Gaston lay for many days at "The Whisk o' Barley." During that time the inn was not open to customers. The woman also for two days hung at the point of death, and then rallied. She remembered the events of the painful night, and often asked after Gaston. Somehow, her horror of her son's death at his hands was met by the injury done him now. She vaguely felt that there had been justice and punishment. She knew that in the room at Labrador Gaston Belward had been scarcely less mad than her son.
Gaston, as soon as he became conscious, said that his assailant must be got out of the way of the police, and to that end bade Jacques send for Mr. Warren Gasgoyne. Mr. Gasgoyne and Sir William arrived at the same time, but Gaston was unconscious again. Jacques, however, told them what his master's wishes were, and they were carried out; Jock's friend secretly left England forever. Sir William and Mr. Gasgoyne got the whole tale from the landlord, whom they asked to say nothing publicly.
Lady Belward drove down each day, and sat beside him for a couple of hours-silent, solicitous, smoothing his pillow or his wasting hand. The brain had been injured, and recovery could not be immediate. Hovey the housekeeper had so begged to be installed as nurse, that her wish was granted, and she was with him night and day. Now she shook her head at him sadly, now talked in broken sentences to herself, now bustled about silently, a tyrant to the other servants sent down from the Court. Every day also the headgroom and the huntsman came, and in the village Gaston's humble friends discussed the mystery, stoutly defending him when some one said it was "more nor gabble, that theer saying o' the poacher at the meetin.'"
But the landlord and his wife kept silence, the officers of the law took no action, and the town and country newspapers could do no more than speak of "A vicious assault upon the heir of Ridley Court." It had become the custom now to leave Ian out of that question. But the wonder died as all wonders do, and Gaston made his fight for health.
The day before he was removed to the Court, Mrs. Cawley was helped up-stairs to see him. She was gaunt and hollow-eyed. Lady Belward and Mrs.Gasgoyne were present. The woman made her respects, and then stood atGaston's bedside. He looked up with a painful smile.
"Do you forgive me?" he asked. "I've almost paid!"
He touched his bandaged head.
"It ain't for mothers to forgi'e the thing," she replied, in a steady voice, "but I can forgi'e the man. 'Twere done i' madness—there beant the will workin' i' such. 'Twere a comfort that he'd a prayin' over un."
Gaston took the gnarled fingers in his. It had never struck him how dreadful a thing it was—so used had he been to death in many forms—till he had told the story to this mother.
"Mrs. Cawley," he said, "I can't make up to you what Jock would have been; but I can do for you in one way as much as Jock. This house is yours from to-day."
He drew a deed from the coverlet, and handed it to her. He had got it from Sir William that morning. The poor and the crude in mind can only understand an objective emotion, and the counters for these are this world's goods. Here was a balm in Gilead. The love of her child was real, but the consolation was so practical to Mrs. Cawley that the lips which might have cursed, said:
"Ah, sir, the wind do be fittin' the shore lamb! I' the last Judgen,I'll no speak agen 'ee. I be sore fretted harm come to 'ee."
At this Mrs. Gasgoyne rose, and in her bustling way dismissed the grateful peasant, who fondled the deed and called eagerly down the stairs to her husband as she went.
Mrs. Gasgoyne then came back, sat down, and said: "Now you needn't fret about that any longer—barbarian!" she added, shaking a finger. "Didn't I say that you would get into trouble? that you would set the country talking? Here you were, in the dead of night, telling ghost stories, and raking up your sins, with no cause whatever, instead of in your bed. You were to have lunched with us the next day—I had asked Lady Harriet to meet you, too!—and you didn't; and you have wretched patches where your hair ought to be. How can you promise that you'll not make a madder sensation some day?"
Gaston smiled up at her. Her fresh honesty, under the guise of banter, was always grateful to him. He shook his head, smiled, and said nothing.
She went on.
"I want a promise that you will do what your godfather and godmother will swear for you."
She acted on him like wine.
"Of course, anything. Who are my godfather and godmother?"
She looked him steadily, warmly in the eyes: "Warren and myself."
Now he understood: his promise to his grandmother and grandfather. So, they had spoken! He was sure that Mrs. Gasgoyne had objected. He knew that behind her playful treatment of the subject there was real scepticism of himself. It put him on his mettle, and yet he knew she read him deeper than any one else, and flattered him least.
He put out his hand, and took hers.
"You take large responsibilities," he said, "but I will try and justify you—honestly, yes."
In her hearty way, she kissed him on the cheek. "There," she responded, "if you and Delia do make up your minds, see that you treat her well. And you are to come, just as soon as you are able, to stay at Peppingham. Delia, silly child, is anxious, and can't see why she mustn't call with me now."
