The breakfast hour was nine o'clock. Dr. Derwent, as usual, came down a few minutes before, and turned over the letters lying for him on the table. Among them he found an envelope addressed in a hand which looked very much like Irene's; it had not come by post. As he was reading the note it contained, Eustace and Olga Hannaford entered together, talking. He bade them good-morning, and all sat down to table.
"Irene's late," said Eustace presently, glancing at the clock.
The Doctor looked at him with an odd smile.
"She left Victoria ten minutes ago," he said, "by the Calais-boat express."
Eustace and Olga stared, exclaimed.
"She suddenly made up her mind to accept an invitation from Mrs. Borisoff."
"But—what an extraordinary thing!" pealed Eustace, who was always greatly disturbed by anything out of routine. "She didn't speak of it yesterday!"
Olga gazed at the Doctor. Her wan face had a dawn of brightness.
"How long is she likely to stay, uncle?"
"I haven't the least idea."
"Well, she can't stay long," Eustace exclaimed. "Ah! I have it! Don't you see, Olga? It means Parisian dresses and hats!"
Dr. Derwent exploded in laughter.
"Acute young man! Now the ordinary male might have lost himself for a day in wild conjectures. This points to the woolsack, Olga!"
She laughed for the first time in many days, and her appetite for breakfast was at once improved.
In his heart, Dr. Derwent did not grieve over the singular events of yesterday and this morning. He had no fault to find with Arnold Jacks, and could cheerfully accept him as a son-in-law; but it was easy to imagine a husband more suitable for such a girl as Irene. Moreover, he had suspected, since the engagement, that she had not thoroughly known her own mind. But he was far from anticipating such original and decisive action on the girl's part. The thing being done, he could secretly admire it, and the flight to Paris relieved his mind from a prospect of domestic confusion. Just for a moment he questioned himself as to Irene's security, but only to recognise how firm was his confidence in her.
Socially, the position was awkward. He had a letter from Jacks, a sensible and calmly worded letter, saying that Irene was overwrought by recent agitations, that she had spoken of putting an end to their engagement, but that doubtless a few days would see all right again. Arnold must now be apprised of what had happened, and, as all consideration was due to him, the Doctor despatched a telegram asking him to call as soon as he could. This brought Jacks to Bryanston Square at midday, and there was a conversation in the library. Arnold spoke his mind; with civility, but in unmistakable terms; he accused the Doctor of remissness. "Paternal authority," it seemed to him, should have sufficed to prevent what threatened nothing less than a scandal. Irene's father could not share this view; the girl was turned three-and-twenty; there could be no question of dictating to her, and as for expostulation, it had been honestly tried.
"You are aware, I hope," said Jacks stiffly, "that Mrs. Borisoff has not quite an unclouded reputation?"
"I know no harm against her."
"She is as good as parted from her husband, and leads a very dubious wandering life."
"Oh, it's all right. People countenance her who wouldn't do so if there were anything really amiss."
"Well, Dr. Derwent," said the young man in a conclusive tone, "evidently all is at an end. It remains for us to agree upon the manner of making it known. Should the announcement come from your side or from mine?"
The Doctor reflected.
"You no longer propose to wait the effect of a little time?"
"Emphatically, no. This step of Miss Derwent's puts that out of the question."
"I see—Perhaps you feel that, in justice to yourself, it should be made known that she has done something of which you disapprove?"
Arnold missed the quiet irony of this question.
"Not at all. Our engagement ended yesterday; with to-day's events I have nothing to do."
"That is the generous view," said Dr. Derwent, smiling pleasantly. "Do you know, I fancy we had better each of us tell the story in his own way. It will come to that in the end, won't it? You had a disagreement; you thought better of your proposed union; what more simple? I see no room for scandal."
"Be it so. Have the kindness to acquaint Miss Derwent with what has passed between us."
After dinner that evening, Dr. Derwent related the matter to his son. Eustace was astounded, and presently indignant. It seemed to him inconceivable that Arnold Jacks should have suffered this affront. He would not look at things from his sister's point of view; absurd to attempt a defence of her; really, really, she had put them all into a most painful position! An engagement was an engagement, save in the event of grave culpability on either side. Eustace spoke as a lawyer; his professional instincts were outraged. He should certainly call upon the Jacks' and utterly dissociate himself from his sister in this lamentable affair.
"Why, what a shock it will be to Mrs. Jacks!"
"She'll get over it, I fancy," remarked the Doctor drily.
The young barrister withdrew to his room, where he read hard until very late. Eustace was no trifler; he had brains, and saw his way to make use of them to the one end which addressed his imagination, that of social self-advancement. His studies to-night were troubled with a resentful fear lest Irene's "unwomanly" behaviour (a generation ago it would have been "unladylike") should bring the family name into some discredit. Little ejaculations escaped him, such as "Really!" and "Upon my word!" Eustace had never been known to use stronger language.
When his son had retired, Dr. Derwent stepped up to the drawing-room, where Olga Hannaford was sitting. After kindly regretting that she should be alone, he repeated to his niece what he had just told Eustace. Doubtless she would here very soon from Irene.
"I have already heard something about this," said Olga. "I'm sure she has done right, but no one will ever know what it cost her."
"That's the very point we have all been losing sight of," observed her uncle, gratified. "It would have been a good deal easier, no doubt, to go on to the marriage."
"Easier!" echoed the girl. "She has done the most wonderful thing! I admire her, and envy her strength of character."
The Doctor's eyes had fallen upon that crayon portrait which held the place of honour on the drawing-room walls. Playing with superstition, as does every man capable of high emotional life, he was wont to see in the pictured countenance of his dead wife changes of expression, correspondent with the mood in which he regarded it. At one time the beloved features smiled upon him; at another they were sad, or anxious. To-night, the eyes, the lips were so strongly expressive of gladness that he felt startled as he gazed. A joy from the years gone by suddenly thrilled him. He sat silent, too deeply moved by memories for speech about the present. And when at length he resumed talk with Olga, his voice was very gentle, his words all kindliness. The girl had never known him so sympathetic with her.
