CHAPTER XXXA JUST MAN ANGERED
When things are piled one on top of another beyond a certain height, they generally come down with a crash.
That one word “Sunday” was the last straw for Jones, sweeping away breakfast, bank and everything; coming on top of the events of the last twenty-four hours, it brought his mental complacency to ruin, ruin from which shot blazing jets of wrath.
Red rage filled him. He had been made game of, every man and everything was against him. Well, he would bite. He would strike. He would attack, careless of everything, heedless of everything.
A mesmerised looking taxi-cab, crawling along on the opposite side of the way, fortunately caught his eye.
“I’ll make hay!” cried Jones, as he rushed across the street. He stopped the cab.
“10A, Carlton House Terrace,” he cried to the driver. He got in and shut the door with a bang.
He got out at Carlton House Terrace, ran up the steps of 10A, and rang the bell.
The door was opened by the man who had helped to eject Spicer. He did not seem in the least surprised to see Jones.
“Pay that taxi,” said Jones.
“Yes, my Lord,” replied the flunkey.
Jones turned to the breakfast-room. The faint smell of coffee met him at the door as he opened it. There were no servants in the room. Only a woman quietly breakfasting with the Life of St. Thomas à Kempis by her plate.
It was Venetia Birdbrook.
She half rose from her chair when she saw Jones. He shut the door. The sight of Venetia acted upon him almost as badly as the word “Sunday” had done.
“What are you doing here?” said he. “I know—you and that lot had me tucked away in a lunatic asylum; now you have taken possession of the house.”
Venetia was quite calm.
“Since the house is not yours,” said she, “I fail to see how my presence here affects you. We know the truth. Dr. Simms has arrived at the conclusion that your confession was at least based on truth. That you are what you proclaimed yourself to be, a man named Jones. We thought you were mad, we see now that you are an impostor. Kindly leave this house or I will call for a policeman.”
Jones’ mind lost all its fire. Hatred can cool as well as inflame and he hated Venetia and all her belongings, including her dowager mother and her uncle the duke, with a hatred well based on reason and fact. All his fear of mind disturbance should he go on playing the part of Rochester had vanished, the fires of tribulation had purged them away.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” said he.“Do you mean that joke I played on you all? I am the Earl of Rochester, this is my house, and I request you to leave it. Don’t speak. I know what you are going to say. You and your family will do this and you will do that. You will do nothing. Even if I were an impostor you would dare to do nothing. Your family washing is far, far too much soiled to expose it in public.
“If I were an impostor, who can say I have not played an honourable game? I have recovered valuable property—did I touch it and take it away? Did I expose to the public an affair that would have caused a scandal? You will do nothing and you know it. You did not even dare to tell the servants here what has happened, for the servant who let me in was not a bit surprised. Now, if you have finished your breakfast, will you kindly leave my house?”
Venetia rose and took up her book.
“Yourhouse,” said she.
“Yes, my house. From this day forth, my house. But that is not all. To-morrow I will get lawyers to work and I’ll get apologies as big as houses from the whole lot of you—else I’ll prosecute.” He was getting angry, “prosecute you for doping me.” Recollections of the Barometer man’s advice came to him, “doping me in order to lay your hands on that million of money.”
He went to the bell and rang it.
“We want no scene before the servants,” said Venetia hurriedly.
“Then kindly go,” said Jones, “or you will have a perfect panorama before the servants.”
A servant entered.
“Send Church here,” said Jones. He was trembling like a furious dog.
He had got the whole situation in hand. He had told his tale and acted like an honourable man, the fools had disbelieved him and doped him. They had scented the truth but they dared do nothing. Mulhausen and the recovered mine, the Plinlimon letters, Rochester’s past, all these were his bastions, to say nothing of Rochester’s suicide.
The fear of publicity held them in a vice. Even were they to go to America and prove that a man called Jones exactly like the Earl of Rochester had lived in Philadelphia, go to the Savoy and prove that a man exactly like the Earl of Rochester had lived there, produce the clothes he had come home in that night—all of that would lead them, where—to an action at law.
They could not arrest him as an impostor till they had proved him an impostor. To prove that, they would have to turn the family history inside out before a gaping public.
Mr. Church came in.