In his room at the Court that night, Gaston inquired of Jacques about Alice Wingfield, and was told that on the day of the accident she had left with her grandfather for the Continent. He was not sorry. For his own sake he could have wished an understanding between them. But now he was on the way to marriage, and it was as well that there should be no new situations. The girl could not wish the thing known. There would be left him, in this case, to befriend her should it ever be needed. He remembered the spring of pleasure he felt when he first saw other faces like his father's—his grandfather's, his grandmother's. But this girl's was so different to him; having the tragedy of the lawless, that unconscious suffering stamped by the mother upon the child. There was, however, nothing to be done. He must wait.
Two days later Lady Dargan called to inquire after him. He was lying in his study with a book, and Lady Belward sent to ask him if he would care to see her and Lord Dargan's nephew, Cluny Vosse. Lady Belward did not come; Sir William brought them. Lady Dargan came softly to him, smiled more with her eyes than her lips, and told him how sorry she had been to hear of his illness. Some months before Gaston had met Cluny Vosse, who at once was his admirer. Gaston liked the youth. He was fresh, high- minded, extravagant, idle; but he had no vices, and no particular vanity save for his personal appearance. His face was ever radiant with health, shining with satisfaction. People liked him, and did not discount it by saying that he had nothing in him. Gaston liked him most because he was so wholly himself, without guile, beautifully honest.
Now Cluny sat down, tapped the crown of his hat, looked at him cheerily, and said:
"Got in a cracker, didn't he?"
Gaston nodded, amused.
"The fellows at Brooke's had a talkee-talkee, and they'd twenty different stories. Of course it was rot. We were all cut up though and hoped you'd pull through. Of course there couldn't be any doubt of that— you've been through too many, eh?"
Cluny always assumed that Gaston had had numberless tragical adventures which, if told, must make Dumas turn in his grave with envy.
Gaston smiled, and laid a hand upon the other's knee. "I'm not shell- proof, Vosse, and it was rather a narrow squeak, I'm told. But I'm kept, you see, for a worse fate and a sadder."
"I say, Belward, you don't mean that! Your eyes go so queer sometimes, that a chap doesn't know what to think. You ought to live to a hundred. You'll have to. You've got it all—"
"Oh no, my boy, I haven't got anything." He waved his hand pleasantly towards his grandfather. "I'm on the knees of the gods merely."
Cluny turned on Sir William.
"It isn't any secret, is it, sir? He gets the lot, doesn't he?"
Sir William's occasional smile came.
"I fancy there's some condition about the plate, the pictures, and the title; but I do not suppose that matters meanwhile."
He spoke half-musingly and with a little unconscious irony, and the boy, vaguely knowing that there was a cross-current somewhere, drifted.
"No, of course not; he can have fun enough without them, can't he?"
Lady Dargan here soothingly broke in, inquiring about Gaston's illness, and showing a tactful concern. But the nephew persisted:
"I say, Belward, Aunt Sophie was cut up no end when she heard of it. She wouldn't go out to dinner that night at Lord Dunfolly's, and, of course, I didn't go. And I wanted to; for Delia Gasgoyne was to be there, and she's ripping."
Lady Dargan, in spite of herself, blushed, but without confusion, and Gaston adroitly led the conversation otherwhere. Presently she said that they were to be at their villa in France during the late summer, and if he chanced to be abroad would he come? He said that he intended to visit his uncle in Paris, but that afterwards he would be glad to visit them for a short time.
She looked astonished. "With your uncle Ian!"
"Yes. He is to show me art-life, and all that."
She looked troubled. He saw that she wished to say something.
"Yes, Lady Dargan?" he asked.
She spoke with fluttering seriousness.
"I asked you once to come to me if you ever needed a friend. I do not wait for that. I ask you not to go to your uncle."
"Why?"
He was thinking that, despite social artifice and worldliness, she was sentimental.
"Because there will be trouble. I can see it. You may trust a woman's instinct; and I know that man!" He did not reply at once, but presently said:
"I fancy I must keep my promise."
"What is the book you are reading?" she said, changing the subject, forSir William was listening.
He opened it, and smiled musingly.
"It is called Affairs of Some Consequence in the Reign of Charles I. In reading it I seemed to feel that it was incorrect, and my mind kept wandering away into patches of things—incidents, scenes, bits of talk —as I fancied they really were, not apocryphal or 'edited' as here."
"I say," said Cluny, "that's rum, isn't it?"
"For instance," Gaston continued, "this tale of King Charles and Buckingham." He read it. "Now here is the scene as I picture it." In quick elliptical phrases he gave the tale from a different stand-point.
Sir William stared curiously at Gaston, then felt for some keys in his pocket. He got up and rang the bell. Gaston was still talking. He gave the keys to Falby with a whispered word. In a few moments Falby placed a small leather box beside Sir William, and retired at a nod. Sir William presently said: "Where did you read those things?"
"I do not know that I ever read them."
"Did your father tell you them?"
"I do not remember so, though he may have."
"Did you ever see this box?"
"Never before."
"You do not know what is in it?"