On the morrow—it was Saturday—Olga received a letter from Piers Otway, who said that he had something of great importance to speak about, and must see her; could they not meet at the Campden Hill House, it being inadvisable for him to call at Dr. Derwent's? Either this afternoon or to-morrow would do, if Olga would appoint a time.
She telegraphed, appointing this afternoon at three.
Half an hour before that, she entered the house, which was now occupied only by a caretaker. Dr. Derwent was trying to let it furnished for the rest of the short lease. Olga had a fire quickly made in the drawing-room, and ordered tea. She laid aside her outdoor things, viewed herself more than once in a mirror, and moved about restlessly. When there sounded a visitor's knock at the front door, she flushed and was overcome with nervousness; she stepped forward to meet her friend, but could not speak. Otway had taken her hand in both his own; he looked at her with grave kindliness. It was their first meeting since Mrs. Hannaford's death.
"I hesitated about asking you to see me here," he said. "But I thought—I hoped——"
His embarrassment increased, whilst Olga was gaining self-command.
"You were quite right," she said. "I think I had rather see you here than anywhere else. It isn't painful to me—oh! anything but painful!"
They sat down. Piers was holding a large envelope, bulgy with its contents, whatever they were, and sealed; his eyes rested upon it.
"I have to speak of something which at first will sound unwelcome to you; but it is only the preface to what will make you very glad. It is about my brother. I have seen him two or three times this last week on a particular business, in which at length I have succeeded. Here," he touched the envelope, "are all the letters he possessed in your mother's writing."
Olga looked at him in distressful wonder and suspense.
"Not one of them," he pursued, "contains a line that you should not read. They prove absolutely, beyond shadow of doubt, that the charge brought against your mother was false. The dates cover nearly five years—from a simple note of invitation to Ewell—you remember—down to a letter written about three weeks ago. Of course I was obliged to read them through; I knew to begin with what I should find. Now I give them to you. Let Dr. Derwent see them. If any doubt remains in his mind, they will make an end of it."
He put the packet into Olga's hands. She, overcome for the moment by her feelings, looked from it to him, at a loss for words. She was struck with a change in Otway. That he should speak in a grave tone, with an air of sadness, was only natural; but the change went beyond this; he had not his wonted decision in utterance; he paused between sentences, his eyes wandering dreamily; one would have taken him for an older man than he was wont to appear, and of less energy. Thus might he have looked and spoken after some great effort, which left him wearied, almost languid, incapable of strong emotion.
"Why didn't he show these letters before?" she asked, turning over the sealed envelope.
"He had no wish to do so," answered Piers, in an undertone.
"You mean that he would have let anything happen—which he could have prevented?"
"I'm afraid he would."
"But he offered them now?"
"No—or rather yes, he offered them," Piers smiled bitterly. "Not however, out of wish to do justice."
Olga could not understand. She gazed at him wistfully.
"I bought them," said Piers. "It made the last proof of his baseness."
"You gave money for them? And just that you might give them to me?"
"Wouldn't you have done the same, to clear the memory of someone you loved?"
Olga laid the packet aside; then, with a quick movement, stepped towards him, caught his hand, pressed it to her lips. Piers was taken by surprise, and could not prevent the action; but at once Olga's own hand was prisoned in his; they stood face to face, she blushing painfully, he pale as death, with lips that quivered in their vain effort to speak.
"I shall be grateful to you as long as I live," the girl faltered, turning half away, trying gently to release herself.
Piers kissed her hand, again and again, still speechless. When he allowed her to draw it away, he stood gazing at her like a man bewildered; there was moisture on his forehead; he seemed to struggle for breath.
"Let us sit down again and talk," said Olga, glancing at him.
But he moved towards her, the strangest look in his eyes, the fixed expressionless gaze of a somnambulist.
"Olga——"
"No, no!" she exclaimed, as if suddenly stricken with fear, throwing out her arms to repel him. "You didn't mean that! It is my fault. You never meant that."
"Yes! Give me your hand again!" he said in a thick voice, the blood rushing into his cheeks.
"Not now. You misunderstood me. I oughtn't to have done that. It was because I could find no word to thank you."
She panted the sentences, holding her chair as if to support herself, and with the other hand still motioning him away.
"I misunderstood——?"
"I am ashamed—it was thoughtless—sit down and let us talk as we were doing. Just as friends, it is so much better. We meant nothing else."
It was as if the words fell from her involuntarily; they were babbled, rather than spoken; she half laughed, half cried. And Otway, a mere automaton, dropped upon his chair, gazing at her, trembling.
"I will let my uncle see the letters at once," Olga went on, in confused hurry. "I am sure he will be very grateful to you. But for you, we should never have had this proof. I, of course, did not need it; as if I doubted my mother! But he—I can't be sure what he still thinks. How kind you have always been to us!"
Piers stood up again, but did not move toward her. She watched him apprehensively. He walked half down the room and back again, then exclaimed, with a wild gesture:
"I never knew what a curse one's name could be! I used to be proud of it, because it was my father's; now I would gladly take any other."
"Just because of that man?" Olga protested. "What does it matter?"
"You know well what it matters," he replied, with an unnatural laugh.
"To me—nothing whatever."
"You try to think not. But the name will be secretly hateful to you as long as you live."
"Oh! How can you say that! The name is yours, not his. Think how long we knew you before we heard of him! I am telling the simple truth. It is you I think of, when——"
He was drawing nearer to her, and again that strange, fixed look came into his eyes.
"I wanted to ask you something," said Olga quickly. "Do sit down—will you? Let us talk as we used to—you remember?"
He obeyed her, but kept his eyes on her face.
"What do you wish to ask, Olga?"
