence with the scant respect with which the ministry and other secular bodies have to put up, Aunt Aggie vibrated with indignation.Shehad known men of the highest talents holding preferment in the Church.
But in her imagination her affair of the heart had passed beyond reminiscence. Far from being buried in the past it remained the chief factor in her life, colouring and shaping the whole of her future.
Aunt Aggie could at any moment dip into a kind of sequel to that early history. In the sequel the Archdeacon's wife was, of course, to die; but, owing tocircumstances which Aunt Aggie had not yet thoroughly worked out, that unhappy lady was first to undergo tortures in some remote locality, nursed devotedly—poor thing—by Aunt Aggie. The result of her ministrations was never in doubt from the first. The Archdeacon's wife was, of course, to succumb, calling down blessings on the devoted stranger at her bedside, with the enigmatical smile which spoke of some sacred sorrow.
Aunt Aggie had shed many delicious tears over that deathbed scene, and the chastened grief of the saintly Archdeacon, quite overshadowed by his boundless gratitude to herself. At this crisis his overwhelming desolation wrung from him—with gross disloyalty to the newly dead—a few disjointed sentences which revealed only too clearly how unsuited to him his wife had been, how little she had understood him, how lonely his wedded life had been. She had evidently been one of those tall thin maypoles of women who have but little tenderness in them.
Aunt Aggie, after giving the children a sample of what a real mother could be, was to retire to her little home at Saundersfoot. Here the real joy of the situation was to begin.
After a decent interval the Archdeacon was to be constantly visiting Saundersfoot, was to be observed visiting Aunt Aggie at Saundersfoot, singling her out from among the numerous spinsters of that watering-place to make her the object of reverent attentions. Others younger and better looking than Aunt Aggie—especially Miss Barnett, the doctor's sister, who, it was whispered, wore an artificial cushion from Douglas's under her hair—were to set their caps or cushions at the dignified Archdeacon, seen pacing the sands. But it was all of no avail. He had eyes for no one but the gentle, retiring Miss Bellairs. Aunt Aggie was to become the object of burning jealousy and detraction on the part of the female—that is to say almost the whole—population of Saundersfoot. But she herself, while envious calumny raged round her, went on her way calm and grave as ever.
But the proposal long warded off could not be parried forever. The frenzied passion of the Archdeacon was at last not to be restrained. Aunt Aggie had in her mind a set of proposals, all good, out of which it became harder and harder as time went on to select one. But her answer was ever the same, a pained but firm refusal. She was happy in her lot. She was greatly needed where she was. She did not wish to marry. She was no longer young. This last reason was an enormous concession to realism on Aunt Aggie's part.
Then came the cream of the whole story. The Archdeacon was to pine secretly. His work was to be neglected. He was to be threatened with a nervous breakdown. He was to confide his sorrow to the paternal bosom of his Bishop. When Aunt Aggie was in her normal state it was the Bishop in whom the Archdeacon was to confide. But sometimes in the evenings after a glass of cowslip wine, her imagination took a bolder flight. The Archbishop himself was to be the confidant of the distracted cleric. This presented no real difficulty after the first moment, for the Archbishop was in the flower of his age—the Archdeacon's age—andmight easily have been at school with him. Aunt Aggie had once seen Lambeth from a cab window as she passed over Westminster Bridge. Under that historic tower she heard the first subject of the King urge his brother prelate to take heart, promising assistance.
We will pass over Aunt Aggie's amazed reception of a cordial invitation to stay at Lambeth, her hesitating acceptance, her arrival, the magnificent banquet, crowded with ministers and bishops, the fact that the Archbishop himself singled her out as the object of courtly though somewhat anxious attentions. And then after dinner Aunt Aggie, in her plum-coloured satin, was to be unconsciously but skilfully withdrawn from the glittering throng by the Archbishop. And in his study he was to make a great, a fervent appeal to her. Aunt Aggie had bought a photograph of him in order to deaden the shock of this moment. But nevertheless whenever she reached this point she was always really frightened. Her hands really trembled. The Archbishop was to ask her with tempered indignation how much longer she intended to nullify the labours of his ablest colleague, how much longer her selfish predilection for celibacy was to wreck the life and paralyse the powers of a broken-hearted man. Her cruelty was placed before her in glowing colours. She was observed to waver, to falter. A tear was seen in spite of her marvellous self-control to course down her cheek. The eye of an Archbishop misses nothing. With an ejaculation of profound relief he beckons to a distant figure which appears in a doorway. The Archdeacon in his evening gaiters rushes in. Aunt Aggie gives way!