"Not in the least."
"And you have never seen this key?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"It is very strange." He opened the box. "Now, here are private papers of Sir Gaston Belward, more than two hundred years old, found almost fifty years ago by myself in the office of our family solicitor. Listen."
He then began to read from the faded manuscript. A mysterious feelingpervaded the room. Once or twice Cluny gave a dry nervous kind of laugh.Much of what Gaston had said was here in stately old-fashioned language.At a certain point the MS. ran:
"I drew back and said, 'As your grace will have it, then—"'
Here Gaston came to a sitting posture, and interrupted.
"Wait, wait!"
He rose, caught one of two swords that were crossed on the wall, and stood out.
"This is how it was. 'As your grace will have it, then, to no waste of time!' We fell to. First he came carefully and made strange feints, learned at King Louis's Court, to try my temper. But I had had these tricks of my cousin Secord, and I returned his sport upon him. Then he came swiftly, and forced me back upon the garden wall. I gave to him foot by foot, for he was uncommon swift and dexterous. He pinched me sorely once under the knee, and I returned him one upon the wrist, which sent a devilish fire into his eyes. At that his play became so delicate and confusing that I felt I should go dizzy if it stayed; so I tried the one great trick cousin Secord taught me, making to run him through, as a last effort. The thing went wrong, but checking off my blunder he blundered too,—out of sheer wonder, perhaps, at my bungling,—and I disarmed him. So droll was it that I laughed outright, and he, as quick in humour as in temper, stood hand on hip, and presently came to a smile. With that my cousin Secord cried: 'The king! the king!' I got me up quickly—"
Here Gaston, who had in a kind of dream acted the whole scene, swayed with faintness, and Cluny caught him, saving him from a fall. Cluny's colour was all gone. Lady Dargan had sat dazed, and Sir William's face was anxious, puzzled.
A few hours later Sir William was alone with Gaston, who was recovered and cool.
"Gaston," he said, "I really do not understand this faculty of memory, or whatever it is. Have you any idea how you come by it?"
"Have we any idea how life comes and goes, sir?"
"I confess not. I confess not, really."
"Well, I'm in the dark about it too; but I sometimes fancy that I'm mixed up with that other Gaston."
"It sounds fantastic."
"It is fantastic. Now, here is this manuscript, and here is a letter I wrote this morning. Put them together."
Sir William did so.
"The handwriting is singularly like."
"Well," continued Gaston, smiling whimsically, "suppose that I am Sir Gaston Belward, Baronet, who is thought to lie in the church yonder, the title is mine, isn't it?"
Sir William smiled also.
"The evidence is scarce enough to establish succession."
"But there would be no succession. A previous holder of the title isn't dead: ergo, the present holder, has no right."
Gaston had shaded his eyes with his hand, and he was watching Sir William's face closely, out of curiosity chiefly. Sir William regarded the thing with hesitating humour.
"Well, well, suppose so. The property was in the hands of a younger branch of the family then. There was no entail, as now."
"Wasn't there?" said Gaston enigmatically.
He was thinking of some phrases in a manuscript which he had found in this box.
"Perhaps where these papers came from there are others," he added.
Sir William lifted his eyebrows ironically. "I hardly think so."
Gaston laughed, not wishing him to take the thing at all seriously. He continued airily:
"It would be amusing if the property went with the title after all, wouldn't it, sir?"
Sir William got to his feet and said testily: "That should never be whileI lived!"
"Of course not, sir."
Sir William saw the bull, and laughed, heartily for him.
They bade each other good-night.
"I'll have a look in the solicitor's office all the same," said Gaston to himself.
A few days afterwards Gaston joined a small party at Peppingham. Without any accent life was made easy for him. He was alone much, and yet, to himself, he seemed to have enough of company.
The situation did not impose itself conspicuously. Delia gave him no especial reason to be vain. She had not an exceeding wit, but she had charm, and her talk was interesting to Gaston, who had come, for the first time, into somewhat intimate relations with an English girl. He was struck with her conventional delicacy and honour on one side, and the limitation of her ideas on the other. But with it all she had some slight touch of temperament which lifted her from the usual level. And just now her sprightliness was more marked than it had ever been.
Her great hour seemed come to her. She knew that there had been talk among the elders, and what was meant by Gaston's visit. Still, they were not much alone together. Gaston saw her mostly with others. Even a woman with a tender strain for a man knows what will serve for her ascendancy: the graciousness of her disposition, the occasional flash of her mother's temper, and her sense of being superior to a situation—the gift of every well-bred English girl.