The name slipped from his tongue; he had not meant to use it, and did not seem conscious of having done so.
"Have you seen old Mr. Jacks lately?"
"I saw him last night."
"Last night?" Her breath caught. "Had he anything—anything interesting to say?"
"He is ill. I only sat with him for half an hour. I don't know what it is. It doesn't keep him in bed; but he lies on a sofa, and looks dreadfully ill, as if he suffered much pain."
"He told you nothing?"
Their eyes met.
"Nothing that greatly interested me," replied Piers heavily, with the most palpable feint of carelessness. "He mentioned what of course you know, that Arnold Jacks is not going to be married after all."
Olga's head drooped, as she said in a voice barely audible:
"Ah, you knew it."
"What of that?"
"I see—you knew it——"
"What of that, Olga?" he repeated impatiently. "I knew it as a bare fact—no explanation. What does it mean? You know, I suppose?"
In spite of himself, look and tones betrayed his eagerness for her reply.
"They disagreed about something," said Olga. "I don't know what. I shouldn't wonder if they make it up again."
At this moment the woman in care of the house entered with the tea-tray. To give herself a countenance, Olga spoke of something indifferent, and when they were alone again, their talk avoided the personal matters which had so embarrassed both of them. Olga said presently that she was going to see her friend Miss Bonnicastle to-morrow.
"If I could see only the least chance of supporting myself, I would go to live with her again. She's the most sensible girl I know, and she did me good."
"How, did you good?"
"She helped me against myself," replied Olga abruptly. "No one else ever did that."
Then she turned again to the safer subjects.
"When shall I see you again?" Otway inquired, rising after a long silence, during which both had seemed lost in their thoughts.
"Who knows?—But I will write and tell you what my uncle says about the letters, if he says anything. Again, thank you!"
She gave her hand frankly. Piers held it, and looked into her face as once before.
"Olga——"
The girl uttered a cry of distress, drew her hand away, and exclaimed in a half-hysterical voice:
"No! What right have you?"
"Every right! Do you know what your mother said to me—her last words to me——?"
"You mustn't tell me!" Her tones were softer. "Not to-day. If we meet again——"
"Of course we shall meet again!"
"I don't know. Yes, yes; we shall. But you must go now; it is time I went home."
He touched her hand again, and left the room without looking back. Before the door had closed behind him, Olga ran forward with a stifled cry. The door was shut. She stood before it with tears in her eyes, her fingers clenched together on her breast, and sobbed miserably.
For nearly half an hour she sat by the fire, head on hands, deeply brooding. In the house there was not a sound. All at once it seemed to her that a voice called, uttering her name; she started, her blood chilled with fear. The voice was her mother's; she seemed still to hear it, so plainly had it been audible, coming from she knew not where.
She ran to her hat and jacket, which lay in a corner of the room, put them on with feverish haste, and fled out into the street.
"I will be frank with you, Piers," said Daniel Otway, as he sat by the fireside in his shabby lodgings, his feet on the fender, a cigarette between his fingers. He looked yellow and dried up; shivered now and then, and had a troublesome cough. "If I could afford to be generous, I would be; I should enjoy it. It's one of the worst evils of poverty, that a man can seldom obey the promptings of his better self. I can't give you these letters; can't afford to do so. You have glanced through them; you see they really are what I said. The question is, what are they worth to you?"
Piers looked at the threadbare carpet, reflected, spoke.
"I'll give you fifty pounds."
A smile crept from the corners of Daniel's shrivelled lips to his bloodshot eye.
"Why are you so anxious to have them," he said, "I don't know and don't ask. But if they are worth fifty to you, they are worth more. You shall have them for two hundred."
And at this figure the bundle of letters eventually changed hands. It was a serious drain on Piers Otway's resources, but he could not bargain long, the talk sickened him. And when the letters were in his possession, he felt a joy which had no equivalent in terms of cash.
He said to himself that he had bought them for Olga. In a measure, of course, for all who would be relieved by knowing that Mrs. Hannaford had told the truth; but first and foremost for Olga. On Olga he kept his thoughts. He was persuading himself that in her he saw his heart's desire.
For Piers Otway was one of those men who cannot live without a woman's image to worship. Irene Derwent being now veiled from him, he turned to another beautiful face, in whose eyes the familiar light of friendship seemed to be changing, softening. Ambition had misled him; not his to triumph on the heights of glorious passion; for him a humbler happiness a calmer love. Yet he would not have been Piers Otway had this mood contented him. On the second day of his dreaming about Olga, she began to shine before his imagination in no pale light. He mused upon her features till they became the ideal beauty; he clad her, body and soul, in all the riches of love's treasure-house; she was at length his crowned lady, his perfect vision of delight.
With such thoughts had he sat by Mrs. Hannaford, at the meeting which was to be their last. He was about to utter them, when she spoke Olga's name. "In you she will always have a friend? If the worst happens——?" And when he asked, "May I hope that she would some day let me be more than that?" the glow of joy on that stricken face, the cry of rapture, the hand held to him, stirred him so deeply that his old love-longing seemed a boyish fantasy. "Oh, you have made me happy! You have blotted out all my follies and sufferings!" Then the poor tortured mind lost itself.
This was the second death which had upon Piers Otway the ageing effect known to all men capable of thoughts about mortality. The loss of his father marked for him the end of irresponsible years; he entered upon manhood with that grief blended of reverence and affection. By the grave of Mrs. Hannaford (he stood there only after the burial) he was touched again by the advancing shadow of life's dial, and it marked the end of youth. For youth is a term relative to heart and mind. At six-and-twenty many a man has of manhood only the physique; many another is already falling through experience to a withered age. Piers had the sense of transition; the middle years were opening before him. The tears he shed for his friend were due in part to the poignant perception of utter severance with boyhood. But a few weeks ago, talking with Mrs. Hannaford, he could revive the spirit of those old days at Geneva, feel his identity with the Piers Otway of that time. It would never be within his power again. He might remember, but memory showed another than himself.
