The Duke's Sweetheart: A Romance
by Richard Dowling · English · Gutenberg #42599 · 555,833 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Duke's Sweetheart: A Romance
Author: Richard Dowling
Release date: April 26, 2013 [eBook #42599]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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(Oxford University)
THE DUKE'S SWEETHEART.
THE DUKE'S SWEETHEART.
A Romance.
BY
RICHARD DOWLING,
AUTHOR OF
"THE MYSTERY OF KILLARD," "THE SPORT OF FATE," "UNDER
ST. PAUL'S," ETC.
_NEW EDITION_.
LONDON:
WARD & DOWNEY, 12, YORK ST., COVENT GARDEN.
1885.
[_All rights reserved_.]
PRINTED BY
KELLY AND CO., GATE STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS
AND KINGSTON-ON-THAMES.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
THE DUKE OF LONG ACRE.
CHAP.
I.--The Duke's Sweetheart.
II.--A Ducal Carriage.
III.--A Village Story.
IV.--A Town Story.
V.--Under Anerly Bridge.
VI.--What's in a Name?
VII.--A Story of a City.
VIII.--On Board the Yacht "Seabird."
IX.--The Marquis of Southwold's Letter.
X.--Rousing the Lion.
XI.--At Bankleigh.
XII.--The Duke's Weather.
XIII.--A Nor'-Easter at Sea.
XIV.--Two Discoveries.
XV.--An Invisible Foe.
XVI.--On the Rocks.
XVII.--VOLUNTEER I.
XVIII.--Volunteer II.
XIX.--The Rescue.
XX.--Fame.
XXI.--Coincidences.
XXII.--Thirty-five Years After.
PART II.
THE DUKE OF SHROPSHIRE.
I.--The Two Cheynes.
II.--The Dread of Strawberry Leaves.
III.--The Return of the Prodigal.
IV.--The Impending Coronet.
V.--The Glorious Privilege.
VI.--A Supper without a Host.
VII.--Adrift.
VIII.--On the Track.
IX.--Waiting for News.
X.--"Fire!"
XI.--Dawn.
XII.--Night.
XIII.--On the Roof.
XIV.--A Silent Drive.
XV.--The Marriage of Charlie and May.
THE DUKE'S SWEETHEART.
PART I.
THE DUKE OF LONG ACRE.
CHAPTER I.
THE DUKE'S SWEETHEART.
Charles Augustus Cheyne, Duke of Long Acre, had no land. Neither in
the United Kingdom nor in any other state of earth did he own a perch
of ground. He did not own mines or railways, or Consols, or foreign or
domestic stock of any kind. All the money he had was the result of his
own industrious fingers, of his own industrious brain. Neither the
Heralds' College nor the Lord Chancellor had ever heard of the Duke of
Long Acre. The title was one purely of courtesy, conferred upon him by
his peers, who were no peers of the realm, but untitled citizens of
the Republic of Letters. If he was no duke, he would have furnished
sufficient material for making two dukes of satisfactory size, as
dukes go now. He was six feet tall, measured fifty inches round the
chest, and forty-two round the waist. He had a large, beaming,
good-humoured face. He wore no hair on his face; the hair of his head
was of a dull dun colour, and always closely cut. No one could
remember the colour of his eyes. He was reported to be the strongest
and best-tempered man in Fleet Street. He could bend a kitchen-poker
into a triangle, and bend it back again, so that one would scarcely
notice it had ever been out of shape. He had never struck a man in
anger, although he had been often sorely provoked, and more than once
absolutely assaulted. On an occasion when a powerful rough attacked
him, late at night, in one of the western squares, he had closed with
his assailant, caught him round the body, first pinned one hand down,
and then the other. Having given his prisoner a good squeeze, which
nearly crushed the rough's ribs flat, Long Acre carried the man across
the roadway, tossed him over the railings among some shrubs, and
walked away. He was never known to curse or swear, or borrow money, or
drink too much. His honour was above impeachment; he had never done
anything mean or low or shabby. He was a gentleman in the perfect
meaning of the word. He dressed in good taste; his clothes always
looked fresh, although his coat was often far from new. He walked with
the gait of one who would willingly stop to do a favour or lend
assistance. He was sufficiently, not oppressively, attentive to women;
when men were talking he would always step in gallantly to the rescue
of a fair fame. He was loyal to his friends; he would have been
forgiving to his enemies, if there were any, but none existed. He made
friends very quickly. "I want all the friends I can make," he would
say, "for I haven't a single relative alive."
He was thirty-four years of age, and lived in two rooms at the top of
a house in Long Acre. With the exception of his rooms all the house
was taken up with the business of carriage-making. The name of the
carriage-maker was Whiteshaw.
No one of his grace's acquaintances knew anything of his history
before sixteen years ago, when he first appeared in Fleet Street. At
that time he was a slender, graceful, handsome lad, modest of manner
and courteous of address. He was then known as Charles Augustus
Cheyne; he had not displayed the wealth of imagination which, later
on, caused him to be advanced to the front rank of the peerage. He had
a faculty for writing prose stories, which, if never strong, were
never vulgar. He would not at any time refer to his past history; and
if one put to him a point-blank question, such as "Who was your
father, Cheyne?" he would always answer vaguely, "A poor gentleman,
who met with a great reverse of fortune, and was ruined and died
before I can remember." "And is your mother dead also?" "Yes, my
mother is dead also. It is a dismal thing to be as I am without a
relative in the world. Let us not speak any more on the subject."
Owing to the splendour of his imagination, which he never allowed for
a moment to be dominated by facts, and to the easy and familiar way in
which he spoke of the nobility, his friends had created him Duke of
Long Acre. Although he preferred being called Cheyne, he answered to
the name of Long Acre without any sort of resentment, or even
displeasure.
One bright June morning he arose and dressed himself with peculiar
care. He had business of the very first importance to transact that
day. The Duke of Long Acre had at last given away his heart, and today
he was to meet the lady of his choice in Hyde Park at eleven o'clock.
Mrs. Ward, an extremely slatternly woman of fifty, whom Cheyne called
his housekeeper--and who came from her home in the Dials, lit his fire
and got his breakfast for him of mornings, and made up his rooms, for
the modest sum of five shillings a week--had toasted the bacon in a
little Dutch oven, and put it on a fiery-hot plate, and made the tea
for him, and set forth the milk and bread and butter.
Cheyne sat down and began his breakfast.
"This bacon is delicious, Mrs. Ward," he called out to the charwoman
in the next room.
"I am glad you like it, sir."
"Delicious! I could eat a whole pig, Mrs. Ward, I think, if you cooked
it."
"It is very good of you to say so, sir."
"And I am sure I don't know how it is you always get such good butter
and such exceedingly good milk. I assure you, when I was staying with
the Duke of Dorsetshire last summer I got much inferior butter,
although he has the reputation of producing in his dairy the very
finest butter of the kingdom. He told me he often sends a tub of his
butter to the Prince of Wales, just in a friendly way, you know. I own
his grace's butter has the full buttercup flavour; but this goes
farther--this tastes of nothing but violets and cowslips."
"It ought to be good, sir; it's fivepence-halfpenny the quarter.
Eating butter is eating money these times."
"You can't expect to get the essential oil of violets and cowslips
permeating the most nutritious and delicate of all fixed oils at less
than fivepence-halfpenny for a quarter of a pound."
"Maybe not, sir, if you put it that way."
All through his breakfast, Cheyne chatted with Mrs. Ward. When he had
finished he rose, put on his hat, and having bade Mrs. Ward good-bye,
went out.
It was bright and clear and fresh even in Long Acre that morning, and
Cheyne had a theory that bright, clear, fresh days were made for
walking, so he set off for Hyde Park at a quick pace. He would have
walked all round the world rather than take an omnibus, and cabs are
expensive luxuries to be used only in extreme cases. What can be
finer than for a man in good health and spirits to walk down
Piccadilly on a bright June day, and turn into Hyde Park to meet his
sweetheart? All round you were the mansions of the richest aristocracy
in the world. Here was the sense that, even if one did not belong to
this privileged class, one was as free to the sunlight and the street
and beautifully-kept park as the owner of the bluest blood in England.
If one hired ever so sorry a nag, one was as free to a gallop in the
Ride as a prince of the blood. If one borrowed any kind of a carriage,
one could crawl up and down that Drive with the most yellow and
wrinkled of dowager countesses. And then if one were conscious of
ability and ambition, there was no reason for not imagining a coronet
might not some day encircle one's own brows.
There was John Churchill, who had risen from being the son of a simple
Devonshire baronet to be a duke of England. But when, in addition to
all these general sources of gratitude, one has the certainty that
under a particular tree and upon a particular seat one is sure to find
the girl whom one holds to be the dearest in all England, joy and
radiance flood the whole scene, and one can hardly believe that Hyde
Park is not Paradise.
As Cheyne approached the appointed seat, he found a pair of very
bright brown eyes fixed on him. The face to which those eyes belonged
was that of a brunette under the medium height. She rose briskly as he
drew near, and as he held out his hand to her, and she gave him hers,
she said, with a saucy smile:
"I have been waiting a whole five minutes for you, sir."
"I envy those five minutes that were near you when I was away."
"A pretty speech," she said, with a dainty toss of her head; "but I am
in a bad humour, and you will have to say all the civil things
to-day."
"If we are not to part until I have said all the civil things I have
in my heart, we shall not part till sundown."
"Oh goodness! fancy speaking to the one man from five minutes past
eleven in June till sundown! It would kill any girl I know."
"Which simply means that you don't know anything at all about
yourself."
"I think, Mr. Cheyne, you are the most conceited man I ever met in all
my life."
"Then you must have been in a nunnery from your birth till now."
"Are you going to talk in this horrible way for the remainder of my
hour and a half, or are you going to take me for a nice comfortable
walk through the park and tell me things?"
Said he:
"Comfort? comfort, scorned of devils! this is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things."
"But, Mr. Cheyne, have the goodness to remember I am not of the class
of persons the poet sings of."
"No. You are an angel."
"I declare you've wasted another five minutes in this foolish way.
I'll go home."
"A proud spirit always rebels against a threat. I assure you, if you
say anything more of that kind, I'll put my hat in the middle of the
path and walk away from it, so as to attract the attention of everyone
in the park to us."
"Don't be absurd."
"What I am is nothing compared to what we will be when I sigh for the
hat I've left behind me."
"Charlie----"
"That's better. There is a tone of humanity in your voice now, May."
"Well, let us make it up, Charlie, and be friends, not comedians."