After this final feat of the imagination Aunt Aggiegenerally felt so worn out by emotion that food was absolutely necessary to her.
On this occasion she sat down quivering on a heap of stones by the roadside, and drew forth a biscuit which she had secreted at luncheon at the Vicarage an hour before. It must be owned that she was fond of food, though not in the same way that most of us are addicted to it. She liked eating buns out of paper bags at odd moments in the open air, and nibbling a sponge cake half forgotten and suddenly found in a drawer with her handkerchiefs. But in justice to her it ought to be added that she seemed only to care for the kind of provender which yielded the largest increment in the way of crumbs.
As she sat and nibbled an uneasy recollection stole across her mind.
This recollection was becoming more disconcerting day by day. And yet she had acted for the best. That fact did not insure to her immunity from blame on the part of that awful personage, her sister Mary. Good intentions had never yet received their due as extenuating circumstances in Lady Blore's sweeping judgments.
If a certain secret chivalrous action of Aunt Aggie's "turned out wrong," she knew well the intonation in which Lady Blore would ask her why she had been such a fool. Nevertheless she, Aunt Aggie, had only done with consummate tact what Mary herself had contemplated doing in her rough way, and had been persuaded not to do.
Some weeks ago Aunt Aggie had concocted in secret, recopied about twenty times, and had finally despatcheda letter to Lord Lossiemouth anent Magdalen. It had been the boldest action of her life. At first, even after she had seen that she was the only person able to deal adequately with so delicate a matter, she had feared that she would not have the strength to perform her mission. But strength had apparently been lent to her for the occasion. The letter had actually been posted.
The moment it was irrevocably gone Aunt Aggie fell into a panic. Supposing it failed in its object, and that Algernon or Mary discovered what she had done. She could not even face such a possibility. But then, supposing on the other hand that her missive united two loving, estranged hearts, and that dear Magdalen owed her happiness—and a titled happiness—to her. Then Algernon and Mary would be forced to admit that she had shown a courage and devotion greater than theirs. "We only talked, you acted," they would both say, and she would thenceforth be recognised in her true light, as an incomparable counsellor, and a judicious, far-seeing friend.
But three weeks had elapsed since Aunt Aggie, stealing out alone, had dropped that momentous letter into the village post-box. Nothing had happened. She had not even received an answer. She was becoming frightened and anxious.Was he secretly married?She wished she had thought of that possibility before she posted the letter.
Many simple-minded men of disengaged affections, cheerfully pursuing their virtuous avocations, would be thunderstruck if they knew the dark suspicions harboured against them in spinster bosoms, that they areconcealing some discreditable matrimonial secret, which alone can account for their—well—theirextraordinarybehaviour in not coming forward!
It has actually been said that real life is not always like a novel. This feebly false assertion was disproved forever in Aunt Aggie's mind by the sight of a dog-cart coming rapidly toward her from the direction of Lostford. She glanced indifferently at it as it approached, and then her pale eyes became glued to it. In the dog-cart sat Everard Constable, now Lord Lossiemouth. She had not seen him for fifteen years, but nevertheless she recognised him instantly. There was no doubt it was he: thickened and coarsened, but still he. He whirled past leaning back in his seat, looking neither to right nor left.
Aunt Aggie's heart gave a thump that nearly upset her equilibrium. The biscuit dropped onto the road, with a general upheaval of crumbs from all parts of her agitated person.
Lord Lossiemouth!
Going in the direction of Priesthope!
Her letter!
She nearly swooned with joy and pride.
Now Mary and Algernon, now everyone would believe in her.
She raised herself from the heap of stones and with trembling legs hurried towards "The Towers." She must tell Mary at once.
She found Lady Blore seated at her writing-table in the drawing-room, which was choked by the eastern and Japanese impedimenta, the draperies, the krises, the metal bowls, the ivory boxes, which an Indian careerseems so inevitably to entail. Sir John had brought back crates of the kind of foreignbric-à-braccheap imitations of which throng London shop windows. The little entrance hall was stuffy with skins. Horned skulls garnished the walls, pleading silently for decent burial. Even the rugs had once been bears.