Cluny Vosse was also at the house, and his devotion was divided between Delia and Gaston. Cluny was a great favourite, and Agatha Gasgoyne, who had a wild sense of humour, egged him on with her sister, which gave Delia enough to do. At last Cluny, in a burst of confidence, declared that he meant to propose to Delia. Agatha then became serious, and said that Delia was at least four years older than himself, that he was just her—Agatha's—age, and that the other match would be very unsuitable. This put Cluny on Delia's defence, and he praised her youth, and hinted at his own elderliness. He had lived, he had seen It (Cluny called the world and all therein "It"), he was aged; he was in the large eye of experience; he had outlived the vices and the virtues of his time, which, told in his own naive staccato phrases, made Agatha hug herself. She advised him to go and ask Mr. Belward's advice; begged him not to act until he had done so. And Cluny, who was blind as a bat when a woman mocked him, went to Gaston and said:
"See, old chap,—I know you don't mind my calling you that—I've come for advice. Agatha said I'd better. A fellow comes to a time when he says, 'Here, I want a shop of my own,' doesn't he? He's seen It, he's had It all colours, he's ready for family duties, and the rest. That's so, isn't it?"
Gaston choked back a laugh, and, purposely putting himself on the wrong scent, said:
"And does Agatha agree?"
"Agatha? Come, Belward, that youngster! Agatha's only in on a sisterly- brotherly basis. Now, see I've got a little load of L s. d., and I'm to get more, especially if Uncle Dick keeps on thinking I am artless. Well, why shouldn't I marry?"
"No reason against it, if husband and father in you yearn for bibs and petticoats."
"I say, Belward, don't laugh!"
"I never was more serious. Who is the girl?"
"She looks up to you as I do-of course that's natural; and if it comes off, no one'll have a jollier corner chez nous. It's Delia."
"Delia? Delia who?"
"Why, Delia Gasgoyne. I haven't done the thing quite regular, I know. I ought to have gone to her people first; but they know all about me, and so does Delia, and I'm on the spot, and it wouldn't look well to be taking advantage of that with her father and mother-they'd feel bound to be hospitable. So I've just gone on my own tack, and I've come to Agatha and you. Agatha said to ask you if I'd better speak to Delia now."
"My dear Cluny, are you very much in love?"
"That sounds religious, doesn't it—a kind of Nonconformist business? I think she's the very finest. A fellow'd hold himself up, 'd be a deuce of a swell—and, hang it all, I hate breakfasting alone!"
"Yes, yes, Cluny; but what about a pew in church, with regular attendance, and a justice of the peace, and little Cluny Vosses on the carpet?"
Cluny's face went crimson.
"I say, Belward, I've seen It all, of course; I know It backwards, andI'm not squeamish, but that sounds—flippant-that, with her."
Gaston reached out and caught the boy's shoulder. "Don't do it, Cluny. Spare yourself. It couldn't come off. Agatha knows that, I fancy. She is a little sportsman. I might let you go and speak; but I think my chances are better than yours, Cluny. Hadn't you better let me try first? Then, if I fail, your chances are still the same, eh?"
Cluny gasped. His warm face went pale, then shot to purple, and finally settled into a grey ruddiness. "Belward," he said at last, "I didn't know; upon my soul, I didn't know, or I'd have cut off my head first."
"My dear Cluny, you shall have your chance; but let me go first, I'm older."
"Belward, don't take me for a fool. Why, my trying what you go to do is like—is like—"
Cluny's similes failed to come.
"Like a fox and a deer on the same trail?"
"I don't understand that. Like a yeomanry steeplechase to Sandown—is that it? Belward, I'm sorry. Playing it so low on a chap you like!"
"Don't say a word, Cluny; and, believe me, you haven't yet seen all of It. There's plenty of time. When you really have had It, you will learn to say of a woman, not that she's the very finest, and that you hate breakfasting alone, but something that'll turn your hair white, or keep you looking forty when you're sixty."
That evening Gaston dressed with unusual care. When he entered the drawing-room, he looked as handsome as a man need in this world. His illness had refined his features and form, and touched off his cheerfulness with a fine melancholy. Delia glowed as she saw the admiring glances sent his way, but burned with anger when she also saw that he was to take in Lady Gravesend to dinner; for Lady Gravesend had spoken slightingly of Gaston—had, indeed, referred to his "nigger blood!" And now her mother had sent her in to dinner on his arm, she affable, too affable by a great deal. Had she heard the dry and subtle suggestion of Gaston's talk, she would, however, have justified her mother.
About half past nine Delia was in the doorway, talking to one of the guests, who, at the call of some one else, suddenly left her. She heard a voice behind her. "Will you not sing?"
She thrilled, and turned to say: "What shall I sing, Mr. Belward?"
"The song I taught you the other day—'The Waking of the Fire.'"
"But I've never sung it before anybody."
"Do I not count?—But, there, that's unfair! Believe me, you sing it very well."
She lifted her eyes to his:
"You do not pay compliments, and I believe you. Your 'very well' means much. If you say so, I will do my best."
"I say so. You are amenable. Is that your mood to-night?" He smiled brightly.
Her eyes flashed with a sweet malice.