A note from John Jacks summoned him to Queen's Gate. Not till afterwards did he understand that Mr. Jacks' real motive in sending for him was to get light upon the rupture between Arnold and Miss Derwent. Piers' astonishment at what he heard caused his friend to quit the subject.
In the night that followed, Piers for the first time in his life felt the possibility of base action. The experience has come to all men, and, whatever the result, always leaves its mark. Looking at the fact of Irene's broken engagement, he could explain it only in one way; the cause must be Mrs. Hannaford—the doubt as to her behaviour, the threatened scandal. Idle to attempt surmises as to the share of either side in what had come about; the difference had been sufficiently grave to part them. And this parting was to him a joy which shook his whole being. He could have raised a song of exultation.
And in his hands lay complete evidence of the dead woman's guiltlessness. To produce it was possibly to reconcile Arnold Jacks and Irene. Viewed by his excited mind, the possible became certain; he evolved a whole act of drama between those two, turning on prejudices, doubts, scruples natural in their position; he saw the effect of their enlightenment. Was it a tempting thought, that he could give Irene back again into her bridegroom's arms.
It brought sweat to his forehead; it shook him with the fierce torture of a jealous imagination. He fortified base suggestion by the natural revolt of his flesh. Once had he passed through the fire; to suffer that ordeal again was beyond human endurance. Irene was free. He paced the room, repeating wildly that Irene was free. And the mere fact of her freedom proved that she did not love the man—so it seemed to him, in his subordination of every motive to that passionate impulse. To him it brought no hope—what of that! Irene did not belong to another man.
The fire needed stirring. As he broke the black surface of coal, a flame shot up, red, lambent, a serpent's tongue. It had a voice; it tempted. He took the packet of letters from the table.
He had not yet read them through; had only tested them here and there under his brother's eye. Yes, they were the letters of a woman, who, suffering (as he knew) the strongest temptation to which her nature could be exposed, subdued herself in obedience to what she held the law of duty. He read page after page. Again and again she all but said, "I love you"; again and again she told her tempter that his suit was useless, that she would rather die than yield. Daniel Otway had used every argument to persuade her to defy the world and follow him—easy to understand his motives. One saw that, if she had been alone, she would have done so; but there was her daughter, there was her brother; to them she sacrificed what seemed to her the one chance of happiness left in a wasted life.
Piers interrupted his reading to hear once more the voice that counselled baseness. Whom would it injure, if he destroyed these papers? Certainly not Irene, his first thought, who, he held it proved, was well rescued from a mistaken marriage. Not Dr. Derwent, or Olga, who, he persuaded himself, had already no doubt whatever of Mrs. Hannaford's innocence. Not the poor dead woman herself——
What was this passage on which his eye had fallen? "I have long had a hope that your brother Piers might marry Olga. It would make me very happy; I cannot imagine for her a better husband. It came first into my mind years ago, at Geneva, and I have never lost the wish. Ah! how grateful you would make me, if, forgetting ourselves, you would join me in somehow trying to bring about this happiness for those two! Piers is coming to live in London. Do see as much of him as you can. I think very, very highly of him, and he is almost as dear to me as a son of my own. Speak to him of Olga. Sometimes a suggestion—and you know that I desire only his good."
The voice spoke to him from the grave; it had a sweeter tone than that other. He read on; he came to the last sheet—so sad, so hopeless, that it brought tears to his eyes.
"Cannot you defend me? Cannot you prove the falsehood of that story? Cannot you save me from this bitter disgrace? Oh, who will show the truth and do me justice?"
Could he burn that letter? Could he close his ears against that cry of one driven to death by wrong?
He drew a deep sigh, and looked about him as if waking from a bad dream. Why, he had come near to whole brotherhood with a man as coldly cruel and infamous as any that walked the earth! Destroying these letters, he would have been worse than Daniel.
Straightway he wrote to Olga, requesting the appointment with her. Upon Olga once more he fixed his mind. He resolved that he would not part from her without asking her to be his wife. If he had but done so before hearing that news from John Jacks! Then it seemed to him that Olga was his happiness.
From the house at Campden Hill he came away in a strangely excited mood; glad, sorry; cold, desirous; torn this way and that by conflict of passions and reasons. The only clear thought in his mind was that he had done a great act of justice. How often does it fall to a man to enjoy this privilege? Not once in a lifetime to the multitude such opportunity is the signal favour of fate. Had he let it pass, Piers felt he must have sunk so in his own esteem, that no light of noble hope would ever again have shone before him. He must have gone plodding the very mire of existence—Daniel's brother, never again anything but Daniel's brother.
Would Dr. Derwent give him a thought of thanks? Would Irene hear how these letters were recovered?
Sunday passed, he knew not well how. He wrote a letter to Olga, but destroyed it. On Monday he was very busy, chiefly at the warehouses of the Commercial Docks; a man of affairs; to look upon, not strikingly different from many another with whom he rubbed shoulders in Fenchurch Street and elsewhere. On Tuesday he had to go to Liverpool, to see an acquaintance of Moncharmont who might perchance be useful to them. The journey, the change, were not unpleasant. He passed the early evening with the man in question, who asked him at what hotel he meant to sleep. Piers named the house he had carelessly chosen, adding that he had not been there yet; his bag was still at the station.
"Don't go there," said his companion. "It's small and uncomfortable and dear. You'll do much better at——"
Without giving a thought to the matter, Otway accepted this advice. He went to the station, withdrew his bag, and bade a cabman drive him to the hotel his acquaintance had named. But no sooner had the cab started than he felt an unaccountable misgiving, an uneasiness as to this change of purpose. Strange as he was to Liverpool, there seemed no reason why he should hesitate so about his hotel; yet the mental disturbance became so strong that, when all but arrived, he stopped the cab and bade his driver take him to the other house, that which he had originally chosen. A downright piece of superstition, he said to himself, with a nervous laugh. He could not remember to have ever behaved so capriciously.