Aunt Mary was bored with her drawing-room, which looked like a stall at a bazaar, but, to her credit be it said, that she had never made any change in it, except to remove a brass idol from the writing-table, at which she was at this moment sitting.
By one of those sudden instincts which make people like Aunt Aggie the despair of those with whom they live, she instantaneously conceived the idea (for no reason except that she was thinking of her own letter) that her sister was at that moment writing to Lord Lossiemouth.
She "had a feeling" that this was the case. The feeling became in a second a rooted conviction. The butler came in, arranged an uncomfortable Indian table, placed a brass tray with tea things on it before Lady Blore, and asked if there were any more letters for the post. Aunt Mary was in the act of giving him one when Aunt Aggie intervened.
"Don't," she said in wild agitation, clasping her hands. "Mary, I beg of you, I conjure you not to post that letter."
"Why not? I have resolved to give him another chance."
"Keep it back one post, I implore you. I have a reason."
Aunt Mary looked attentively at her sister, andtook back the letter. It was not like her to give way. She seemed less overbearing than usual.
"Well? Why not employ him again?" she said wearily. "The Irish butter is the cheapest after all. Why do you make such a point of my leaving him."
Aunt Aggie was entirely nonplussed. A thousand similar experiences had never lessened the shock of the discrepancy between what she expected her sister to say, and what she actually said.
"I thought, I thought," she stammered, "I felt sure that, I see now I was wrong, but I had a conviction that that letter—you see I knew you were thinking of writing—was to, was in short to Lord Lossiemouth."
Aunt Mary's face became magenta colour.
"To Lord Lossiemouth! Why should you think I was writing to him?"
"Well, I could not help knowing—don't you remember how you discussed the subject with me and dear Magdalen some weeks ago?—that the subject of a judicious and dignified letter was in your mind."
"I was careful not to mention the subject to Magdalen in your presence. I see now that you must have listened outside the door."
Aunt Aggie experienced a second shock. How did Mary always spy out these things?
"I can't think," continued Lady Blore, "how you can lower yourself to eavesdrop in the way you do; and if you must do these underhand actions, why you don't conceal them better. When you read a private letter of mine the other day, because I inadvertently left it for a moment on my writing-table——"
"You always say you lock up your private letters,you do, indeed, Mary.Befair. I could nottellit was private."
"You would have been wiser not to have alluded next day to its contents. If you had not done so I might not have known you had read it."
Aunt Aggie burst into tears.
"The truth is I am not secretive like you, Mary," she said between her sobs. "It is as natural to me to be open and trustful with those I love as it is for you to be the reverse. Whatever I do you think wrong. But perhaps some day—and that before long—you will be forced to admit——"
At this moment the drawing-room door opened and Colonel Bellairs came in. He often came to tea at "The Towers," though the meeting seldom passed off without a sharp brush with Lady Blore.
"Draw up that chair, Algernon," said that lady, with grim but instant cordiality. "The tea will be ready in a moment."
Colonel Bellairs looked more floridly handsome than usual. He was evidently in a state of supreme self-satisfaction.
"Fine day," he said, "for the time of year."
At this moment a small parchment face, and bent figure leaning on a stick, might have been seen peering in through the closed windows. Sir John looked dispassionately at the family group, and shook his head. Then he hobbled back to his chair under the cedar. Tea was evidently a meal to be dispensed with this afternoon.
"I have news for you," said Colonel Bellairs, expanding his chest.
Lady Blore held the tea-pot suspended.
"Everard Constable—Lossiemouth, I should say—is at this moment sitting in the drawing-room at Priesthope, alone with Magdalen."
Colonel Bellairs was not disappointed in the effect of his words on his audience.
Aunt Aggie trembled and looked proudly guilty. Lady Blore put down the tea-pot suddenly, and said, "Thank God!"
Aunt Aggie, her mouth open to speak, began to choke. She looked piteously from her brother to her sister, struggling in vain to articulate. It was too cruel that she should be bereft of speech at this supreme moment.
Lady Blore turned putty pale and magenta colour alternately. A great relief softened her hard face. There were actually tears in her eyes. Then she said majestically, but with a tremor in her metallic voice:
"I am not surprised."