“Church,” said Jones, “I played a practical joke on—on my people. I met a man called Jones at the Savoy—well, we needn’t go into details, he was very like me, and I told my people for a joke that I was Jones. The fools thought I was mad. They called in two doctors and drugged me and hauled meoff to a place. I got out, and here I am back. What do you think of that?”
“Well, my Lord,” said Church, “if I may say it to you, those practical jokes are dangerous things to play—Lord Langwathby—”
“Was he here?”
“He came last night, my Lord, to have a personal explanation about a telegram he said you sent him as a practical joke, some time ago, taking him up to Cumberland.”
“I’ll never play another,” said Jones. “Tell them to bring me some breakfast, and look here, Church, I’ve told my sister to leave the house at once. I want no more of her here. See that her luggage is taken down at once.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“And see here, Church, let no one in. Lord Langwathby, or anyone else. I want a little peace. By the way, have a taxi sent for, and tell me when my sister’s luggage is down.”
In the middle of breakfast, Church came in to say that Miss Birdbrook was departing and Jones came into the hall to verify the fact.
Venetia had brought a crocodile skin travelling bag and a trunk.
These were being conveyed to a taxi.
Not one word did she say to relieve her outraged feelings. The fear of a “scene before the servants” kept her quiet.
CHAPTER XXXIHE FINDS HIMSELF
That evening at nine o’clock, Jones sat in the smoking-room, writing. He had trusted Church with an important mission on the upshot of which his whole future depended.
If you will review his story, as he himself was reviewing it now, you will see that, despite a strong will and a mind quick to act, the freedom of his will had always been hampered by circumstance.
Circumstance from the first had determined that he should be a Lord.
I leave it to philosophers to determine what Circumstance is. I can only say that from a fair knowledge of life, Circumstance seems to me more than a fortuitous happening of things. Who does not know the man of integrity and ability, the man destined for the Presidency or the College chair, who remains in an office all his life? Luck is somehow against him. Or the man who, starting in life with everything against him, arrives, not by creeping, but by leaps and bounds.
I do not wish to cast a shade on individual effort; I only say this: If you ever find Circumstance, whose other name is Fortune, feeling for you in order to make you a lord, don’t kick, for when Fortune takesan interest in a man, she is cunning as a woman. She is a woman in fact.
At half past nine, a knock came to the door. It was opened by Church, who ushered in Teresa, Countess of Rochester.
Jones rose from his chair, Church shut the door, and they found themselves alone and face to face.
The girl did not sit down. She stood holding the back of a chair, and looking at the man before her. She looked scared, dazed, like a person suddenly awakened from sleep, in a strange place.
Jones knew at once.
“You have guessed the truth,” said he, “that I am not your husband.”
“I knew it,” she replied, “when you told us in the drawing-room— The others thought you mad. I knew you were speaking the truth.”
“That was why you ran from the room.”
“Yes; what more have you to say?”
“I have a very great deal more to say; will you not sit down?”
She sat down on the edge of a chair, folded her hands and continued looking at him with that scared, hunted expression.
“I want to say just this,” said Jones. “Right through this business from the very start I have tried to play a straight game. I can guess from your face that you fear me as if I were something horrible. I don’t blame you. I ask you to listen to me.
“Your husband took advantage of two facts: the fact that I am his twin image, as he called it, and thefact that I was temporarily without money and stranded in London. I am not a drunkard, but that night I came under the influence of strong drink. He took advantage of that to send me home as himself. I am going to say a nasty thing; that was not the action of a gentleman.”
The girl winced.
“Never,” went on Jones, “would I say things against a man who is dead, yet I am forced to tell you the truth, so that you may see this man as he was—wait.”
He went to the bureau and took out some papers. He handed her one. She read the contents:
“Stick to it—if you can. You’ll see why I couldn’t.”Rochester.“
“Stick to it—if you can. You’ll see why I couldn’t.
”Rochester.“
“That is your husband’s handwriting?”
“Yes.”
“Now think for a moment of his act as regards yourself. He sent me, a stranger, home, never thinking a thought about you.”
Her breath choked back.
“As for me,” went on Jones, “from the very first moment I saw you, I have thought of you and your welfare. I told my story for your sake, so that things might be cleared up, and they put me in an asylum for my pains. I escaped, I am here, and for your sake I am saying all this. Does it give me pleasure to show you your husband’s character? I wouldsooner cut off my right hand, but that would not help you. You have got to know, else I cannot possibly get out of this. Read these.”