The hotel pleased him. After inspecting his bedroom, he came down again to smoke and glance over the newspapers; it was about half-past nine. Half a dozen men were in the smoking-room; by ten o'clock there remained, exclusive of Piers, only three, of whom two were discussing politics by the fireside, whilst the third sat apart from them in a deep chair, reading a book. The political talk began to interest Otway; he listened, behind his newspaper. The louder of the disputants was a man of about fifty, dressed like a prosperous merchant; his cheeks were flabby, his chin triple or quadruple, his short neck, always very red, grew crimson as he excited himself. He was talking about the development of markets for British wares, and kept repeating the phrase "trade outlets," as if it had a flavour which he enjoyed. England, he declared, was falling behind in the competition for the world's trade.
"It won't do. Mark my word, if we don't show more spirit, we shall be finding ourselves in Queer Street. Look at China, now! I call it a monstrous thing, perfectly monstrous, the way we're neglecting China."
"My dear sir," said the other, a thin, bilious man, with an undecided manner, "we can't force our goods on a country——"
"What! Why, that's exactly what wecando, and ought to do! What we alwayshavedone, and alwaysmustdo, if we're going to hold our own," vociferated he of the crimson neck. "I was speaking of China, if you hadn't interrupted me. What are the Russians doing? Why, making a railway straight to China! And we look on, as if it didn't matter, when the matter is national life or death. Let me give you some figures. I know what I'm talking about. Are you aware that our trade with China amounts to only half a crown a head of the Chinese population? Half a crown! While with little Japan, our trade comes to something like eighteen shillings a head. Let me tell you that the equivalent of that in China would represent about three hundred and sixty millions per annum!"
He rolled out the figures with gusto culminating in rage. His eyes glared; he snorted defiance, turning from his companion to the two strangers whom he saw seated before him.
"I say that it's our duty to force our trade upon China. It's for China's good—can you deny that? A huge country packed with wretched barbarians! Our trade civilises them—can you deny it? It's our duty, as the leading Power of the world! Hundreds of millions of poor miserable barbarians. And"—he shouted—"what else are the Russians, if you come to that? Cantheycivilise China? A filthy, ignorant nation, frozen into stupidity, and downtrodden by an Autocrat!"
"Well," murmured the diffident objector, "I'm no friend of tyranny; I can't say much for Russia——"
"I should think you couldn't. Who can? A country plunged in the darkness of the Middle Ages! The country of theknout! Pah! Whocansay anything for Russia?"
Vociferating thus, the champion of civilisation fixed his glare upon Otway, who, having laid down the paper, answered this look of challenge with a smile.
"As you seem to appeal to me," sounded in Piers' voice, which was steady and good-humoured, "I'm bound to say that Russia isn't altogether without good points. You spoke of it, by the bye, as the country of the knout; but the knout, as a matter of fact, was abolished long ago."
"Well, well—yes; yes—one knows all about that," stammered the loud man. "But the country is still ruled in thespiritof the knout. It doesn't affect my argument. Take it broadly, on an ethnological basis." He expanded his chest, sticking his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat. "The Russians are a Slavonic people, I presume?"
"Largely Slav, yes."
"And pray, sir, what have the Slavs done for the world? What do we owe them? What Slavonic name can anyone mention in the history of progress?"
"Two occur to me," replied Piers, in the same quiet tone, "well worthy of a place in the history of intellectual progress. There was a Pole named Kopernik, known to you, no doubt, as Copernicus, who came before Galileo; and there was a Czech named Huss—John Huss—who came before Luther."
The bilious man was smiling. The fourth person present in the room, who sat with his book at some distance, had turned his eyes upon Otway with a look of peculiar interest.
"You've made a special study, I suppose, of this sort of thing," said the fat-faced politician, with a grin which tried to be civil, conveying in truth, the radical English contempt for mere intellectual attainment. "You're a supporter of Russia, I suppose?"
"I have no such pretension. Russia interests me, that's all."
"Come now, would you say that in any single point Russia, modern Russia, as we understand the term, had shown the way inpracticaladvance?"
All were attentive—the silent man with the book seeming particularly so.
"I should say in one rather important point," Piers replied. "Russia was the first country to abolish capital punishment for ordinary crime."
The assailant showed himself perplexed, incredulous. But this state of mind, lasting only for a moment, gave way to genial bluster.
"Oh, come now! That's a matter of opinion. To let murderers go unhung——"
"As you please. I could mention another interesting fact. Long before England dreamt of the simplest justice for women, it was not an uncommon thing for a Russian peasant who had appropriated money earned by his wife, to be punished with a flogging by the village commune."
"A flogging! Why, there you are!" cried the other, with hoarse laughter—"What did I say? If it isn't the knout, it's something equivalent. As if we hadn't proved long ago the demoralising effect of corporal chastisement! We should be ashamed, sir, to flog men nowadays in the army or navy. It degrades: we have outgrown it— No, no, sir, it won't do! I see you have made a special study and you've mentioned very interesting facts; but you must see that they are wide of the mark—painfully wide of the mark—I must be thinking of turning in; have to be up at six, worse luck, to catch a train. Good-night, Mr. Simmonds! Good-night to you, sir—good-night!"
He bustled away, humming to himself; and, after musing a little, the bilious man also left the room. Piers thought himself alone, but a sound caused him to turn his head; the person whom he had forgotten, the silent reader, had risen and was moving his way. A tall, slender, graceful man, well dressed, aged about thirty. He approached Otway, came in front of him, looked at him with a smile, and spoke.
"Sir, will you permit me to thank you for what you have said in defence of Russia—my country?"