"With all my heart, May. Before we go any farther I must say I never
saw you looking so--so nice. I know 'nice' isn't the right word; but
if I say anything stronger you won't give me time to say something
else I want to say. Something of the greatest importance."
"Can't you say it out instead of making a speech about it?"
"Well, I never was so happy in all my life before. I never was so much
in love before. You know, May, I never told you anything but the
simple truth."
She took the arm he had frequently unavailingly offered since they had
met.
"You are a good old fellow, and I won't abuse you any more to-day.
Have you any news to tell me?"
"Not a word. Except that Effingham has sold that novel at last. Sold
it for a song; but then it is a beginning."
"Well then, tell me about Lady Clarinda. What has she done!"
"Run away with the German adventurer."
"Nonsense! I wont have it."
"Can't be helped now."
"Yes, but it must. I insist upon her marrying Sir Gabriel Fairfax."
"But, my dear May, what's done can't be undone."
"Yes; but, Charlie, I insist upon Lady Clarinda marrying Sir Gabriel."
"Oh, nonsense! The public would not have it."
"You must really change it. Why should a young girl like that run away
with a red-headed foreigner? She would never have done it."
"That's the new plan, dear. You can't have your hero too wild or your
heroine too ugly; for men as a rule are bad, and women are not all as
lovely as you, and it flatters bad men and ugly women to find bad men
and ugly women heroes and heroines."
"Well, but I don't care what the new plan is, I wont have that horrid
German adventurer marry Lady Clarinda."
"Oh, very well; of course, if you insist upon her marrying Sir
Gabriel, she shall; although it will compel me to tear up twelve
manuscript sheets worth four shillings a sheet."
"And what is going to happen in the other one when the old Duke of
Fenwick dies?"
"Oh, you'd be greatly surprised."
"What?"
"You remember the long, tall, thin man who played the violoncello in
the theatre orchestra, early in the story?"
"Yes. With a red nose and warts on his fingers."
"That's he. But I must read that chapter to you the next time I am at
Knightsbridge."
CHAPTER II.
A DUCAL CARRIAGE.
Reginald Francis Henry Cheyne, seventh Duke of Shropshire, lived most
of the year at his splendid castle Silverview, on the German Ocean.
The Duke was an undersized man with a dingy dull complexion and bandy
legs. He looked more like an ostler than anything else; and yet he was
not only a duke, but a duke of the bluest blood, owner of Silverview
Castle, three other country seats, a palatial town-house, and an
income of three to four hundred thousand a year. Fate paid him every
day for waking upwards of five hundred pounds, and upwards of five
hundred pounds on that same day for going to bed again.
He owned one whole city, four parliamentary boroughs, and sixty-four
villages. He wasn't the richest peer in England, for he had neither a
seventy-foot seam of coal nor a few hundred acres in the West End of
London. But against the unpleasant feeling of not being the richest
peer in England he had two things to cheer him. In the first place,
his city and four parliamentary boroughs were docile, and elected men
whom he suggested; and in the second place, beyond his son and heir,
the Marquis of Southwold, he had no family, and therefore he had no
one to provide for. Consequently he could live up to his income. This
he did, but he went no farther; and in all England there was no
property more free from encumbrance. He was sixty-three years of age,
a widower, and extremely fond of yachting. Although he had a house or
castle in each of the three kingdoms and in Wales, he rarely left
Silverview, except in his yacht. He was passionately fond of the sea,
and had spent as much of his time afloat as ashore. Another thing that
wedded him to the sea was the delicacy of his son, who, although now
eight-and-thirty years of age, had been from almost his birth obliged
to live much at sea, owing to general weakness, and an affection of
the eyes, which the doctors said would inevitably end in blindness if
he lived permanently on shore.
The reason why the Duke preferred Silverview Castle to any of his
other houses or castles was because it stood on a height at the top of
a narrow bay. For miles on each side of this bay the land belonged to
the Duke, and in his castle above his bay he was as far out of the
world as if he had been in the Zaraha, and yet so close to his yacht
riding at anchor that he could see from his bedroom-window when he got
up if the brasses had been polished and the decks holystoned that
morning.
The Duke and his son rode as every Englishman must, but he rode as
little as any Englishman may. But neither the sea nor riding had bowed
the Duke's legs. From generation to generation the house of Cheyne had
been noted, with two exceptions, for its bowed legs. Of course, in the
family portraits you saw no sign of this, for the family had taken
care never to have any more extended counterfeit presentment than a
kit-cat. Whenever, even while he was on land, the Duke encountered a
gale he invariably threw out his sea-legs, and straddled, as though
the road or field was, while rolling horribly, mounting a mighty
swell.
There was nothing particularly interesting about the Duke of
Shropshire. He was a commonplace-looking little man with very
commonplace ideas. He was an excellent man of business, and every day,
when he was at the Castle, gave two hours to his business folk. He was
a model landlord. The tenants said it would be impossible to find
better, but he was not popular among them. He was too dark and
reserved and taciturn. Every sailor wants to have a garden and grow
vegetables. Every farmer does not want to go a long sea-voyage. The
land is no mystery to the sailor, but the sea is a mystery to the
farmer. To people who have no dealings with the sea, those who
frequent its plains seem aliens in race. This may, in some way,
account for the fact that the Duke made no personal progress in the
affections of his tenantry.
The father was not popular, the son was partly pitied and partly
despised. His delicacy, and the fact that he could not live on land,
separated him still more effectually from the people than his father.
The people looked forward with no pleasure to the fact that this man
was heir, and would be duke some day. Another thing, too, that the
tenants did not like was the way father and son kept together. They
knew the marquis was not strong, but still he might have a little will
of his own. Why hadn't he a yacht of his own? not go about always with
his father, as though he was only twelve years of age instead of
thirty-eight. Surely one of the richest peers in the world could
afford an allowance to his only son which would enable that son to
keep a yacht! Men like men for masters. They do not care to work under
invalids and recluses.
Personally the Duke spent little or nothing of his large income. On
Sundays his head-gardener was much better dressed than his master. The
only luxury the Duke demanded was solitude, and for this solitude he
was willing to give up nine-tenths of his fortune. He kept servants at
all his seats, and any of his friends of thirty-five years ago was
welcome to a loan of one, servants, shooting, fishing included. But no
friend was to drive up to Silverview Castle and claim hospitality.
For upwards of thirty years the Duke had not gone into society, nor
had he received any guest at Silverview Castle. His wife died soon
after his heir was born, and he had gone very little into society
since. When not on board his yacht _Seabird_, she lay moored under the
windows of the Castle, and nothing was easier than, upon receiving a
notice from So-and-so saying he would call upon the Duke on a certain
day, for the Duke to write, saying he was very sorry that he intended
leaving on a cruise that very day.
There was no general agreement as to the cause of the Duke's avoidance
of society. Some said it was owing to grief at the death of his wife;
others declared he had done some dire wrong in his young days; and
others that it was all the result of whim.
Although he interfered in politics he did not take an active part in
them. He merely intimated to his agent which candidates had won his
favour. For years he had not made an appearance in the House of Lords.
On the rare occasions when he went there it was to record a silent
vote on some measure of great importance.
It so happened one of those big questions arose in June, and that his
grace had made up his mind to visit London for a few days, and record
his vote against some Radical measure which had been sent up from the
Lower Chamber. It was of course an event in the great world when the
rich Duke of Shropshire came up to London even for an hour.
It was known he did not intend marrying again. But then who knows
anything for certain? And then there was the Marquis. Of course he
would marry some day. It wasn't probable the present owner of the
dukedom would like to think there was a chance of that magnificent
collection of properties being broken up amongst an unknown number of
remote cousins, and the fine old title dying out; for everyone knew
there was no heir to the dukedom, however, looking back beyond the
seven dukes, the property might be found settled. One thing was clear,
namely, that all the property which had come into the family since the
first duke must go goodness knew whither, for there was absolutely no
heir. It was also perfectly clear that the title would become extinct;
for, with but one exception, from the first to the sixth duke, the
title and entailed estates had descended through a single file of
sons, and, though many children may have been born, when each duke
came into possession he was the last member of the ducal house. The
one exception was that of the present Duke, for when he inherited the
title he had a younger brother, who, however, died unmarried.
Such was the talk of general society about the Duke of Shropshire. Of
course there were people who knew everything that would happen if the
line of dukes failed; but then that was, after all, a very remote
contingency, and the great question was: Would the Duke marry again?
and whom would the Marquis marry?
Shropshire House is in Piccadilly. Cheyne had seen in one of the
morning papers that the Duke was in town, and as he and Marion Durrant
walked through Piccadilly that bright June noon, they met a
bandy-legged common-looking man emerging from a crowd in the roadway.
"What is the matter?" asked Marion of Cheyne.
Cheyne raised himself on his toes and answered: "There's been a smash
of some kind. I can see now. The pole of a 'bus has gone through the
door of a brougham. That sort of thing comes of shaving corners too
fine. I'll bet any money it is the brougham that was in fault."
Marion Durrant, the orphan of Captain Durrant of the Fusiliers, was
three-and-twenty years of age, and lived with an invalid maiden aunt
in a very quiet street in Knightsbridge. There Miss Traynor, Marion
Durrant's aunt, had a neat little house, possessing all reasonable
comforts, and even modest luxuries. She and her dead sister had each
settled upon her by their father two hundred a year, and as May had
inherited her mother's two hundred a year, their joint income was four
hundred pounds. Although Miss Traynor was an invalid she was an
excellent housekeeper, and, with the aid of a bright handy little
maid-of-all-work, the small house in Knightsbridge was as well
managed, as well kept, and as comfortable as any other in London.
To this home Charles Cheyne was free as the acknowledged lover of
Marion Durrant. Miss Traynor was one of those good, genial, generous
old souls who, while keeping a dignified reserve upon her feelings,
thought nothing on earth too good for those whom she loved. At the
threshold of the snug little home at Knightsbridge Cheyne laid aside
all his grand airs. He never carried into that home the oppressive
atmosphere of dukes and earls. Here he was simply the lively and
kindly gentleman who loved his love with all his loyal heart, and did
all in his power to enliven and amuse the guardian angel of his
sweetheart.
Towards that quiet comfortable home he was conducting Miss Durrant
when they encountered the crowd and the injured brougham. As they
arrived at the door she said: "Won't you come in, Charlie?"
"I really can't," he answered. "I am already very late with my copy,
and I must go home and attend to my duke. Otherwise I shall get into
awful trouble with the proprietor of my duke. You cannot be hasty with
your duke. You must treat him as if he was fat and scant of breath.