"It is my doing," shrieked Aunt Aggie, in the strangled squeak in which we always explain that it is "only a crumb" gone wrong. And she relapsed into a fresh spasm.
Lady Blore sternly bade her be silent. Colonel Bellairs was slightly annoyed.
"It is no use, Mary, your saying you are not surprised, for you are," he said judicially, "and really," relapsing into complacency, "so am I in a way. It is fifteen years since I forbade Everard the house. I fear that I was unduly harsh. I dismissed him, so it was for me to recall him. Now that the cat is out of the bag I don't mind telling you that I wrote to him a few weeks ago."
"You—wrote—to—him!" said Aunt Mary in great agitation. "Algernon, you sent me word by Magdalen that you refused to meddle in the matter."
"I daresay I did. I may not have liked the tone you took about it, Mary. You are so devilish high-handed. In short, I don't mind telling you that I was annoyed by your interference in the matter. But after mature consideration—I turned the matter over in my mind—I was not the least influenced by your long-winded epistle—that in fact rather put me off than otherwise—still after a time I wrote a manly, straightforward letter to Everard, not blinking the facts, and I told him that if his feelings were unchanged—mark that—as I had reason to believe Magdalen's were—he was at liberty to come to Priesthope and resume cordial relations with us all. You observe that I only asked him to come if his feelings were unchanged.He is there now."
It would be impossible to describe the varying emotions which devastated Lady Blore, as her brother made his announcement. Her hands trembled so much that she was obliged to give up any pretence of holding her cup. It chattered against its saucer.
"When did you write?" she asked at last.
"About three weeks ago."
Aunt Mary seemed to make a mental calculation.
"It is my doing. I wrote a month ago," gasped Aunt Aggie. "Algernon, you must not take the credit of it. I waited till you and Mary had decided not to write—you know, Mary, you told Magdalen you would not—and then—and then—I could not stand by and see that dear child's happiness slip away for want of onebold word, one brave friend to say for her what she could not say for herself,—I have seen so many lives wrecked for want of a sympathetic hand to draw two severed hearts together,—that I wrote. I wrote a month ago. A week before you did."
"I might have known you would do some folly," said Colonel Bellairs with contempt. "I am glad this did not come to my ears earlier, or I should have been very angry. It was most unsuitable, most undignified, that you and I should both write. But," it was evidently impossible for him to be seriously annoyed by anything on this particular afternoon, "all's well that ends well. We will say no more about it, Aggie. Don't cry. You can't help being a fool. But don't do anything of that kind, or of any kind again. I might not be so easy going next time."
Lady Blore drank down a large cup of tea. Her black silk bosom heaved. Contrary to all precedent she did not turn on her quaking sister.
"Where are Fay and Bessie?" she asked.
"Fay is spending the afternoon with the Carters, and Bessie is out somewhere, I don't know where. But I saw her start after luncheon."
"How fortunate! Then you knew he was coming?"
"Yes. I had a telegram from him this morning saying he was in the neighbourhood, and would come over this afternoon."
"Of course you warned Magdalen?"
"Not I. I knew better than that. She has a cold, so I knew she could not go out. So directly I had seen him drive up I came off here. I did not think I wasparticularly wanted at home. Two is company and three's none."
"Oh, Algernon, what tact! Most men would never have thought of that," said Aunt Aggie.
"Have another cup, Algernon," said Lady Blore graciously.
Colonel Bellairs stroked his moustache. He had another cause, a secret one, for self-complacency. At last, after many rebuffs from charming women, thirty years his junior, he was engaged to be married. Should he mention it? Was not this a most propitious moment? Yes? No. Perhaps better not. Another time! The lady had accepted him some weeks ago, but had expressed altruistic doubts as to whether she could play a mother's part to daughters as old as herself, whether in short, much as she craved for their society,theymight not feel happier, more independent in a separate establishment, however modest. It was on a sudden impulse of what he called "providing for the girls," that Colonel Bellairs had written to Lord Lossiemouth.
The renewal of his engagement to Magdalen would pave the way to Colonel Bellairs's marriage. He had already decided that Bessie would live with Magdalen, who would take her out. Fay had her jointure. But he had a not unfounded fear that his second nuptials would be regarded with profound disapproval, even with execration, by his sisters.