The English was excellent; almost without foreign accent. Piers stood up, and held out his hand, which was cordially grasped. He looked into a face readily recognizable as that of a Little Russian; a rather attractive face, with fine, dreamy eyes and a mouth expressive of quick sensibility; above the good forehead, waving chestnut hair.
"You have travelled in Russia?" pursued the stranger.
"I lived at Odessa for some years, and I have seen something of other parts."
"You speak the language?"
Piers offered proof of this attainment, by replying in a few Russian sentences. His new acquaintance was delighted, again shook hands, and began to talk in his native tongue. They exchanged personal information. The Russian said that his name was Korolevitch; that he had an estate in the Government of Poltava, where he busied himself with farming, but that for two or three months of each year he travelled. Last winter he had spent in the United States; he was now visiting the great English seaports, merely for the interest of the thing. Otway felt how much less impressive was the account he had to give of himself, but his new friend talked with such perfect simplicity, so entirely as a good-humoured man of the world, that any feeling of subordination was impossible.
"Poltava I know pretty well," he said gaily. "I've been more than once at the July fair, buying wool. At Kharkoff too, on the same business."
They conversed for a couple of hours, at first amusing themselves with the rhetoric and arguments of the red-necked man. Korolevitch was a devoted student of poetry, and discovered not without surprise the Englishman's familiarity with that branch of Russian literature. He heard with great interest the few words Otway let fall about his father, who had known so many Russian exiles. In short, they got along together admirably, and, on parting for the night, promised each other to meet again in London some ten days hence.
When he had entered his bedroom, and turned the key in the lock, Piers stood musing over this event. Of a sudden there came into his mind the inexplicable impulse which brought him to this hotel, rather than to that recommended by the Liverpool acquaintance. An odd incident, indeed. It helped a superstitious tendency of Otway's mind, the disposition he had, spite of obstacle and misfortune, to believe that destiny was his friend.
At home again, Piers wrote to Olga, the greater part of the letter being occupied with an account of what had happened at Liverpool. It was not a love-letter, yet differed in tone from those he had hitherto written her; he spoke with impatience of the circumstances which made it difficult for them to meet, and begged that it might not be long before he saw her again. Olga's reply came quickly; it was frankly intimate, with no suggestion of veiled feeling. Her mother's letters, she said, were in Dr. Derwent's hands. "I told him who had given them to me, and how you obtained them. I doubt whether he will have anything to say to me about them, but that doesn't matter; he knows the truth." As for their meeting, any Sunday afternoon he would find her at Miss Bonnicastle's, in Great Portland Street. "I wish I were living there again," she added. "My uncle is very kind, but I can't feel at home here, and I hope I shall not stay very long."
So, on the next Sunday, Piers wended his way to Great Portland Street. Arriving about three o'clock, he found the artist of the posters sitting alone by her fire, legs crossed and cigarette in mouth.
"Ah, Mr. Otway!" she exclaimed, turning her head to see who entered in reply to her cry of "Don't be afraid!" Without rising, she held a hand to him. "I didn't think I should ever see you here again. How are you getting on? Beastly afternoon—come and warm your toes."
The walls were hung with clever brutalities of the usual kind. Piers glanced from them to Miss Bonnicastle, speculating curiously about her. He had no active dislike for this young woman, and felt a certain respect for her talent, but he thought, as before, how impossible it would be ever to regard her as anything but an abnormality. She was not ill-looking, but seemed to have no single characteristic of her sex which appealed to him.
"What do you think of that?" she asked abruptly, handing him an illustrated paper which had lain open on her lap.
The page she indicated was covered with some half-dozen small drawings, exhibiting scenes from a popular cafe in Paris, done with a good deal of vigour, and some skill in the seizing of facial types.
"Your work?" he asked.
"Mine?" she cried scoffingly. "I could no more do that than swim the channel. Look at the name, can't you?"
He found it in a corner.
"Kite? Our friend?"
"That's the man. He's been looking up since he went to Paris. Some things of his in a French paper had a lot of praise; nude figures—queer symbolical stuff, they say, but uncommonly well done. I haven't seen them; in London they'd be called indecent, the man said who was telling me about them. Of course that's rot. He'll be here in a few days, Olga says."
"She hears from him?"
"It was a surprise letter; he addressed it to this shop, and I sent it on—that's only pot-boiling, of course." She snatched back the paper. "But it's good in its way—don't you think?"
"Very good."
"We must see the other things they talk about—the nudes."
There was a knock at the door. "Come along!" cried Miss Bonnicastle, craning back her head to see who would enter. And on the door opening, she uttered an exclamation of surprise.
"Well, this is a day of the unexpected! Didn't know you were in England."
Piers saw a slim, dark, handsome man, who, in his elegant attire, rather reminded one of a fashion plate; he came briskly forward, smiling as if in extreme delight, and bent over the artist's hand, raising it to his lips.
"Now,you'dnever do that," said Miss Bonnicastle, addressing Otway, with an air of mock gratification. "This is Mr. Florio, the best-behaved man I know. Signor, you've heard us speak of Mr. Otway. Behold him!"
"Ah! Mr. Otway, Mr. Otway!" cried the Italian joyously. "Permit me the pleasure to shake hands with you! One more English friend! I collect English friends, as others collect pictures, bric-a-brac, what you will. Indeed, it is my pride to add to the collection—my privilege, my honour."
After exchange of urbanities, he turned to the exhibition on the walls, and exhausted his English in florid eulogy, not a word of which but sounded perfectly sincere. From this he passed to a glorification of the art of advertisement. It was the triumph of our century, the supreme outcome of civilisation! Otway, amusedly observant, asked with a smile what progress the art was making in Italy.
"Progress!" cried Florio, with indescribable gesture. "Italy and progress!—Yet," he proceeded, with a change of voice, "where would Italy be, but for advertisements? Italy lives by advertisements. She is the best advertised country in the world! Suppose the writers and painters ceased to advertise Italy; suppose it were no more talked about; suppose foreigners ceased to come! What would happen to Italy, I ask you?"