You may have noticed that in my present duke I make him say 'hem,'
'hum,' very often. This is just to spread out the ducal speech. You
can't expect to get as many articulate words out of a duke as out of
an ordinary mortal, and the hem-hums are wonderfully efficacious."
Having taken leave of Marion, he turned his face east, and began
walking back at a rapid rate towards his lodgings in Long Acre.
In the meantime the brougham, through which the pole of the omnibus
had gone, had been driven along Piccadilly through Leicester Square to
Long Acre. "Take the number of that omnibus," the occupant of the
injured vehicle had said to the coachman as he stepped to the ground,
"and then drive to Whiteshaw's in Long Acre, and tell him to repair
that door."
The coachman had done as he was told, and by the time Cheyne got back
to Long Acre the brougham had arrived, the horses had been
unharnessed, and the coachman had got a man to lead the horses home.
When Cheyne arrived at the place he lived in he found Mr. Whiteshaw,
with whom he was friendly, examining the injured brougham.
"That was an ugly smash," said the carriage-builder. "Nearly killed
the Duke."
"What Duke?" asked Cheyne, with great interest.
"The Duke of Shropshire. See the arms on the other panel. He had a
very narrow escape. The pole went slap through the door, and when the
'bus-driver threw his horses on their haunches the pole made a plunge
up, and just barely missed the chin of the Duke."
"By Jove, I am very sorry for poor Regi."
"Who's Regi? the 'bus-driver? Is the 'bus-driver a friend of yours?"
"No, my dear friend, but the Duke, Reginald Francis Henry Cheyne,
seventh Duke of Shropshire. He is a most particular friend of mine.
The other day----let me see, how long ago is it? A fortnight? Well,
say eighteen days ago, I had a letter from him asking me to go down to
Silverview and stay a week or ten days with him. But, Whiteshaw,
although it was excessively kind of his grace, you see, I tell you in
confidence, I can't afford to go to such places. I am really only a
poor man, although people will say the other thing, and it runs away
with an awful lot of money to go to such places."
"I daresay it does. But I thought the Duke of Shropshire was a queer
kind of moody man, who never had anyone at his house?" said the
carriage-builder maliciously.
"You are quite right. He lives the life of a recluse. But he now and
then will see an old friend. You must know he has rather a fancy for
the stories I write--no accounting for tastes, you know--and when I go
to him he always insists on my reading my manuscripts to him before
they go to the printer. Very flattering, you know."
"But he never lives ashore. He is nearly always in his yacht with his
son the Marquis of Southwold."
"Of course. It is aboard ship I always read to Regi and Southwold.
Reading is all very well in the day, but I tell you it is no little
difficulty to read by the light of a swinging lamp when a ship is
lying at anchor and rolling. Where did this accident happen,
Whiteshaw?"
"In Piccadilly, at noon."
"By Jove, it must be this smash I saw. I was just passing along, but
took little or no notice, as at the time I was explaining some matters
of court etiquette to Lady Evelina de Lacy, who is to be presented
this year."
"It has never struck me before, Cheyne, that your name is the same as
that of the Shropshire family. Can it be that you are related to it?"
"No, no. It is merely a coincidence. The name is not uncommon. My
father was a poor gentleman, with no pretensions to blood-connection
with a ducal house. Good-day, Whiteshaw."
"Good-day, Cheyne," cried out the carriage-builder; adding mentally:
"There goes the greatest and the most harmless liar in London."
CHAPTER III.
A VILLAGE STORY.
Anerly is one of the smallest villages in Devonshire. It, in fact,
does not rise to the dignity of a village, but is called one, rather
out of objection to use the more unfamiliar word hamlet than its own
particular claims. Such as it is, it stands at cross-roads, and
although the resident population is small, many wayfarers of all
degrees pass through it by day, not a few of whom draw up at the
Beagle Inn--the only one in the place--to taste the cider, for which
that house is famous all through the district. In Anerly there is a
theory that a good-sized lump of bread and a good-sized piece of
cheese and a pint of The Beagle cider form a repast at which the
Emperor of China's nose would cease to turn up.
In dwelling thus on the cider, it must not be supposed other things at
The Beagle were not of good quality. As a matter of fact, The Beagle
prided itself on keeping nothing which was not of the very first
quality. But the cider was what capped the climax, and gave a tone to
the whole. In addition to the excellence of the cider, The Beagle had
another great attraction: it was very favourably situated, and there
was no window or door of it from which you could not see a quiet,
soothing little landscape.
Whoever built the inn, in the time of the Stuarts, knew what he was
about, and set the face of the house towards the prettiest landscape
of all. As the men of Anerly sat smoking their long pipes and drinking
their incomparable cider in front of The Beagle on summer evenings,
they had before them a long stretch of winding and descending road,
bordered at irregular intervals with fine elms and beeches. To the
left lay a quiet valley, the lowest line of which was marked by a
broad stream. To the right a hill thinly wooded, sloped upward to
where the gaunt naked trunks of the pines stood out sharply against
the darkening sky. Halfway down the winding road lay the small village
church. Nothing could be more peaceful or soothing than the view from
the front of The Beagle on a warm June night.
Half-a-dozen of the better-off men of the village met every evening at
The Beagle. When the weather was wet they had their pipes and their
cider in the front parlour, where the flash of the great fire on the
ruddy sand strewn on the floor made one feel warm on entering. On warm
nights, the men sat outside under a roof supported by pillars and
trellis, up which climbed clematis and jasmine.
This June evening happening to be warm, the men were all seated out of
doors under the verandah. As a rule, the conversation on such
occasions was neither animated nor sustained. The clerk and sexton of
the church, a wheelwright by trade, was by courtesy supposed to be the
brain-carrier of the party; but he being a man of extremely few words,
it seemed as though the weight of intelligence was against
conversation. It was well known there were subjects on which Stephen
Goolby could be interested. Any mention of Napoleon I. made him fire
up with most unpatriotic ardour in favour of the Corsican. Upon the
mention of the name of the Man of Destiny, Stephen Goolby would double
up his fist and, smiting the table a mighty blow, cry out:
"The greatest general of this or of any other age was Napoleon
Bonaparte. I tell you what it is, sir: if Napoleon put his foot on
this country, with an army at his heels, there wouldn't be a man of us
alive now, and English would be as much a dead language as Latin or
Greek or double Dutch."
Upon a suggestion from someone that the Corsican met his match at
Waterloo, Stephen Goolby would cry out:
"His match, sir, his match! Why, sir, answer me this, if you can:
Weren't the Allies beaten when the Prussians came up? Answer me that,
if you can; but I think you'll find it a stiff one. Look here, sir, if
the battle was won by the Allies when the Prussians came up, what made
old Wellington go about the camp all the day, thumping his chest, and
saying, 'For the love of Heaven, send me night or the Prussians'? Tell
me, what did he mean by that? I tell you, sir, only them Prussians
came up then, every man Jack of us would be a Frenchman now, and
instead of answering the service down there in good English 'Amens,'
they'd be parleyvooing, so that neither you, sir, nor I would have
comfort or peace."
It so happened on the June night referred to, there was exceptional
reason for the exercise of the gifts which it had pleased Providence
to bestow on Stephen Goolby. Edward Graham, a young landscape painter,
on a walking and sketching tour through Devonshire, had arrived at
Anerly that night, put up at The Beagle, and now made one of the party
under the verandah.
Upon an occasion such as the present--that is, when there was
company--Goolby having made the allusion to Anerly church, it became
the duty of one of the regular company to suggest that Stephen Goolby
had a story to tell in connection with that church and a great
temptation which befell him. This having been done, Stephen Goolby
refilled his pipe, put his head carefully on one side, so as to open
the valves of his memory, and spoke:
"I won't do myself or anyone else hurt if I say I am close up to
sixty-five years of age. I am strong and hearty still, I thank God,
and can do a fair day's work, though I'm not so brisk as I was once.
"For seven-and-thirty years I have been clerk and sexton to Anerly
Church; and the thing that lies in my memory now took place when I was
about thirty years old, and when, as I was just then trying to set up
a home for myself and my poor wife, who is dead and gone, a little
ready money would have been more useful than any time before or since.
"A few months before the great temptation came in my way--I am now
speaking of five-and-thirty years ago--a gentleman drove into the
village one day. He had a young girl with him. I did not see him when
he drove into the village; but I saw him and her often afterwards. He
took the best room in The Beagle for her, and having given great
instructions to the landlady, old Mrs. Timmons, dead and gone long
ago, he drove away again; and we did not see him any more for a few
days.
"As I said before, I have often seen both him and her since. I've
been in London in my time, and seen as handsome faces as any man
alive, I'll bet my life; but never did I see anywhere such a lovely
creature as that young girl the gentleman left here at The Beagle
five-and-thirty years ago. He was a fine tall man, with an open free
manner as you'd please to meet. Soon we got word there was going to be
a marriage, and that there was some secret at the bottom of all of it.
What that secret was we never found out from that day to this.
"Mrs. Timmons noticed that the young girl often wept and cried when he
was away; but when he came back she seemed ready to die of joy. I've
never seen a prettier picture in all my life than when he took her on
his arm and walked down the village with her. The people all came out
of doors to look at her and him; for he was a fine man too, well made
and shapely.
"Well, after a little while, we heard that the wedding was to be soon,
and that it wasn't to be by banns, but by license. In time it came.
There was no bridesmaid or best man. They walked down to the church
together, went in, were married. I gave away the bride and signed the
register. Old Billy Newton, long since dead and gone, he that led the
choir then, was the other witness.
"The two left the church, and got in a chaise standing by, and drove
away towards Moorfield.
"Although I did not forget the marriage, I had other things on my
mind, and I gave no thought to it. I had been married a couple of
years myself, and, between my trade, and my duties at the church, and
shifting to my new house and the birth of a daughter, I had my hands
and my head full of my own affairs.
"About six months after the marriage, who must ride up to the door of
this very same Beagle but the gentleman who had married the lovely
young girl in the church down there. They took his horse round. Those
that saw him when he came said he looked excited and wild-like. He
ordered them to keep a room for him, and to get him some supper, no
matter what; and then he came straight on to me.
"'Goolby,' says he as free as if he had known me all his life, 'I want
to have a few words with you in private.'
"It was to the old house he came, and we were just leaving it for
good, my wife and myself, taking a last look round to see we had
forgotten nothing. I beckoned to my wife to go on, and, shutting the
door, I asked him to step back into one of the empty rooms.