"I am not at all sure. It depends on how your command to sing is justified."
"You cannot help but sing well."
"Why?"
"Because I will help you—make you."
This startled her ever so little. Was there some fibre of cruelty in him, some evil in this influence he had over her? She shrank, and yet again she said that she would rather have his cruelty than another man's tenderness, so long as she knew that she had his— She paused, and did not say the word. She met his eyes steadily—their concentration dazed her—then she said almost coldly, her voice sounding far away:
"How, make me?"
"How fine, how proud!" he said to himself, then added:
"I meant 'make' in the helpful sense. I know the song: I've heard it sung, I've sung it; I've taught you; my mind will act on yours, and you will sing it well."
"Won't you sing it yourself? Do, please."
"No; to-night I wish to hear you."
"Why?"
"I will tell you later. Can you play the accompaniment? If not, I—"
"Oh, will you? I could sing it then, I think. You played it so beautifully the other day—with all those strange chords."
He smiled.
"It is one of the few things that I can play. I always had a taste for music; and up in one of the forts there was an old melodeon, so I hammered away for years. I had to learn difficult things at the start, or none at all, or else those I improvised; and that's how I can play one or two of Beethoven's symphonies pretty well, and this song, and a few others, and go a cropper with a waltz. Will you come?"
They moved to the piano. No one at first noticed them. When he sat down, he said:
"You remember the words?"
"Yes, I learned them by heart."
"Good!"
He gently struck the chords. His gentleness had, however, a firmness, a deep persuasiveness, which drew every face like a call. A few chords waving, as it were, over the piano, and then he whispered:
"Now."
"Please go on for a minute longer," she begged.
"My throat feels dry all at once."
"Face away from the rest, towards me," he said gently.
She did so. His voice took a note softly, and held it. Presently her voice as softly joined it, his stopped, and hers went on:
"In the lodge of the Mother of Men,In the land of Desire,Are the embers of fire,Are the ashes of those who return,Who return to the world:Who flame at the breathOf the Mockers of Death.O Sweet, we will voyage againTo the camp of Love's fire,Nevermore to return!"
"How am I doing?" she said at the end of this verse. She really did not know—her voice seemed an endless distance away. But she felt the stillness in the drawing-room.
"Well," he said. "Now for the other. Don't be afraid; let your voice, let yourself, go."
"I can't let myself go."
"Yes, you can: just swim with the music."
She did swim with it. Never before had Peppingham drawing-room heard a song like this; never before, never after, did any of Delia Gasgoyne's friends hear her sing as she did that night. And Lady Gravesend whispered for a week afterwards that Delia Gasgoyne sang a wild love song in the most abandoned way with that colonial Belward. Really a song of the most violent sentiment!
There had been witchery in it all. For Gaston lifted the girl on the waves of his music, and did what he pleased with her, as she sang:
"O love, by the light of thine eyeWe will fare oversea,We will beAs the silver-winged herons that restBy the shallows,The shallows of sapphire stone;No more shall we wander alone.As the foam to the shoreIs my spirit to thine;And God's serfs as they fly,—The Mockers of DeathThey will breathe on the embers of fire:We shall live by that breath,—Sweet, thy heart to my heart,As we journey afar,No more, nevermore, to return!"
When the song was ended there was silence, then an eager murmur, and requests for more; but Gaston, still lengthening the close of the accompaniment, said quietly:
"No more. I wanted to hear you sing that song only."
He rose.
"I am so very hot," she said.
"Come into the hall."
They passed into the long corridor, and walked up and down, for a time in silence.
"You felt that music?" he asked at last.
"As I never felt music before," she replied.
"Do you know why I asked you to sing it?"
"How should I know?"
"To see how far you could go with it."
"How far did I go?"
"As far as I expected."
"It was satisfactory?"
"Perfectly."
"But why—experiment—on me?"
"That I might see if you were not, after all, as much a barbarian as I."
"Am I?"
"No. That was myself singing as well as you. You did not enjoy it altogether, did you?"
"In a way, yes. But—shall I be honest? I felt, too, as if, somehow, it wasn't quite right; so much—what shall I call it?"
"So much of old Adam and the Garden? Sit down here for a moment, will you?"
She trembled a little, and sat.
"I want to speak plainly and honestly to you," he said, looking earnestly at her. "You know my history—about my wife who died in Labrador, and all the rest?"
"Yes, they have told me."
"Well, I have nothing to hide, I think; nothing more that you ought to know: though I've been a scamp one way and another."
"'That I ought to know'?" she repeated.
"Yes: for when a man asks a woman to be his wife, he should be prepared to open the cupboard of skeletons." She was silent; her heart was beating so hard that it hurt her.
"I am going to ask you to be my wife, Delia."
She was silent, and sat motionless, her hands clasped in her lap.
He went on
"I don't know that you will be wise to accept me, but if you will take the risk—"
"Oh, Gaston, Gaston!" she said, and her hands fluttered towards his.