Magdalen alone knew about it as yet. She had taken the news, which her father had feared would crush her to the earth, very tranquilly. She was a person of more frigid affections than he had supposed. He had already asked her to break the news to Fay and Bessie.Perhaps it would be better to let her break it to his sisters too. If he did it himself they might, at the first moment, say things they might afterwards regret. Yes, he would leave the announcement to Magdalen.
Our chain on silence clanks.Time leers between, above his twiddling thumbs.—George Meredith.
Our chain on silence clanks.Time leers between, above his twiddling thumbs.
Our chain on silence clanks.Time leers between, above his twiddling thumbs.
Our chain on silence clanks.Time leers between, above his twiddling thumbs.
—George Meredith.
Lord Lossiemouth had come into his kingdom. He was rich, but not vulgarly so. He had a great position, and what his artistic nature valued even more, the possession of one of the most beautiful places in England. The Lossiemouth pictures and heirlooms, the historic house with its wonderful gardens—all these were his.
He had at first been quite dazed by the magnitude of his good fortune. When it came to him it found him somewhat sore and angry at a recent rebuff which had wounded his vanity not a little. But the excitement of his great change of fortune soon healed what little smart remained.
A few months before he succeeded, he had fallen in love, not for the first time by many times, with a woman who seemed to meet his requirements. She was gentle, submissive, pretty, easily led, refined, not an heiress, but by no means penniless.
To his surprise and indignation she had refused him, evidently not without a certain tepid regret. He discovered that the mother had other views for her daughter, and that the daughter, though she inclined towards him, was quite incapable or even desirous of opposing her mother. She was gentleness and pliability itself. These qualities, so admirable in domestic life, have a tendencyof which he had not thought before to make their charming owner, if a hitch occurs, subside into becoming another man's wife. If only women could be adamant until they reach the altar, and like wax afterwards.
When everything bitter that could be said at the expense of women had been ably expressed, Lord Lossiemouth withdrew. A month later, when he was making an angry walking tour in Hungary, he learned from an English paper, already many days old, of the two deaths which effected his great change of fortune. He communicated with his lawyer, arranged to return by a certain date, and continued his tour for another month.
On his return he had gone at once to Lossiemouth, which he had visited occasionally as a poor and peppery and not greatly respected relation. Business of all kinds instantly engulfed him. He was impatient, difficult,distrait, slightly pleased with himself at showing so little gratification at his magnificent inheritance.
On the third day he sorted out the letters which looked like personal ones, from among a heap of correspondence, the accumulation of many weeks.
Quantities of envelopes were torn open, and the contents thrown aside, begging letters, decently veiled congratulations from "old friends" who had not so far shown any particular desire to make their friendship a joy to him.
Presently he came upon a long, closely written letter of several sheets, in a slanting hand, which he was about to dismiss as another begging letter when his eye fell on the signature. Bellows? Bulteel? Buller?Bellairs?
Aunt Aggie's signature was quite illegible. It was an arranged squiggle painfully acquired in youth, which through life had resulted in all kinds of difficulties with tradespeople, and in continual annoyance and inconvenience to herself. Letters and parcels were frequently directed to her as A. Buller, Esq. She could only account for this mistake by the business-like nature of her style and handwriting. She often told her friends that, unless people knew her personally, her letters were generally believed to be a man's.
It had never struck Aunt Aggie that Lord Lossiemouth might possibly, in an interval of fifteen years, have forgotten whoA.Bellows might be.
But the words "my beloved niece Magdalen" strongly underlined, and the postmark on the envelope, showed him who A. Bellairs was. He thought he remembered an old aunt who lived near Priesthope.
He read the long sentimental effusion and bit his lip.
Ah, me! Was that half-forgotten, dim-in-the-distance boyish love of his to be raked up again now!
He sighed impatiently. Why had Fate parted him and Magdalen? He still regretted her in a way, when he was depressed or harassed, or disgusted with the world in general; and he was often depressed and harassed and disgusted.
More letters. What business had people to give him the trouble of reading them? The floor was becoming strewn with his correspondence. The empty fireplace had become a target for crumpled balls of paper.
A short one in a large, scrambling, illiterate handwith a signature that might mean anything. That tall capital, shaped like a ham, was perhaps a B.
The letter was written on Priesthope notepaper. "My daughter Magdalen."
This, then, was from Colonel Bellairs.