"'Goolby,' says he, 'I see you are house-shifting. Five hundred pounds
would be very useful to you now.'
"'It would be a small fortune to me at any time, sir,' says I.
"'Goolby,' says he, putting one hand on my shoulder, and putting the
other into my pocket, 'I've put five one-hundred-pound Bank of England
notes in your pocket now.'
"I felt all of a tremble. I put my hand in my pocket and took out what
he had put in. I felt that weak then you could have knocked me down
with a little push. The sweat came out on my forehead and my throat
felt twisted up. Here was more money than I could hope to lay by in a
lifetime in my hand--my own, he said.
"'If you please, sir,' I says, 'I'd rather not take the money. Put it
away, sir, and let me go.'
"I felt getting weaker and weaker every minute.
"'Nonsense!' says he. 'Put the money in your pocket, and don't be a
fool.'
"'I can't take it, sir. You're not giving it to me for nothing; and I
know I cannot do for any money what you want,' says I; for I guessed
at once what he wanted.
"'What do I want?' says he, getting white and red all by turns.
"'It's something about the register, sir; and I can't think of it any
longer. I must go now,' says I, 'There's your money.' And with these
words I stuffed the notes into the pocket of his riding-coat, and
opened the door and ran home.
"I did not tell the rector. I was too much afraid. But that night, and
every night for a fortnight after, I slept in the vestry, with an axe
and a crowbar handy, but no one ever came. I never saw the gentleman
since; and the leaf is still in the book.
"'And what are the names on that leaf?' asked Edward Graham, the young
artist.
"George Temple Cheyne and Harriet Mansfield."
CHAPTER IV.
A TOWN STORY.
"It is the fifty-second chapter," said the Duke of Long Acre. "You
will remember, May," his grace continued, as he turned over the
proof-slips in his hand, "you will remember, May, that in the chapter
before this Antony Belmore had been out of employment for two months,
and that he was at his wits' end to know how to get even bread."
"Yes, and he had a broken pane of glass to let in the cold wind; and
that there was a wide gaping fireplace to let down more cold; and that
he had got rid of his violoncello; and that his landlord was pressing
him horribly----"
"For one pound, eighteen, and sixpence, rent."
"But, Charlie, what is the good of writing uncomfortable stories, that
have no pious object? I can understand why Sunday-school tales are
dismal."
"My dear May, the public won't have anything but groans and tears. If
you can manage yells for them, all the better. Gladiators don't fight
now in the arena. Gentle creatures like you, darling, have no chance
of voting violent death to a man by holding down your thumbs in the
Colosseum. The modern novel is the portable arena of to-day; and
gentle darlings like you, May, must be permitted to view the
death-agony of men and women, or you would not patronise the
libraries."
"Charlie, if you dare to say any more such horrible untruths, I'll
go down to the kitchen, put on an apron, and make the pastry for
to-morrow."
"If you do that, I'll go down and eat up all the nasty indigestible
dough; and then what will you say at the inquest?"
"Take your arm away, sir; I won't stay here another minute. You have,
I think, made up your mind to be disagreeable."
"Well, run away now, if you like."
"But you are holding me, and I can't stir."
"And I mean to hold you if you will not sit still while I read the
chapter."
"Oh dear, you are a horrible tease! There, let me go; I promise not to
run away."
"Very well. Now don't stir."
The Duke of Long Acre and Marion Durrant, his sweetheart, were seated
in one of the smallest conservatories in London. This conservatory was
situated at the back of Miss Traynor's house in Knightsbridge. The
house and all that it contained, with the exception of Marion's aunt,
the owner, were small. Two people could not possibly walk abreast in
the hall, nor up the stairs. It was a saying of the Duke's that
one of those days he should get wedged in that hall, and would have
to be extracted from it by violent means. There was a tiny front
drawing-room and a tiny back drawing-room, and between them a pair of
folding-doors which always stood open. At the rear of the back
drawing-room was the little conservatory in which Marion and the Duke
were seated. The conservatory was as wide as the room, and three feet
deep. Owing to shelves at the ends and sides for flowerpots, the
absolute dimensions of the place were much reduced, and it was
impossible for two people to sit at the same side; so when the Duke
held Marion he was standing beside her. He had risen from his chair
opposite her a few minutes before. The conservatory was separated from
the back drawing-room by a glass door opening into the room. At the
back of the conservatory was a glass door yielding outwards on a
little wooden landing, which, by means of a flight of wooden steps,
communicated with the very small garden below.
Now, this being one of the fairest days of June, the door opening
outwards on the landing and the door opening inwards on the back
drawing-room were open. It was one of those days which make the old
young, the young poetical, and love the sweetest pastime for those who
have anyone to love. The day was in the fresh warm youth of the year;
all the asperities of winter and spring had passed away, and the time
had not yet been fatigued with summer heats; the air was moist and
full of the scent of young leaves. In the dustiest street of all
London there was some faint suggestion of the forest. According to the
calendar it was summer; but really it was the summer end of spring,
when the land is heaviest with leaves and the air is thickest with the
songs of birds. There is a savour of resin in the breeze which made
those who had been country-born, and were now penned in the city,
raise in unguarded moments their heads, and listen for the murmur of
the brittle pine-leaves.
"With your kind permission, or rather, having plainly shown you that I
do not want your permission, kind or otherwise, I will now read to you
the fifty-second chapter:
"'His tall thin form had shrunken almost to a skeleton. Privation and
sorrow had at length broken down his health and spirits. Although he
had scarcely reached his fiftieth year, he was already an old man. His
eyes were dim; his cheeks had fallen in; his hands were emaciated and
tremulous, his eyes were deep-sunken and unnaturally bright.
"'All the clothes he possessed were on him, with the exception of one
shirt, a pair of socks, and three or four dilapidated collars. His
elbows were through his coat; his trousers were frayed at the edges;
the uppers and soles of his boots had, in more than one place, parted
company.
"'He lived in a back attic off Cursitor Street, near Chancery Lane.
There he had contracted to pay four shillings a week for an
unfurnished room. One part of the contract had been fulfilled, for it
might almost be said with literal truth that the room was unfurnished.
It contained one chair, which had been cane-seated once, but which was
now a skeleton. Across the framework of this seat had been placed a
board. On this board were now set a cup and saucer and small black
crockeryware teapot, a knife and fork, and a common delf plate. These,
with the exception of a tin candlestick and a battered old quart tin
kettle, were all the articles connected with the kitchen or table
which could be seen in the place. In a corner farthest from the
skylight lay a wretched stretcher, and by the side of the stretcher a
common soap-box, which served as a seat, while the board across the
chair answered as a table. Under the broken pane in the skylight stood
a basin, and on the chimney-piece were a piece of soap, a worn-out
comb and brush, a towel, and two small jugs.
"'Beyond the things mentioned above there was absolutely nothing in
the room, except the most wretched of all things--Antony Belmore
himself. He was sitting on the box at the head of his miserable
stretcher, when a knock came to the door.
"'"Come in," said Belmore. Only two people ever called on him now--his
landlord and his friend Valentine de Montmorency.
"'Mr. Jeremiah Watkins entered. He was a stout prosperous-looking man
of about the same age as Belmore. "Well," said Mr. Jeremiah Watkins,
the landlord, coming into the room, "got any money for me, Mr.
Belmore?"
"'The musician raised his head and shook it sadly. "Nothing yet,
nothing yet."
"'"It is Saturday, you know, and I'm blowed if I don't think I've had
plenty of patience. One eighteen six is no joke, you know."
"'Again Belmore shook his head. "I have earned nothing for months.
Nothing."
"'"I know that. It's bad for you; but it's bad for me also. What am I
to do about my money?"
"'"I can only ask you to wait--to wait until I get something to do;
then I'll pay you. How am I to pay you when I am idle, and have been
idle for months?"
"'"I own it's hard on you; but then, you see, this is harder on me.
You are out of situation, and therefore you get no money, which is
natural and proper, as I say; but here is my room in situation, as I
may say, and it gets no wages. Now that's not fair or reasonable, I
say."
"'"I cannot answer you, Mr. Watkins. I am as sorry as you can be that
I am not able to pay. What can I do? tell me, what can I do?"
"'Mr. Watkins owned three houses in this alley. Each one was let in
tenements, and in all he had sixteen tenants. But in Antony Belmore he
knew he had a tenant far superior in mind and manners to any of his
other lodgers. And yet, although he was not by nature a hard man, and
although he knew he was dealing with a gentleman, and although he
would not do anything harsh to poor old Belmore for a much larger sum,
yet he could not be importunate with graciousness. He had one of those
hard, blunt, direct natures which can never step out of the routine
manner, no matter how much their minds may out of the routine course.
Said he:
"'"But what I look at is this, how are you ever going to pay? You are
out of situation; you see no chance of getting a situation. You've
sold or pawned all you could sell or pawn. Even your old fiddle is
gone----"
"'"It is," said Belmore, with laconic sadness.
"'"Then how, in the name of all that's black and blue, are you ever
going to get any money if that old fiddle is up the spout? That's
what's the puzzle to me."
"'Belmore rose, and clasping his long, knotty, emaciated hands in
front of him, said:
"'"I cannot say more than that I am very sorry I cannot pay you Mr.
Watkins. If you wish it, I am willing to go. If I go I have my choice
of two things--the workhouse or the river----"
"'"And you would choose the river?"
"'"And I would choose the river."
"'"That is the way always with you----" Mr. Watkins paused. Belmore
waited for him. "With all you fools," said Mr. Watkins, using the most
tender word his nature would allow, instead of the most offensive, as
he had intended when he had set out with the sentence.
"'"I will go if you wish it," said Belmore meekly, making a motion
first to an old battered hat that lay on the floor, and then towards
the door.
"'"Who asked you to go?" said Watkins doggedly.
"'"No one has asked me," answered Belmore; "but of course you have a
perfect right to ask me to go if you wish."
"'"I didn't ask you to go, and I don't ask you to go, and it's manners
to wait to be asked," said Watkins ungraciously. "You may stay another
week. At the end of a week I hope you will have got some employment."
"'"Mr. Watkins, I should be deceiving you if I led you to suppose I
shall have got anything to do in a week. This is the dull season,"
said the poor gentleman, dropping both his hands and looking
hopelessly at his landlord.
"'"Now, Mr. Belmore," said Watkins; "don't you think it a little rough
on me to take me so cool? I tell you, who owe me rent, you may stay
another week, and I say I hope you may get something to do in the
meantime; and you then round on me, and tell me there is no use in my
hoping you'll be able to get anything to do. I say it's downright
rough on me. It's like telling me I'm a fool for trusting you any
further."