An hour later, he said to her, as they parted for the night:
"I hope, with all my heart, that you will never repent of it, Delia."
"You can make me not repent of it. It rests with you, Gaston; indeed, indeed, all with you."
"Poor girl!" he said, unconsciously, as he entered his room. He could not have told why he said it. "Why will you always sit up for me, Brillon?" he asked a moment afterwards.
Jacques saw that something had occurred. "I have nothing else to do, sir," he replied. "Brillon," Gaston added presently, "we're in a devil of a scrape now."
"What shall we do, monsieur?"
"Did we ever turn tail?"
"Yes, from a prairie fire."
"Not always. I've ridden through."
"Alors, it's one chance in ten thousand!"
"There's a woman to be thought of—Jacques."
"There was that other time."
"Well, then?"
Presently Jacques said: "Who is she, monsieur?"
Gaston did not answer. He was thinking hard. Jacques said no more. The next morning early the guests knew who the woman was, and by noon Jacques also.
Gaston let himself drift. The game of love and marriage is exciting, the girl was affectionate and admiring, the world was genial, and all things came his way. Towards the end of the hunting season Captain Maudsley had an accident. It would prevent him riding to hounds again, and at his suggestion, backed by Lord Dunfolly and Lord Dargan, Gaston became Master of the Hounds. His grandfather and great-grandfather had been Master of the Hounds before him. Hunting was a keen enjoyment—one outlet for wild life in him—and at the last meet of the year he rode in Captain Maudsley's place. They had a good run, and the taste of it remained with Gaston for many a day; he thought of it sometimes as he rode in the Park now every morning—with Delia and her mother.
Jacques and his broncho came no more, or if they did it was at unseasonable hours, and then to be often reprimanded (and twice arrested) for furious riding. Gaston had a bad moment when he told Jacques that he need not come with him again. He did it casually, but, cool as he was, a cold sweat came on his cheek. He had to take a little brandy to steady himself—yet he had looked into menacing rifle-barrels more than once without a tremor. It was clear, on the face of it, that Delia and her mother should be his companions in the Park, and not this grave little half-breed; but, somehow, it got on his nerves. He hesitated for days before he could cast the die against Jacques. It had been the one open bond of the old life; yet the man was but a servant, and to be treated as such, and was, indeed, except on rarest occasions. If Delia had known that Gaston balanced the matter between her and Jacques, her indignation might perhaps have sent matters to a crisis. But Gaston did the only possible thing; and the weeks drifted on.
Happy? It was inexplicable even to himself that at times, when he leftDelia, he said unconsciously: "Well, it's a pity!"
But she was happy in her way. His dark, mysterious face with its background of abstraction, his unusual life, distinguished presence, and the fact that people of great note sought his conversation, all strengthened the bonds, and deepened her imagination; and imagination is at the root of much that passes for love. Gaston was approached at Lord Dargan's house by the Premier himself. It was suggested that he should stand for a constituency in the Conservative interest. Lord Faramond, himself picturesque, acute, with a keen knowledge of character and a taste for originality, saw material for a useful supporter—fearless, independent, with a gift for saying ironical things, and some primitive and fundamental principles well digested.
Gaston, smiling, said that he would only be a buffalo fretting on a chain.
Lord Faramond replied:
"And why the chain?" He followed this up by saying: "It is but a case of playing lion-tamer down there. Have one little gift all your own, know when to impose it, and you have the pleasure of feeling that your fingers move a great machine, the greatest in the world—yes the very greatest. There is Little Grapnel just vacant: the faithful Glynn is gone. Come: if you will, I'll send my secretary to-morrow morning-eh?"
"You are not afraid of the buffalo, sir?"
Lord Faramond's fingers touched his arm, drummed it "My greatest need— one to roar as gently as the sucking-dove."
"But what if I, not knowing the rules of the game, should think myself on the corner of the veldt or in an Indian's tepee, and hit out?"
"You do not carry derringers?"
He smiled. "No; but—"
He glanced down at his arms.
"Well, well; that will come one day, perhaps!" Lord Faramond paused, abstracted, then added: "But not through you. Good-bye, then, good-bye. Little Grapnel in ten days!"
And it was so. Little Grapnel was Conservative. It was mostly a matter of nomination, and in two weeks Gaston, in a kind of dream, went down to Westminster, lunched with Lord Faramond, and was introduced to the House. The Ladies Gallery was full, for the matter was in all the papers, and a pretty sensation had been worked up one way and another.
That night, after dinner, Gaston rose to make his maiden speech on a bill dealing with an imminent social question. He was not an amateur. Time upon time he had addressed gatherings in the North, and had once stood at the bar of the Canadian Commons to plead the cause of the half-breeds. He was pale, but firm, and looked striking. His eyes went slowly round the House, and he began in a low, clear, deliberate voice, which got attention at once. The first sentence was, however, a surprise to every one, and not the least to his own party, excepting Lord Faramond. He disclaimed detailed and accurate knowledge of the subject. He said this with an honesty which took away the breath of the House. In a quiet, easy tone he then referred to what had been previously said in the debate.