His face conveyed so wonderfully the suggestion of ravenous hunger, that Miss Bonnicastle screamed with laughter. Piers did not laugh, and turned away for a moment.
Soon after, there entered Olga Hannaford. Seeing the two men, she reddened and looked confused, but Miss Bonnicastle's noisy greeting relieved her. Her hand was offered first to Otway, who pressed it without speaking; their eyes met, and to Piers it seemed that she made an appeal for his forbearance, his generosity. The behaviour of the Italian was singular. Mute and motionless, he gazed at Olga with a wonder which verged on consternation; when she turned towards him, he made a profound bow, as though he met her for the first time.
"Don't you remember me, Mr. Florio?" she asked, in an uncertain voice.
"Oh—indeed—perfectly," was the stammered reply.
He took her fingers with the most delicate respectfulness, again bowing deeply; then drew back a little, his eyes travelling rapidly to the faces of the others, as if seeking an explanation. Miss Bonnicastle broke the silence, saying they must have some tea, and calling upon Olga to help her in preparing it. For a minute or two the men were left alone. Florio, approaching Piers on tiptoe, whispered anxiously:
"Miss Hannaford is in mourning?"
"Her mother is dead."
With a gesture of desolation, the Italian moved apart, and stood staring absently at a picture on the wall. For the next quarter of an hour, he took scarcely any part in the conversation; his utterances were grave and subdued; repeatedly he glanced at Olga, and, if able to do so unobserved, let his eyes rest upon her with agitated interest. But for the hostess, there would have been no talk at all, and even she fell far short of her wonted vivacity When things were at their most depressing, someone knocked.
"Who's that, I wonder?" said Miss Bonnicastle. "All right!" she called out. "Come along."
A head appeared; a long, pale, nervous countenance, with eyes that blinked as if in too strong a light. Miss Bonnicastle started up, clamouring an excited welcome. Olga flushed and smiled. It was Kite who advanced into the room; on seeing Olga he stood still, became painfully embarrassed, and could make no answer to the friendly greetings with which Miss Bonnicastle received him. Forced into a chair at length, and sitting sideways, with his long legs intertwisted, and his arms fidgeting about, he made known that he had arrived only this morning from Paris, and meant to stay in London for a month or two—perhaps longer—it depended on circumstances. His health seemed improved, but he talked in the old way, vaguely, languidly. Yes, he had had a little success; but it amounted to nothing; his work—rubbish! rubbish! Thereupon the cafe sketches in the illustrated papers were shown to Florio, who poured forth exuberant praise. A twinkle of pleasure came into the artist's eyes.
"But the other things we heard about?" said Miss Bonnicastle. "The what-d'ye-call 'ems, the figures——"
Kite shrugged his shoulders, and looked uneasy.
"Oh, pot-boilers! Poor stuff. Happened to catch people's eyes. Who told you about them?"
"Some man—I forget. And what are you doing now?"
"Oh, nothing. A little black-and-white for that thing," he pointed contemptuously to the paper. "Keeps me from idleness."
"Where are you going to live?"
"I don't know. I shall find a garret somewhere. Do you know of one about here?"
Olga's eyes chanced to meet a glance from Otway. She moved, hesitated, and rose from her chair. Kite and the Italian gazed at her, then cast a look at each other, then both looked at Otway, who had at once risen.
"Do you walk home?" said Piers, stepping towards her.
"I'd better have a cab."
It was said in a quietly decisive tone, and Piers made no reply. Both took leave with few words. Olga descended the stairs rapidly, and, without attention to her companion, turned at a hurried pace down the dark street. They had walked nearly a hundred yards when she turned her head and spoke.
"Can't you suggest some way for me to earn my living? I mean it. I must find something."
"Have you spoken to your uncle about it?" asked Piers mechanically.
"No; it's difficult. If I could go to him with something definite."
"Have you spoken to your cousin?"
Olga delayed an instant, and answered with an embarrassed abruptness.
"She's gone to Paris."
Before Piers could recover from his surprise, she had waved to an empty hansom driving past.
"Think about it," she added, "and write to me. I must do something. This life of loneliness and idleness is unbearable."
And Piers thought; to little purpose, for his mind was once more turned to Irene, and it cost him a painful effort to dwell upon Olga's circumstances. He postponed writing to her, until shame compelled him, and the letter he at length despatched seemed so empty, so futile, that he could not bear to think of her reading it. With astonishment he received an answer so gratefully worded that it moved his heart. She would reflect on the suggestions he had made; moreover, as he advised, she would take counsel frankly with the Doctor; and, whatever was decided, he should hear at once. She counted on him as a friend, a true friend; in truth, she had no other. He must continue to write to her, but not often, not more than once a fortnight or so. And let him be assured that she never for a moment forgot her lifelong debt to him.
This last sentence referred, no doubt, to her mother's letters. Dr. Derwent, it seemed, would make no acknowledgment of the service rendered him by a brother of the man whom he must regard as a pitiful scoundrel. How abhorred by him must be the name of Otway!
And could it be less hateful to his daughter, to Irene?
The days passed. A pleasant surprise broke the monotony of work and worry when, one afternoon, the office-boy handed in a card bearing the name Korolevitch. The Russian was spending a week in London, and Otway saw him several times; on one occasion they sat talking together till three in the morning. To Piers this intercourse brought vast mental relief, and gave him an intellectual impulse of which he had serious need in his life of solitude, ever tending to despondency. Korolevitch, on leaving England, volunteered to call upon Moncharmont at Odessa. He had wool to sell, and why not sell it to his friends? But he, as well as Piers, looked for profit of another kind from this happy acquaintance.
It was not long before Otway made another call upon Miss Bonnicastle, and at this time, as he had hoped, he found her alone, working. He led their talk to the subject of Kite.