"'"Indeed I did not mean to imply anything of the kind," said the poor
gentleman, in a tone of deep concern. "But if I told you I hoped to be
able to get anything to do in a week, it would be a lie."
"'"But I am a business man, and I like to be dealt with in a business
way; and a business man would never say there was no chance of his
getting employment in a week."
"'"Unfortunately, I not am a business man. I never have been one."
"'"More's the pity. You see, if you were only a business man, you
would have a much better chance of getting something to do, and you
would not make such unreasonable answers. But there, there; don't say
any more about it. I am only wasting my time talking to you."
"'"I am very sorry it should be so," said the poor gentleman; "very
sorry. If I had any property----" He paused, and looked at the
dilapidated chair, the soap-box, and the stretcher.
"'"Bah!" cried the landlord; "I'm not going to touch them. I'm a
business man and no fool, but I'm not a wild beast. Do your best now
this week, and try and get something to do."
"'"I am sure I am very grateful to you, Mr. Watkins."
"'"Grateful! grateful! What's the good of being grateful? Be
businesslike; that's the main thing. Next week you'll owe me more than
two pounds, so stir yourself and get something to do."
"'Without another word Mr. Jeremiah Watkins left the room, closing the
door softly after him.
"'When the landlord had gone, Belmore took a few feeble steps across
the room, and then staggered back again to his old place by the head
of the bed. No fire burned in the huge yawning grate, on the bottom
bars of which the cold grey light of a winter afternoon fell through
the chimney-pot above. Through the skylight nothing could be seen but
the leaden November sky. It was raw and damp and dismal.
"'Belmore dropped his head on his hands and rested his elbows on his
knees. Thus he sat in thought for a long while without moving. At last
he raised his head and shook it gravely, smiled sadly, and whispered:
"'"It is more than likely I shall have proved myself, according to his
idea, a fool; for a gentleman"--at this word he drew himself together,
paused for a moment, and then finished--"for a gentleman cannot afford
to die of starvation in a garret."
"'Then his head fell once more. Once more he dropped his face into the
hollow of his hands, and resting his elbows on his knees, sat
motionless.
"'So deeply absorbed was he in his thought he did not hear a brisk
step on the stairs or a faint knock at the door. The knock was
repeated. Belmore heard it now. He raised his head slowly, compressed
his lips for a moment, and then whispered: "If he says another word
about the rent I will not look at to-morrow." He arose, and having
steadied himself by holding the chimney-piece for a second, crossed
the room with an air of dignity and breeding in pathetic contrast with
his mean attire and squalid surroundings.
"'He opened the door and exclaimed, holding out his hand: "Ah, De
Montmorency, is it you? I am delighted to see you. Come in."
"'All at once the firmness died out of his manner, and he uttered a
sob. Of this the visitor took no notice, but, walking to the middle of
the room where stood the chair with the board across it, he began
humming a lively air as he put down on the board a few parcels. When
he had given Belmore a minute to recover himself, he faced round
briskly and said gaily:
"'"Any good news about yourself, Belmore?"
"'"No."
"'"I'm sorry. But, if your luck is bad mine has been good. I have come
into money. What do you think of that, Belmore?"
"'"I am sincerely glad to hear it. You did not expect it, did you?"
"'"I had no more expectation of coming into money than you have.
Blessed are those who expect nothing. I have run through three
fortunes; and no man I ever met had a chance of running through more
than three fortunes. Who ever heard of any other fellow having had
four fortunes?"
"'"Is it much?"
"'"Half-a-crown."
"'"What!"
"'"Half-a-crown."
"'"It's a poor joke, de Montmorency; a poor joke."
"'"I think it's a capital joke. Now, if, as I came along the street, I
lost the half-a-crown, I'd consider it a poor joke. I was looking over
an old waistcoat, when, hey presto! out drops half-a-crown. I'd like
to know what you'd call that, if not a good joke."
"'The speaker was a short little man, with dark eyes and hair, and a
swarthy southern complexion.
"'"Ah, De Montmorency, if I had only such spirits as yours!"
"'"It isn't the best, at all, Belmore. It's only a quartern of London
gin. Please observe this is no joke. No; look here, Belmore, you
mustn't be offended if I have taken a liberty. I have long been
wishing you would dine with me; but I've been so cruelly hard up I
couldn't do the thing decently at an outside place. But, as we are
both Bohemians, I've ventured to order the rag-and-bone merchant in
the Lane to send over a peck of coals and a bundle of wood. I waited
to see the boy start with the coal and wood before I left the place;
and then I ran off and got a few little things. So I'm going--if you
will not think it a liberty--to light up a fire here and cook a bit of
luncheon, and ask you to have a bit with me, Belmore. You are not
offended?"
"'"If, De Montmorency, it were any one but you----"
"'"Ah, that is right, my dear Belmore; that is right! That young scamp
must have stopped to play with other boys. Ah, here he is! You young
scamp! Put it there on the hearthstone, and, look you, here's a penny
for yourself. Now vanish! Well, my dear Belmore, I don't think much of
our coal merchant. When I am Comptroller of the Household I shall not
give him the contract. I shall be very corrupt in those days. I shall
take bribes--when I can. Now there is a piece of undesirable slate. If
either of us had young children that slate might be useful in forming
their young minds and making them familiar with figures."
"'"Thank Heaven we have no children."
"'"Ay, ay, ay! Have it as you will, have it as you will. No doubt you
are right. Now you don't happen to have a frying-pan?"
"'"No, I have nothing of the kind."
"'"Never mind; we'll toast the rashers and fortunately a toasting-fork
is within reach."
"'"There is not one in this place."
"'"I'll make a capital one out of three pieces of this wood, with the
aid of string. I think this fire will light now. It is beautifully
designed and excellently built. I am a connoisseur in fires. I have
been accused of resorting to bludgeon tactics. But I don't care what
they may call my tactics, they always succeed. First you get a few
pieces of paper--if they are greasy, all so much the better--and you
roll them up loosely, as I did the piece that came round the rashers.
Then you put on as much wood as you judge sufficient, taking care to
cross-hatch the pieces, as an artist would say. Then put on more wood
loosely until you think there is too much. After that put on more wood
until you are perfectly sure there is too much. When you have done
this, lay on eight pieces of coal neither larger nor smaller than a
bantam's egg, and upon these eight lay three pieces as big as a
turkey's egg. After that set fire to your paper, as I do. I will now,
while the fire is kindling and clearing, make our toasting-fork."
"'He rose from his knees before the grate, and proceeded to splice two
thin pieces of firewood, one on either side of a thick piece, having
first cut a slanting bit out of the ends of the thinner ones where he
applied them to the thick one. These prongs he had only to sharpen.
"'While De Montmorency was engaged in making his toasting-fork,
Belmore, attracted by the unfamiliar blaze and glow in that chill
room, drew the soap-box to the fire, and sat down to enjoy the heat.
"'Nothing ages a man more quickly than cold and hunger, and as Belmore
sat before the mounting flames he looked seventy.
"'"There is no fender," said De Montmorency; "but I'll tell you what
we'll do. We'll put the tea-pot down on the ground, take the lid off,
and put a saucer on the top of the teapot. That will make a capital
gravy-dish to catch the rich nectar from the rashers.'
"'All this time Belmore never moved or spoke. With his thin hands
hanging down over big knees, he simply gave himself to the animal
enjoyment of warmth, a pleasure he had not known for a long time.
"'At last the toasting began; and now, for the first time, the
attention of Belmore was withdrawn from the fire to be concentrated on
the food. He had tasted food since he had felt the heat of a fire, but
that food had been the simplest and most scanty. Convicts would have
mutinied if they had been kept on such a scale as the poor gentleman
had been obliged to adopt for a month; that is, if convicts, after a
month of such diet, would have had strength enough to lift up their
hands in menace.
"'At length the first piece of bacon was toasted. With a large
pocket-knife De Montmorency cut off a slice of bread from a loaf,
which had formed one of the parcels he had brought in; and having
placed this on the chair-table, he removed everything else. Then he
took up the saucer from the fire and put that on the table, and
dropped the hissing crisp bacon into the rich straw-coloured gravy. He
poured some gin out of the bottle into a cup, and added water from a
jug.
"'"You go on and eat now," the visitor said; "I'll cook and serve, and
will naturally wait. I'll make a gravy-dish of a slice of bread this
time. You don't object to a slice of bread soaked in red-hot dripping
of toasted bacon? Of course you don't. I should like to see the man
with a wholesome appetite who did. Pretend the bacon is fish, and that
we have lent our fish-forks to the bishop who lives on the landing
below this, and that you have to eat your fish with a fork and a piece
of bread, and then all you've got to do is to fancy my knife is an
old-fashioned fork, and there is nothing more to be desired."
"'As Belmore had cut off the first piece of bacon and was raising it
to his lips, someone knocked at the door. Belmore put down the bit
untasted, and said, in a tremulous voice: "De Montmorency, will you
ask him to leave me in peace, or tell me I must go? Ask him to spare
me or send me away."
"'De Montmorency opened the door softly and looked out.
"'"Is Mr. Belmore in?" asked a very low voice.
"'"Yes," answered De Montmorency. "May I ask what is the nature of
your business?"--he kept the door partly closed so that the man
outside could not see in--"because Mr. Belmore is engaged at present."
"'"I want to see him on very particular business indeed."
"'"Of what nature?"
"'"Well, I am a lawyer."
"'"If it is anything about the rent," said Belmore, "I am willing to
go, but I cannot pay; nor do I think I shall be able to pay next
week."
"'"As Mr. Belmore has spoken of paying rent, I may as well tell you at
once that I am in a position to say he can pay it now."
"'"No, no, no!" cried the poor gentleman; "I really haven't any
money."
"'"But I will pay it for him, with the greatest pleasure. I have very
good news for Mr. Belmore, if I may see him."
"'"Good news?" repeated De Montmorency. "Did I understand you to say
you have good news for Mr. Belmore?"
"'"Unquestionably. Very good news indeed."
"'"As Mr. Belmore is very particularly engaged at present, would it
not be better if he called upon you at your office in half an hour?"
"'"Yes, that will suit admirably. You are a friend of Mr. Belmore?"
"'"Oh yes; I think I may say I am."
"'"Then will you allow me the privilege of a few moments' conversation
with you, sir?"
"'"Certainly." And De Montmorency went out on the landing and closed
the door.