The first thing he did was to crumble away with a regretful kind of superiority the arguments of two Conservative speakers, to the sudden amusement of the Opposition, who presently cheered him. He looked up as though a little surprised, waited patiently, and went on. The iconoclasm proceeded. He had one or two fixed ideas in his mind, simple principles on social questions of which he had spoken to his leader, and he never wavered from the sight of them, though he had yet to state them. The Premier sat, head cocked, with an ironical smile at the cheering, but he was wondering whether, after all, his man was sure; whether he could stand this fire, and reverse his engine quite as he intended. One of the previous speakers was furious, came over and appealed to Lord Faramond, who merely said, "Wait."
Gaston kept on. The flippant amusement of the Opposition continued. Something, however, in his grim steadiness began to impress his own party as the other, while from more than one quarter of the House there came a murmur of sympathy. His courage, his stone-cold strength, the disdain which was coming into his voice, impressed them, apart from his argument or its bearing on the previous debate. Lord Faramond heard the occasional murmurs of approval and smiled. Then there came a striking silence, for Gaston paused. He looked towards the Ladies Gallery. As if in a dream—for his brain was working with clear, painful power—he saw, not Delia nor her mother, nor Lady Dargan, but Alice Wingfield! He had a sting, a rush in his blood. He felt that none had an interest in him such as she: shamed, sorrowful, denied the compensating comfort which his brother's love might give her. Her face, looking through the barriers, pale, glowing, anxious, almost weird, seemed set to the bars of a cage.
Gaston turned upon the House, and flashed a glance towards Lord Faramond, who, turned round on the Treasury Bench, was looking up at him. He began slowly to pit against his former startling admissions the testimony of his few principles, and to buttress them on every side with apposite observations, naive, pungent. Presently there came a poignant edge to his trailing tones. After giving the subject new points of view, showing him to have studied Whitechapel as well as Kicking Horse Pass, he contended that no social problem could be solved by a bill so crudely radical, so impractical.
He was saying: "In the history of the British Parliament—" when some angry member cried out, "Who coached you?"
Gaston's quick eye found the man.
"Once," he answered instantly, "one honourable gentleman asked that of another in King Charles's Parliament, and the reply then is mine now— 'You, sir!'"
"How?" returned the puzzled member.
Gaston smiled:
"The nakedness of the honourable gentleman's mind!"
The game was in his hands. Lord Faramond twisted a shoulder with satisfaction, tossed a whimsical look down the line of the Treasury Bench, and from that Bench came unusual applause.
"Where the devil did he get it?" queried a Minister.
"Out on the buffalo-trail," replied Lord Faramond. "Good fellow!"
In the Ladies Gallery, Delia clasped her mother's hand with delight; in the Strangers Gallery, a man said softly, "Not so bad, Cadet."
Alice Wingfield's face had a light of aching pleasure. "Gaston, Gaston!" she said, in a whisper heard only by the woman sitting next to her, who though a stranger gave a murmur of sympathy.
Gaston made his last effort in a comparison of the state of the English people now and before she became Cromwell's Commonwealth, and then incisively traced the social development onwards. It was the work of a man with a dramatic nature and a mathematical turn. He put the time, the manners, the movements, the men, as in a picture.
Presently he grew scornful. His words came hotly, like whip-lashes. He rose to force and power, though his voice was never loud, rather concentrated, resonant. It dropped suddenly to a tone of persuasiveness and conciliation, and declaring that the bill would be merely vicious where it meant to be virtuous, ended with the question:
"Shall we burn the house to roast the pig?"
"That sounds American," said the member for Burton-Halsey, "but he hasn't an accent. Pig is vulgar though—vulgar."
"Make it Lamb—make it Lamb!" urged his neighbour.
Meanwhile both sides applauded. Maiden speeches like this were not common. Lord Faramond turned round to him. Another member made way and Gaston leaned towards the Premier, who nodded and smiled. "Most excellent buffalo!" he said.
"One day we will chain you—to the Treasury Bench."
Gaston smiled.
"You are thought prudent, sir!"
"Ah! an enemy hath said this."
Gaston looked towards the Ladies Gallery. Delia's eyes were on him;Alice was gone.
A half-hour later he stood in the lobby, waiting for Mrs. Gasgoyne, Lady Dargan, and Delia to come. He had had congratulations in the House; he was having them now. Presently some one touched him on the arm.
"Not so bad, Cadet."
Gaston turned and saw his uncle. They shook hands. "You've a gift that way," Ian Belward continued, "but to what good? Bless you, the pot on the crackling thorns! Don't you find it all pretty hollow?"