It was not such a very bad letter, but it was a deplorably unwise one. When had Colonel Bellairs ever indited a wise one! But he made his precarious position even less tenable by ignoring the fact that Lord Lossiemouth's fortunes had altered, by asserting that he had had it in his mind to write to this effect the previous Christmas but had not had time. When Colonel Bellairs concocted that sentence he had felt, not without pride, that it covered the ground of his fifteen years' silence, and also showed that Lord Lossiemouth's wealth had nothing to do with his recall. For the letter was a recall.
"Blundering old idiot," said Lord Lossiemouth, but he had become very red.
All kinds of memories were surging up in him; Magdalen's crystal love for him, her indefinable charm, her gaiety, her humility, her shyness, her exquisite beauty.
Life had never brought him anything so marvellous, so enchanting, as that first draught of April passion. And he had quenched his thirst at many other cups since then. His lips had been blistered and stained at poisoned brims. Why had that furious old turkey-cock parted him and Magdalen! His heart sank for a moment at the remembrance of his first love.
But what was the use! The Magdalen he had loved had ceased to exist. The wand-like figure with itsapple-blossom face faded, faded, and in its place rose up the image of the thin, distinguished-looking grey-haired woman who had supplanted that marvel. He had met Magdalen accidentally once or twice in London of late years, and had felt dismayed anger at the change in her, an offended anger not wholly unlike that with which he surveyed himself at his tailors', and inspected at unbecoming angles, through painfully frank mirrors, a thick back and a stout neck and jaw which cruelly misrepresented his fastidious artistic personality.
He returned to his letters.
Three sheets in a firm, upright hand.
"I do not suppose you remember me," it began, "but I intend to recall myself to your memory, which I believe to be none of the best. I am the wife of Sir John Blore, and aunt to Magdalen Bellairs."
He flung the letter down. But this was intolerable, a persecution. And what fools they wereallto write. Had Magdalen set them on?
He groaned with sudden self-disgust. What unworthy thought would come to him next? Of course she knew nothing of this.
He looked at the date of each letter carefully. Aunt Aggie's according to her wont had only the day of the week on it, just Tuesday, or it might be Thursday—but Colonel Bellairs's and Lady Blore's were fully dated, and about a fortnight apart. Colonel Bellairs had written last.
Lord Lossiemouth divined that each of the three believed him or herself to be the only one to tackle the subject.
How ghastly! What a cruelly good short story it would make for a magazine!
Then he read Lady Blore's letter. Apparently it was not pleasant reading. It seemed to prick somewhat sharply. He winced once or twice, and spoke angrily to it.
"My good woman, as if I did notknowthat! Men are always behaving heartlessly to women in their opinion. It is the normal male state. It is an established fact that we are all brutes. Why do you want me to marry your paragon if you have such a low opinion of me?"
Still he could not put the letter down.
"It is possible though improbable," wrote that dauntless woman, "that your vacillating and selfish character may have improved sufficiently in the course of years for you to have become aware that you have behaved disgracefully to a woman, who, if she had had any sense, ought never to have given you a second thought, who was and still is deeply attached to you; probably the only person on this earth who has the misfortune to care two pins about you."
Lord Lossiemouth tried to feel sarcastic. He tried to laugh. But it was no use. Lady Blore's arrow had penetrated a joint in his harness.
After all he need take no notice of any of these monstrous effusions.
He was disgusted with opening letters. Nevertheless he hurried on. Perhaps he should find others less intolerable.
A somewhat formal letter from his cousin the Bishop of Lostford, who had never been cordial to him since hisengagement to Magdalen had been broken off. The Bishop pointed out certain grave abuses connected with house property at Lostford, at which the late Lord Lossiemouth had persistently connived, but which he hoped his successor might enquire into personally and redress.
Quantities of other letters were torn open and aimed in balls at the empty grate. But at last he came to a long one which he read breathlessly.
It was from the mother of the girl who had so recently refused him, an involved tortuous epistle, which implied that the daughter was seriously attached to him, and hinted that if he were to come forward again he would not be refused a second time. There was also a short, wavering, nondescript note with nothing in particular in it from the girl herself. The mother had evidently made her write.
A very venomous expression settled on Lord Lossiemouth's heavy face. He suddenly took up a Bradshaw and looked out the trains for Lostford.