"'He found there a tall stoutish man of middle age and very dark
complexion. The stranger moved a few paces from the door, and then
spoke in a very low, confidential, and friendly voice. "My name is
Jackson. I am senior partner of the firm of Jackson and Connington,
Lothbury. You are a friend of Mr. Belmore?"
"'"Yes; I think his only friend."
"'"I am glad to have this opportunity of having a little chat with
you, for the news I have for him is not only good, but so astoundingly
good that we must break it to him gently. I will not now trouble you
further than to ask you if you can tell me who Mr. Antony Belmore's
father was, and where and when was Mr. Belmore born? We know all about
it. I ask the question merely to put all doubt of his identity out of
the way finally."
"'"Mr. Belmore--whom I have known since we were boys, and whose father
I also knew--is the only son of George Belmore, of Berley, in
Lincolnshire. I think Mr. Belmore is about fifty years of age."
"'"All right, all right! You may break to him as gently as you can
that he has fallen into an exceedingly good thing. Our firm has just
found out he is heir to a fine estate. You will, I trust, excuse me
for having taken the liberty of bringing this with me: but we thought
it possible Mr. Belmore might want a little money before he opens his
own banking account to-morrow or the day after. You will, I think,
find fifty in notes and fifty in gold here."
"'"Thank you very much, I'm sure. It was very thoughtful of you to
bring this. Would it put you to any inconvenience if we did not call
upon you for a couple of hours instead of half an hour? Some of
this"--he held up the money--"might in the meantime be usefully
employed."
"'He touched his coat with his other hand.
"'"Oh, I understand," said the lawyer with a sympathetic look towards
the door, behind which the poor gentleman concealed his poverty. "Let
it be two hours. That will be--let me see--five o'clock. Good-day."
"'"Good-day," said De Montmorency, dropping the money into his
trousers pocket. "The shock of knowing he had fallen into even a
hundred pounds would be too great now."
"'He re-entered the room. "It was really good news, after all--I don't
know how good yet; but, anyway, 'tis good enough for him to give me
some money for you on account."
"'"Did he give you enough to pay Watkins?"
"'"How much is that?"
"'"One pound eighteen and sixpence."
"'"Oh, yes. He gave me five pounds. Here you are. Come now, and put on
your hat. You see this lawyer believes in your luck, or he wouldn't
put down his money without even being asked."
"'"And do you, too, believe there is some good luck in store for me?"
"'"Most emphatically."
"'"Then I'll go and pay Watkins, and never come back again."
"'"You must send for those things."
"'"Those wretched things! Why should I send for them? They would only
bring up many of my cruellest memories."
"'"Ay, but you mustn't leave them here; you must take them away, if
you only burn them. Suppose you are to turn out very lucky? Suppose
you are the real King of Burmah; then, of course, these things will be
bought up, and exhibited as curiosities. But come, put on your hat. We
won't waste time with Watkins. Come out, and we will have something
better in the form of luncheon than we were just about to eat. I have
arranged with the lawyer that we need not call upon him for a couple
of hours.
"'"Belmore had eaten the slice of bread and rasher. He had drunk a
little of the gin, too, and had already begun to revive. Casting a
look down at his wretched clothes, he said:
"'"De Montmorency, it was very good of you to prevent the lawyer
seeing how things are here. But I am not much better off now. I am
scarcely in a plight to call upon this gentleman."
"'"That will be all right. Suppose he gave me ten instead of five
pounds for you? You can get all you want. Finish your gin, and I'll
have some, and then we will go."
"'In a few minutes they were in Holborn. De Montmorency took Belmore
into a ready-made clothing shop, and got him a suit of clothes, an
ulster, and a hat. They came out, and then got boots and gloves. After
this, De Montmorency surveyed his friend from top to toe, and muttered
with a sigh:
"'"You'll do. Now let us go and have a good solid meal somewhere. But
stay. Ask me to dine or lunch with you, Belmore; for you are the
financier. I am only your agent."
"'"Where shall we go, De Montmorency?"
"'"To The Holborn."
"'"But I am afraid you have already spent more than the lawyer gave
you."
"'"Let us go to The Holborn, by all means. As to money, that lawyer
gave me a hundred pounds, not ten; and now here is the balance in
gold, notes, silver, and copper."
"'"A hundred pounds! It must be good luck, indeed, when he gave you a
hundred pounds! Why, this morning I should have thought ten pounds
miraculous luck, and here now am I getting a hundred on account! De
Montmorency, it must be wonderful luck!"
"'They went to The Holborn, and had a substantial luncheon, and a
bottle of burgundy between them. Belmore paid the, bill, and gave the
waiter half-a-crown. He said "Thank you, sir. Very much obliged,
indeed;" and flew for Belmore's ulster as though Satan were at his
heels.
"'When they got into the street, Belmore called a hansom, and told the
man to drive to Jackson and Connington, Lothbury. As soon as the cab
drew up, De Montmorency said:
"'"I'll wait for you in the cab. I'll ask the driver to let down the
glass, and I shall be all right and comfortable."
"'"But won't you come up with me?"
"'"No, I think it better not, I am almost sure the lawyers do not want
me, and I should not like to feel that, if I went up. I shall be quite
comfortable. Run away now, Belmore, and hurry back and tell me you are
the real King of Burmah."
"'Belmore did not care to force him against his wish; so he stepped
out of the cab and walked into the house and upstairs.
"'He had been gone about half an hour, when a man dashed out of that
door and rushed at the hansom, crying:
"'"Engaged?"
"'"Yes, sir."
"'"By whom?"
"'"Tall gentleman in ulster coat--gone upstairs half an hour ago."
"'"All right! You'll do! He's taken suddenly ill, and I want you to
drive me for a doctor. The job is a sovereign, remember!"
"'"But there's a gentleman inside."
"'"De Montmorency knocked at the glass, and the driver drew it up. De
Montmorency said to the man on the pathway:
"'"Mr. Belmore ill, did you say?"
"'"Yes, sir; taken suddenly ill."
"'De Montmorency leaped out, crying:
"'"Jump in, jump in! I'll run up and see him."
"'When he reached the room where Mr. Jackson and his partner stood, he
found Belmore lying on a couch deadly white.
"'"Mr. de Montmorency, this is my partner, Mr. Connington. Mr.
Connington, this is Mr. de Montmorency, a friend of his Grace."
"'"His Grace be----!" said De Montmorency. "I am a friend of Mr.
Belmore. What's the matter with him?"
"'"His Grace the Duke of Fenwick has fainted upon hearing the honours
and wealth that have suddenly come upon him.'*
"'"And who, in the name of Heaven, is His Grace the Duke of Fenwick?"
"'"The person you knew as Mr. Antony Belmore is Duke of Fenwick, with
a rent-roll of ninety thousand a year!"'"
Here Cheyne finished reading, and throwing down the proofs, said:
"Well, May, what do you think of it?"
"Oh, I think it very clever indeed, only--only----"
"Yes, my ungrateful and critical sweetheart?"
"Only--only--doesn't everyone know who the heir to a dukedom is, like
the heir to a kingdom?"
"No; everyone knows nothing."
"But doesn't the Duke himself know who his heir is? Or doesn't the
House of Commons, or someone?"
"Dukes know absolutely nothing at all, and the House of Commons knows
less."
While Charles Cheyne was reading chapter fifty-two in the little
conservatory to his darling sprightly May, the Duke of Shropshire,
having voted against the detested Radicals, was returning by express
train to Silverview Castle, and Edward Graham was seated in front of
the Beagle Inn, Anerly, painting the peaceful valley with Anerly
Church in the near middle distance.
CHAPTER V.
UNDER ANERLY BRIDGE.
Although the view from the portico in front of the Beagle Inn at
Anerly was very lovely, it would by no means make a good picture. It
was too broad and monotonous and scattered. There was no composition
in it. The pleasure derived from looking down that peaceful slope and
valley was gained by glancing at it unconsciously from several points
of view rather than from any particular one. If you fixed your eyes on
the central or road line, no doubt you commanded Anerly Church and
some fine trees and the wide plain below; but then there was no
right-hand or left-hand frame to the picture, and the effect was
insipid, if not distracting. If you looked through the trees you had
the broad valley and the silver streak of stream; but you missed the
church and the pine-clad slope which lent the romantic air to the
whole scene.
Edward Graham was not a great artist. He was one of those indolent men
who study art no more than the study yields pleasure. He liked
painting and artists, but preferred the society of artists to that of
a lonely easel, a laborious sketch-book. He was a Bohemian born, not
made. He loved art for what it brought him from without more than for
any divine joy it aroused within. By fortune he was poor, and by
nature idle. He did not like doing anything; but of all occupations
that could bring him money he disliked painting least. Therefore he
painted for his bread. If he had been rich--so much did he enjoy the
atmosphere of art, and the companionship of those who follow art--he
would have painted all the same, that he might be entitled to smoke
pipes and discuss pictures with better painters than he. He was one of
those men who, although earning their bread by a profession, are
amateurs to the last, one of those to whom talk of art is dearer than
the use of artist's tools. He always wore a brown velveteen coat, a
soft hat with a broad brim, and a Cambridge-blue tie. He was about
twenty-eight years of age, of medium height, lightly built, and of
dark complexion; the most remarkable thing in his face being a pair of
large, round, brown eyes. In manner he was cordial, enthusiastic,
almost boisterous.
The morning after Edward Graham had heard the story of Stephen
Goolby's temptation was bright with dew and sunshine, and sweet with
spices from the pine-trees and brisk balm of the meadows. Young Graham
was on a walking tour. In his knapsack he carried two clean flannel
shirts, a few collars, toilette brushes, and a comb; a couple of pair
of thick knitted stockings, and a razor and strop; for Edward Graham
shaved his chin and cheeks, wearing no hair on his face but a pair of
moustaches. At the back of his knapsack was strapped a small
rectangular japanned case, containing a large sketching-pad, three
small canvases, a mahlstick, moist water-colours, oil-colours,
brushes, and so on. A stout walking-stick he carried was a folded-up
easel, and his knapsack served as a seat when he was painting or
sketching in the open air.
On this beautiful morning in June Graham rose early, and, having
filled and lighted a briar-root pipe, strolled out in front of the
Beagle Inn. He took a leisurely survey of the place, drew his hat
knowingly on the side of his head, as though to show the crows--the
only living things in view--that Nature might be very clever in her
way, but that she could not impose on him, and that he was about to
probe her to the core.