"You ought to go and see him in his garret," said Miss Bonnicastle. "He'd like you to."
"Tell me, if you know," threw out the other, looking into her broad, good-natured face. "Is he still interested in Miss Hannaford?"
"Why, of course! He's one of the stupids who keep up that kind of thing for a lifetime. But 'he that will not when he may'! Poor silly fellow! How I should enjoy boxing his ears!"
They laughed, but Miss Bonnicastle seemed very much in earnest.
"He's tormenting his silly self," she went on, "because he has been unfaithful to her. There was a girl in Paris. Oh, he tells me everything! We're good friends. The girl over there did him enormous good, that's all I know. It was she that set him to work, and supplied him with his model at the same time! What better could have happened. And now the absurd creature has qualms of conscience!"
"Well," said Piers, smiling uneasily, "it's intelligible."
"Bosh! Don't be silly! A man has his work to do, and he must get what help he can. I shall pack him off back to Paris."
"I'll go and see him, I think. About the Italian, Florio. Has he also an interest?"
"In Olga? Yes, I fancy he has, but I don't know much about him. He comes and goes, on business. There's a chance, I think, of his dropping in for money before long. He isn't a bad sort—what do you think?"
That same afternoon Piers went in search of Kite's garret. It was a garret literally, furnished with a table and a bed, and little else, but a large fire burned cheerfully, and on the table, beside a drawing-board, stood a bottle of wine. When he had welcomed his visitor, Kite pointed to the bottle.
"I got used to it in Paris," he said, "and it helps me to work. I shan't offer you any, or you might be made ill; the cheapest claret on the market, but it reminds me of—of things."
There rose in Otway's mind a suspicion that, to-day at all events, Kite had found his cheap claret rather too seductive. His face had an unwonted warmth of colour, and his speech an unusual fluency. Presently he opened a portfolio and showed some of the work he had done in Paris: drawings in pen-and-ink, and the published reproductions of others; these latter, he declared, were much spoilt in the process work. The motive was always a nude female figure, of great beauty; the same face, with much variety of expression; for background all manner of fantastic scenes, or rather glimpses and suggestions of a poet's dreamland.
"You see what I mean?" said Kite. "It's simply Woman, as a beautiful thing, as a—a—oh, I can't get it into words. An ideal, you know—something to live for. Put her in a room—it becomes a different thing. Do you feel my meaning? English people wouldn't have these, you know. They don't understand. They call it sensuality."
"Sensuality!" cried Piers, after dreaming for a moment. "Great heavens! then why are human bodies made beautiful?"
The artist gave a strange laugh of gratification.
"There you hit it! Why—why? The work of the Devil, they say."
"The worst of it is," said Piers, "that they're right as regards most men. Beauty, as an inspiration, exists only for the few. Beauty of any and every kind—it's all the same. There's no safety for the world as we know it, except in utilitarian morals."
Later, when he looked back upon these winter months, Piers could distinguish nothing clearly. It was a time of confused and obscure motives, of oscillation, of dreary conflict, of dull suffering. His correspondence with Olga, his meetings with her, had no issue. He made a thousand resolves; a thousand times he lost them. But for the day's work, which kept him in an even tenor for a certain number of hours, he must have drifted far and perilously.
It was a life of solitude. The people with whom he talked were mere ghosts, intangible, not of his world. Sometimes, amid a crowd of human beings, he was stricken voiceless and motionless: he stared about him, and was bewildered, asking himself what it all meant.
His health was not good; he suffered much from headaches; he fell into languors, lassitude of body and soul. As a result, imagination seemed to be dead in him. The torments of desire were forgotten. When he heard that Irene Derwent had returned to London, the news affected him only with a sort of weary curiosity. Was it true that she would not marry Arnold Jacks? It seemed so. He puzzled over the story, wondered about it; but only his mind was concerned, never his emotions.
Once he was summoned to Queen's Gate. John Jacks lay on a sofa, in his bedroom; he talked as usual, but in a weaker voice, and had the face of a man doomed. Piers saw no one else in the house, and on going away felt that he had been under that roof for the last time.
His mind was oppressed with the thought of death. As happens, probably, to every imaginative man at one time or another, he had a conviction that his own days were drawing to a premature close. Speculation about the future seemed idle; he had come to the end of hopes and fears. Night after night his broken sleep suffered the same dream; he saw Mrs. Hannaford, who stretched her hands to him, and with a face of silent woe seemed to implore his help. Help against Death; and his powerlessness wrung his heart with anguish. Waking, he thought of all the women—beautiful, tender, objects of infinite passion and worship—who even at that moment lay smitten by the great destroyer; the gentle, the loving, racked, disfigured, flung into the horror of the grave. And his being rose in revolt; he strove in silent agony against the dark ruling of the world.
One day there was of tranquil self-possession, of blessed calm. A Sunday in January, when, he knew not how, he found himself amid the Sussex lanes, where he had rambled in the time of harvest. The weather, calm and dry and mild, but without sunshine, soothed his spirit. He walked for hours, and towards nightfall stood upon a wooded hill, gazing westward. An overcast, yet not a gloomy sky; still, soft-dappled; with rifts and shimmerings of pearly blue scattered among multitudinous billows, which here were a dusky yellow, there a deep neutral tint. In the low west, beneath the long dark edge, a soft splendour, figured with airy cloudlets, waited for the invisible descending sun. Moment after moment the rifts grew longer, the tones grew warmer; above began to spread a rosy flush; in front, the glory brightened, touching the cloud-line above it with a tender crimson.
If all days could be like this! One could live so well, he thought, in mere enjoyment of the beauty of earth and sky, all else forgotten. Under this soft-dusking heaven, death was welcome rest, and passion only a tender sadness.
He said to himself that he had grown old in hopeless love—only to doubt in the end whether he had loved at all.