He handed her the Plinlimon letters.
She read them carefully. Whilst she was doing so, he sat down and waited.
“These were written two years ago,” said she in a sad voice, as she folded them together, “a year after we were married.”
It was the tone of her voice that did it—as she handed the letters back to him, she saw that his eyes were filled with tears.
He put them back in the bureau without a word. He felt that he had struck the innocent again and most cruelly.
Then he came back to the chair on which he had been sitting and stood holding its back.
“You see how we are both placed,” said he. “To prove your husband’s death, all my business would have to be raked up. I don’t mind, because I have acted straight, but you would mind. The fact of his suicide, the fact of his sending me home—everything, that would hit you again and again. Yet, look at your position—I do not know what we are to do. If I go away and go back to the States, I leave you before the world as the wife of a man still living who has deserted you, if I stay and go on being the Earl of Rochester, you are tied to a phantom.”
He paced the floor, head down, wrestling with an insoluble problem, whilst she sat looking at him.
“Which is the easiest for you to do?” asked she.
“Oh, me,” said he; “I’m not thinking of myself—back to the States, of course, but that’s out of the question—there are lots of easy things to do, but when my case comes in contact with yours, there’s nothing easy to do. Do you think it was easy for me to go off that night and leave you waiting for me, feeling that you thought me a skunk? No, that was not easy.”
She had been sitting very calm and still up till now, then suddenly she looked down. She burst into tears.
“Oh,” she cried, “why were you not him—if he had only been you. He cared nothing for me, yet I loved him—you—you—”
“I care for nothing at all but you,” said he.
She shuddered all over and turned her head away.
“That’s the mischief of it as far as I am concerned,” he went on. “I can’t escape without injuring you and so myself—yet I don’t wonder at your hating me.”
She turned her face to him, it was flushed and wet.
“I do not hate you,” said she; “you are the only man I ever met—unselfish.”
“No,” he said, “I’m selfish. It’s just because I love you that I think of you more than myself, and I love you because you are good and sweet. I could not do you wrong just because of that. If you were another woman, I would not bother about you. I’d be cruel enough, I reckon, and go off and leave you tied up, and get back to the States—but you are you,and that’s my bother. I did not know till now how I was tied to you; yesterday at that asylum place and all last night I did not think of you. My one thought was to get away. I came here to-day, driven by want of money. I was so angry with the whole business, I determined to go on being Rochester—then you came into my mind and I sent Church to ask you to come and see me—much good it has done.”
“I don’t know,” she said.
He looked at her quickly. Her glance fell.
Next moment he was beside her, kneeling and holding her hand.
For a moment, they said not one word. Then he spoke as though answering questions.
“We can get married— Oh, I don’t mind going on being the Earl of Rochester. There were times when I thought I’d go cracked—but now you know the truth, I reckon I can go on pretending. People can have the marriage ceremony performed twice—of course, it would have to be private—I can’t think this is true—I don’t believe you can ever care for me—I don’t know, maybe you will—do you care for me for myself in the least—I reckon I’m half mad, but say—when did you begin to like me for myself—was it only just because you thought I was unselfish—was it—”
“If I like you at all,” she said, with a little catch in her voice, “perhaps it was that—night—”
“What night?”
“The night you struck—”
“The Russian—but you thought I washimthen.”
“Perhaps,” said she, dreamily, “but, I thought it was unlike him—do you understand?”
“I don’t know. I understand nothing but that I have got you to care for always, to worship, to lay myself down for you to trample on.”
“Good-night,” said she at last.
She was standing, preparing to go. “The family know the truth, at least they are sure of the truth, but, as you say, they can do nothing. Imagine their feelings when I tell them what we have agreed on! With me on your side they are absolutely helpless.”
There is, fortunately enough, no law preventing two married people being re-married, privately; the good old lawyers of England considering, no doubt, that a man having gone through the ceremony once would think it enough.
All this that I have been telling you happened some years ago, years marked by some very practical and brilliant speeches in the House of Lords and the death of the Hon. Venetia Birdbrook from liver complaint. It is a queer story, but not queerer than the face of the Dowager Countess of Rochester when she reads in private all the nice complimentary things that the papers have to say about her son.