Gaston was feeling reaction from the nervous work. "It is exciting."
"Yes, but you'll never have it again as to-night. The place reeks with smugness, vanity, and drudgery. It's only the swells—Derby, Gladstone, and the few—who get any real sport out of it. I can show you much more amusing things."
"For instance?"
"'Hast thou forgotten me?' You hungered for Paris and Art and the joyous life. Well, I'm ready. I want you. Paris, too, is waiting, and a good cuisine in a cheery menage. Sup with me at the Garrick, and I'll tell you. Come along. Quis separabit?"
"I have to wait for Mrs. Gasgoyne—and Delia."
"Delia! Delia! Goddess of proprieties, has it come to that!"
He saw a sudden glitter in Gaston's eyes, and changed his tone.
"Well, an' a man will he will, and he must be wished good-luck. So, good-luck to you! I'm sorry, though, for that cuisine in Paris, and the grand picnic at Fontainebleau, and Moban and Cerise. But it can't be helped."
He eyed Gaston curiously. Gaston was not in the least deceived. His uncle added presently, "But you will have supper with me just the same?"
Gaston consented, and at this point the ladies appeared. He had a thrill of pleasure at hearing their praises, but, somehow, of all the fresh experiences he had had in England, this, the weightiest, left him least elated. He had now had it all: the reaction was begun, and he knew it.
"Well, Ian Belward, what mischief are you at now?" said Mrs. Gasgoyne.
"A picture merely, and to offer homage. How have you tamed our lion, and how sweetly does he roar! I feed him at my Club to-night."
"Ian Belward, you are never so wicked as when you ought most to be decent.—I wish I knew your place in this picture," she added brusquely.
"Merely a little corner at their fireside." He nodded towards Delia andGaston.
"The man has sense, and Delia is my daughter!"
"Precisely why I wish a place in their affections."
"Why don't you marry one of the women you have—spoiled, and spend the rest of your time in living yourself down? You are getting old."
"For their own sakes, I don't. Put that to my credit. I'll have but one mistress only as the sand gets low. I've been true to her."
"You, true to anything!"
"The world has said so."
"Nonsense! You couldn't be."
"Visit my new picture in three months—my biggest thing. You will say my mistress fares well at my hands."
"Mere talk. I have seen your mistress, and before every picture I have thought of those women! A thing cannot be good at your price: so don't talk that sentimental stuff to me."
"Be original; you said that to me thirty years ago."
"I remember perfectly: that did not require much sense."
"No; you tossed it off, as it were. Yet I'd have made you a good husband. You are the most interesting woman I've ever met."
"The compliment is not remarkable. Now, Ian Belward, don't try to say clever things. And remember that I will have no mischief-making."
"At thy command—"
"Oh, cease acting, and take Sophie to her carriage." Two hours later, Delia Gasgoyne sat in her bedroom wondering at Gaston's abstraction during the drive home. Yet she had a proud elation at his success, and a happy tear came to her eye.
Meanwhile Gaston was supping with his uncle. Ian was in excellent spirits: brilliant, caustic, genial, suggestive. After a little while Gaston rose to the temper of his host. Already the scene in the Commons was fading from him, and when Ian proposed Paris immediately, he did not demur. The season was nearly over,
Ian said; very well, why remain? His attendance at the House? Well, it would soon be up for the session. Besides, the most effective thing he could do was to disappear for the time. Be unexpected—that was the key to notoriety. Delia Gasgoyne? Well, as Gaston had said, they were to meet in the Mediterranean in September; meanwhile a brief separation would be good for both. Last of all—he did not wish to press it—but there was a promise!
Gaston answered quietly, at last: "I will redeem the promise."
"When?"
"Within thirty-six hours."
"That is, you will be at my studio in Paris within thirty-six hours from now?"
"That is it."
"Good! I shall start at eight to-morrow morning. You will bring your horse, Cadet?"
"Yes, and Brillon."
"He isn't necessary." Ian's brow clouded slightly.
"Absolutely necessary."
"A fantastic little beggar. You can get a better valet in France. Why have one at all?"
"I shall not decline from Brillon on a Parisian valet. Besides, he comes as my camarade."
"Goth! Goth! My friend the valet! Cadet, you're a wonderful fellow, but you'll never fit in quite."
"I don't wish to fit in; things must fit me." Ian smiled to himself.
"He has tasted it all—it's not quite satisfying—revolution next! What a smash-up there'll be! The romantic, the barbaric overlaps. Well, I shall get my picture out of it, and the estate too."
Gaston toyed with his wine-glass, and was deep in thought. Strange to say, he was seeing two pictures. The tomb of Sir Gaston in the little church at Ridley: A gipsy's van on the crest of a common, and a girl standing in the doorway.
Down in her heart, loves to be masteredI don't wish to fit in; things must fit meImagination is at the root of much that passes for loveLive and let live is doing good