He lounged indolently down the winding road that led by Anerly Church
to the valley and broad stream beyond. He had his hands in the pockets
of his velveteen shooting-jacket, as, with hat on one side and head on
the other, and legs moving loosely and without any premeditation, he
strolled down the hill.
As soon as he got near Anerly Church he paused, and, turning half
round, looked up the pine-clad slope. After a careful scrutiny of a
few minutes, he shook his head gloomily at it, as though he had
expected and deserved much better treatment at its hands. Then,
drawing his jacket tightly round his hips in a leisurely and dejected
way, he continued his descent.
When he got as far as Anerly Church he paused again and looked round
him. There was a slight relaxation of his critical stare, and a glance
of approval in his large brown eyes. The approval was not so much of
the landscape as of the fact that he, Edward Graham, approved of
himself for having found out a suitable standpoint from which to make
a picture of the place. For, give Nature all her due, what was the
good of setting forth fair landscapes if no one with an artistic eye
and artistic skill came her way to paint them?
The aspect which the young artist selected was gentle and charming as
the soul who loves peaceful England could desire. Beneath the road ran
a small stream.
From the right-hand side of the road, as one went down from the
village, the ground sloped rapidly towards the valley below. The
little stream running under the road had worn a deep narrow ravine,
which expanded lower down, and over this rose a gaunt stone bridge
supporting the road. The sides of this glen were lined with mountain
ash, silver beeches, splay alders, gigantic ferns, and tangles of
broad-bladed grasses, and masses of mingled bush and bramble and
shrub, down to the golden mosses that slept upon the dark cold rocks
above the sparkling curves of falling water. And below each tiny
cascade lay a level miniature swamp, with a few huge flags standing up
in each green, rush-fringed, open space.
On the slope of this glen, and on the slope of the great valley, stood
Anerly Church, a couple of hundred yards from the bridge. Past the
church the glen opened, and the dwarf vegetation near the bridge gave
way to lofty pines, whose tops made a long sombre arch over the
stream. Beyond this dark arch lay a blaze of green light, and a scarf
of flaming white satin, where the valley and the stream caught the
full sunlight.
"This will be jolly!" said Edward Graham, as he scaled the low parapet
to the approach of the bridge, and threw himself down on the slope of
the glen. "That archway is partly dry; I'll walk up in it until I get
the picture focussed, and then I'll paint it. The bridge is so high
there is sure to be plenty of light."
But when he got under the arch, and had picked his way to the rear of
it, he altered his mind slightly. "By Jove!" he cried, for a moment
looking at the startling effect of light and shade. "I don't know
whether Salvator Rosa or Rembrandt would have admired this the more,
but I am going to paint it; and instead of using the arch merely as a
means of focussing the scene, I will paint the whole blessed lot,
archway and stalactites, water under the archway and all."
The picture was striking.
By the sober light of the vault it was possible to make out with dim
distinctness the outline of every object in it. This dimness did not
arise from want of light, but from the fact that the floor and the
sides of the vault were damp, and the outlines of damp objects in such
a light are always uncertain to the eye. The archway looked north and
south, and now a small portion of the western inner wall had caught a
beam of the early sun, and the water in a pool at the eastern side,
struck by the rays refracted by the wall, threw a blue and brown patch
of trembling light on the middle of the roof. This light in return
fell into another pool at the eastern side, where it made a trembling
veil of orange-brown and golden-green; while all round, on the grey
walls, the white roof, and the ashen stalactites, were scattered
wandering hints of prismatic fire, which seemed rather to come through
the stone than to be reflected from the water below.
Thus the huge barrel formed by the bridge, with its wavering, dull,
dappled, transparent lights, was connected by one patch of brightness
on the western pier and vault with the foreground of blue-and-white
water, and rich green and yellow stripes of the rushes and grasses and
underwood in the flat light of the glen. Beyond the flat light was the
gloomy tunnel formed by the pines, where the yellows turned to browns,
and the greens to sad blues; and the water flowed furtively from dull
olive pool to dull olive pool, until at last it sprang out, a white
blaze, into the full sunlight beyond, and fell headlong in foam to
join the silver scarf of stream lying across the golden meadows below.
For a long while Edward Graham paused in reverence. He was not in his
essence an artist, and the impulse which would have come first to an
artist, came second to him.
His first distinct thought was: "What a picture it will make!" His
second, "How beautiful it is!" Then he looked for a long time without
thinking. He was gazing at the simple whole without reflection, as one
may listen to a note prolonged, and be yet content, although there is
no succession of anything produced in the mind, no idea suggested by
the sound.
Then his mind came back suddenly, and he thought: "By Jove! it
requires no painting at all. It paints itself." He had not been able
to say "By Jove!" as long as his form of thought was abstract. But the
moment he thought of the concrete, of brushes and canvas, and tubes
and palette, he fell to the level of his own mind in his studio,
where came no intoxicating visions of delight, no visitings of poetry,
no fine frenzy to cause the eye to roll. Of his own nature he was not
capable of evolving a thought or idea worthy of any more powerful or
enthusiastic form of expression than "By Jove!" But here something new
had been set before him. He felt there was poetry in the scene. He
knew at a glance it would make a good picture. A second glance showed
him there was poetry in it, but where he could not tell. He had no
originality. He was a reflector, not a prism.
After another period of mere gazing, he looked around. Yes, the place
would do admirably for a painting room. The vault ran north and south,
and the back or lower end of the archway, that from which the scene
should be painted, faced the north, which settled the question of
light in his favour. Then the archway was quite wide enough for an
easel.
The legs of the easel might stand in the water, and he could make a
little platform of flat stones on which to rest a seat for himself. At
the back of the archway spread an open green space. The place was
damp. But then in summer the roof would not drip, and that was all he
cared about. He should have to write up to London for a much larger
canvas than any he had with him. His easel, too, he should write for.
Well, he'd go back to The Beagle now and have some breakfast, and
write his letters afterwards.
He clambered up out of the hollow on the northern side, and walked
back to the inn much more briskly than he had come.
"I shall make sketches and studies of the place while I am waiting for
the easel and the canvas," he thought, as he went along the road.
When he arrived at the inn he ordered breakfast, and sat down to write
a couple of letters while he was waiting. The first of these was to
the man in London from whom he got his colours, asking him to send a
canvas of the size he wanted. The second ran as follows:
"Beagle Inn, Anerly, Devonshire,
"June, 18--.
"May it please your Grace,--I am now sojourning in Anerly, one of the
most charming villages in the dominions of her who calls you Our right
trusty and right entirely beloved Cousin. Everything here, including,
of course, myself, is excellent, except the bread, which is beastly.
The cocks and hens, the scenery, the cider, and all other things of
that class, cannot be surpassed. There is a man here, six feet high,
twenty-three years of age, sixteen stone ten (not an ounce of which
you could pinch with a steel nippers), whom I have been telling of
you, and who is awfully anxious to fight you. He is by profession a
carpenter. He never saws a three-inch deal, but breaks it across his
knee. He says he will fight you for nothing with great pleasure. I
want you to come down at once and stop with me for a week or two. I'll
treat you like a prince. You shall have three full meals and as many
quarts of cider. The fact is, dear old Duke, I am going to paint a
picture here. It's awfully good. I'll swear to you it's the loveliest
thing you ever saw. It's the real whangdoodle, and no mistake. Come
down and judge for yourself. And now I want you to do a thing for me.
Go to my diggings (I mean the studio), get my big box of oils and my
easel, and send them on here. You shall have one extra quart of cider
for this job if you come. But if you don't come you shall not have a
stiver. If you come I will tell you a story I heard here, and which
will surely make your fortune if you write it. I am going to paint
Anerly church, and this story is about Anerly church; so that if you
come down, see the place, and do the story, it will be in a
magnificent way writing up to my picture; and if you get out your book
by next May, when your 'Romance of Anerly Church' is in the libraries,
and my 'Under Anerly Bridge' is on the line, we shall both be helping
one another to fame and fortune. Now, whatever you do or avoid doing,
you must come here. I am called for breakfast. But remember and
come.--I have the honour to be, my lord Duke, your Grace's most
obliged and obedient servant,
"Edward Graham.
"To His Grace the Duke of Long Acre.
"P.S.--By-the-way, the people about whom I am to tell you the romance,
are namesakes of yours.
"E. G."
CHAPTER VI.
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
When the Duke of Long Acre got Edward Graham's letter, he immediately
packed off the easel and colours. He liked Graham very much, and
Graham loved him. Cheyne was one of those men who are always asked to
do odd jobs for friends. He was good-humoured, of active habits, and
liked to be busy always.
Although he was prompt about the commission he had received, he had no
intention of doing the other thing Graham asked. No inducement of an
ordinary kind could drag him out of London just now. He was moderately
busy for the papers and magazines to which he contributed, and he was
exceedingly busy with the affairs of his heart.
There was no happier lover in all London than Charles Augustus Cheyne.
He loved his love, and his love loved him, and he envied no man's lot.
She was as bright and dear a sweetheart as ever man had, and he loved
her in a thoroughly comfortable common-sense way. He had written about
romantic love, but he had never felt a pang of it in his private
experience. Romance was a good thing in a book, for it amused one, but
it was a poor stock-in-trade on which to begin matrimony. So he kept
his romance for the public and his friends, and his straightforward
manhood for his sweetheart. "Sweetheart" is the finest love-word we
have in English, and she was his sweetheart--his sweetheart--his sweet
heart.
He loved her simply, frankly, wholly, without any mental reservation.
He never told her he wanted to die for her, or that she was blameless
or perfect. He told her she was as good a girl as any man ever might
hope to marry. He knew she was as well as he knew that two and two are
four. He praised her face less than was reasonable. He told her she
had most lovely eyes, which was a temperate and judicial way of
putting the matter. He was quite sure of his girl. He did not want
anyone to tell him anything about her. He did not want her to tell him
anything about herself. The only thing he wanted was to make her
happy, and he thought he could do that. If she were happy he should be
happy for three reasons--first, because he had an excellent
constitution and was not soured by ill-health; secondly, because he
had a gay and cheerful nature; thirdly, because the very sight of her
happiness could not fail to be a source of abiding joy to him.
When he put his arms round her he always felt glad he was big enough
and strong enough to protect her. Once, while holding her a moment in
his arms, he said:
"I could crush you to death now. May, if I liked."
"You great bear, don't frighten me to death first," she said.
"Or," he added, "I think I could kill any man who annoyed you; of
course I mean who injured you desperately."
"Well," she said, "as I don't mean to be injured dreadfully by anyone,
as I don't want to be frightened to death or crushed to death, I don't
see why you should not let me go. Oh dear, men are such plagues."
Yes, Charles Augustus Cheyne was a very strong man physically;
mentally he was by no means so strong. Notwithstanding the fact that
he told lies by the thousand, no one ever dreamed of saying he was a
dishonourable man. He made no earthly use of his lies. If he told a
new acquaintance that he had the day before dined with the Marquis of
Belgravia, and his listener then asked him to dinner next day, Cheyne
would most certainly decline to go. If he lied he lied for his own
pleasure, not for his profit, not for the injury of anyone. He never
said a bad word of any man he knew, and he never said a bad word of
any member of the aristocracy, for had he not broken the bread of
every member of it?
But of all the weak points in Cheyne's mental equipment the weakest
was a dread of an allusion to his family. Any allusion to his people
always made him uncomfortable; and, where he could possibly manage to
do so, he always changed the conversation as soon as possible. When
asked point-blank who his father was, he replied in almost the same
form of words: "My father was a poor gentleman who met many reverses
of fortune." He never said anything about his mother, and those who
knew him best had long ago made up their minds that he had no right to
his father's name, and that Cheyne had been his mother's name, or an
assumed one. Indeed most of his friends were convinced that neither
his mother nor father had borne the name of Cheyne.
He did not know much more about himself than those around him. He did
not remember his father or mother. His earliest recollection was of an
elderly spinster who wore corkscrew curls, kept a day-school for young
ladies, and took in a few boarders. He was one of these boarders, and
now he always looked back on that part of his life with the deadliest
hatred. Two facts connected with that establishment clung to his
imagination with terrible tenacity. First, that he never got anything
to eat there but bread steeped in boiled milk; secondly, that on
frosty days his schoolmistress hit him on the knuckles with a
lead-pencil because he did not hold his pen properly. Even now the
smell of bread steeped in boiling milk made him ill.
From this school he was sent to another, a private one kept by a
clergyman in Cumberland. No one ever visited him, and he never
left school for holidays. He did not know who paid for him at those
houses. He had a small allowance of pocket-money. At school he had
displayed some taste for literature. He always took first place in
essay-writing. He assumed from this that the clergyman must have
suggested he should in some way be linked to literature: for when he
left school, at sixteen years of age, the clergyman told him a
situation had been secured for him in a publisher's office in London.
The clergyman came up to town with him, introduced him to his new
master, handed him a ten-pound note, saying it came from his guardian,
and then took leave of him.
From the day he left that old maid's school he had never seen or heard
anything of her. From the day that clergyman handed him the that
ten-pound note and bade him good-bye he had never seen or heard
anything of him. At the date he first found himself in the publisher's
office he was too young to set any inquiries on foot about himself;
and as time went on and he began to know something of the world and
its ways, he came to the conclusion he had no right to his father's
name, and that the one he bore was his mother's. When he had grown to
be a man he felt deeply the humiliation of his position, and made up
his mind to look no further into the matter, lest what was now only
matter of inference might become matter of certainty. "Let sleeping
dogs lie" was the motto he adopted, and he had never departed from it.
To Marion Durrant he had told all he absolutely knew of himself. He
had not told her anything he inferred or suspected. He had been told
by the clergyman who had looked after his education that both his
father and mother were dead. He had told Marion that he had never
known either his father or mother, that they were both dead, that he
had no memory of his childhood and youth apart from those two schools,
and that as far as he knew he had no relative alive. But he had said
nothing to her of his misgivings or doubts.
From all this it will be seen that Graham's allusion to the story
connected with Anerly and his name would be anything but an inducement
for Cheyne to leave London for that Devonshire village.
Every day he found his way out to Knightsbridge, and every day he had
long sweet hours with his May.
It was afternoon on the day he got Graham's letter before he could
leave home, and four o'clock had struck before he knocked at the
hall-door of the little house in Knightsbridge.
When he came into the room where Marion Durrant sat hemming an apron,
she said:
"What! come again to-day! In the name of wonder, what brought _you_
here now?'
"You know, May, the pressure of race is ever from east to west,"
"The pressure of race! What on earth are you talking about? Don't!
that hurts my hand."
"I was slapping your hand to prevent you from fainting at the
unexpected sight of your slave and master. I meant the pressure of
the human race--or more accurately, the attraction of the inhuman
race--meaning yourself, sweetheart."
"Do you know, Charlie, you always begin a conversation as if you
wanted me to think you clever; and if there is one thing I hate it is
cleverness in a man."
"Do you know, Miss Durrant, you never by any means allow me to begin a
conversation. Before I am fully in the room you always fly at me with
some question or other."
"But you are so slow, Charlie. You take up half an hour getting ready
to say 'Howd'y'do'; and if there is one thing more odious in a man
than cleverness it is slowness."
"But you must admit. Miss Durrant, that if, when we meet, I am slow of
speech, I am not slow in other matters proper to our meeting."
"Go away, sir! How dare you? I will not let you do that again.
Sometimes I think you a bear, and sometimes I think you an elephant,
but I think I hate you always."
"If you say any more I'll get a divorce on the grounds of cruelty and
desertion. May, let us drop this sort of thing. Run and bring me a
glass of beer. I've been trotting about the whole morning, and am
dying for a glass of beer."
"You deserve to be starved, and you deserve to be thirsty, and you
deserve to be----"
"I admit it all. I deserve it all, and every other thing that's awful,
except to be married to you. Marion Durrant, spinster, what would you
do if I cut my throat?"
"Charlie!"
"Or if I put my head under the wheel of an omnibus laden with
exceedingly fat people?"
"Charlie! Charlie!"
"Or if I threw myself over Westminster Bridge with a couple of
forty-pound shot tied round my heels?"
"I'll run for the beer, Charlie."
"Ah, I thought I'd get you to move at last. You see you can't bear to
leave me even for a minute."
"Conceited fellow!" and she tripped out of the room.
She went herself with a jug into the little cellar under the
front-door step, and drew the beer in a most elaborate and painstaking
manner. She looked into three jugs before she was satisfied with one,
although they were all as immaculate as human hands could make them.
She looked at the glass as if it were a jewel she was thinking of
buying, and the slightest flaw in it would render it valueless. She
placed the jug and the tumbler and a plate of biscuits on an
exceedingly slippery Japanese wooden tray, and declined to let the
maid carry it up. She was proud of that polished jug, that polished
glass, that polished tray. The jug and the glass and the tray were
more to her that the condition of the beer. As a matter of fact, she
never thought of the beer at all. It would be a pity if the beer was
not in good condition; but it would be a disgrace if the jug, glass,
and tray were not in perfect order.
When she came back to the room she was meek and penitential. We are
always softened towards those to whom we have done ever so slight a
service. When he had taken a draught of the ale and broken a biscuit,
she said plaintively:
"Charlie!"
"Well, my fire-eating she-dragon, what bloodthirsty thing have you to
say to your down-trodden slave now?"
"Only that you were right when you said----"
"When I spoke about cutting my throat?"
"No, no, no! When you said I did not like to go away from you even for
a moment. Charlie, I hate going away from you, and I hate myself when
you are away; for then I remember all the foolish things I have said
to you, and--and I am always afraid----"
"Of my taking four pounds, apothecaries' weight, of solid opium?"
"No. Of your being angry with me some day, or of your not forgiving
me."
She was pretty and very penitent, and he had had a long walk and a
glass of beer, and he felt perfectly at rest and happy; so he put out
his arms and took her into them for a moment, and when he let her go
they both felt that, say what you like about love, it is the finest
thing in all the world, and that there is nothing else which makes
people so utterly unselfish.
"I had a letter from Graham this morning," said Charlie, after a
pause.
"Where is he now?"
"In Devonshire still, sketching at some place called Anerly. He wrote
me to send him some painting materials. He is going to begin a picture
there, so I suppose we shall not see anything of him for some time. He
has asked me to run down to him for a few days?"
"And will you go?"
"Not I. I am too busy just now."
"But you could do your work down there, and I am sure you want a run
away and a little fresh air."
"Yes; I could write, no doubt. But then you see, May, I should not be
able to come and read my MS. to you, and I should not get on very
well. While I am at work at Long Acre I am in a hurry to be done, in
order that I may get back to you, and I am too anxious to please you
to do slovenly work; so the result is that I work longer and yet have
more leisure, which is a paradox, and a paradox is particularly
unsuited to the understanding of women."
"You are always saying nice and disagreeable things in the one breath;
and I don't know whether to like you or to hate you."
"To cases of this kind an infrangible rule applies. It is, when I say
nice things, hate me; when I say disagreeable things, love me. This is
another paradox. Paradoxes, although they are not intelligible to
women, are all the more dear to them on that very account. You never
yet knew a woman who thoroughly understood a man care for him. I never
did."
"But, Charlie, I think I understand you very well."
"Rank presumption. The rankest presumption I ever heard in all my
life. Know me, May! Why, you don't even know who my father and mother
were."
"You told me they were dead."
"Yes, they are dead. But you know nothing of them. You do not know if
they were felons, or shopkeepers, or gentlefolk."
"I am sure, Charlie, they were gentlefolk."
"Ah, you do not know. And now, May," said he, taking her hand very
tenderly and softly patting the back of it with the palm of his own,
"I must tell you a secret I ought perhaps to have told you long ago,
as it might influence you in your decision of accepting or not
accepting me."
"Nothing you could have told me would have made the slightest
difference in my decision, Charlie," she said, in a very faint voice.
He ceased patting her hand, and pressed it softly between his two
palms. He spoke in a low voice:
"Well, May, the fact of it is I do not know who my father and mother
were. It could do no good, dear, if this fact were made public, and I
count on you for keeping it secret."
"You may," she whispered back, returning the pressure of his hands,
and laying her disengaged hand upon the upper one of his. The action
was slight and made without thought, yet he felt its import. He knew
by that gesture she meant to convey to him that not only was the hand
his own, but that all the faculties of her nature owed allegiance to
him alone.
"Thank you, darling; I know how good you are. Every day I see you I am
more and more convinced of your goodness. But you see. May, that is my
only great trouble, and day by day I am afraid I may find out
something very, unpleasant, something disgraceful about my father and
mother."
"But nothing you can find out will be disgraceful to you, Charlie."
"No, logically and morally not. But then you know the sins of the
parent are visited on the children, not merely by Heaven, but by the
world. You know very well that if a man's father had been a hangman,
or a murderer, or a forger, his son would be looked on with suspicion
and dislike by the majority of the world. A man in my position is of
course more alive to the discomfort of any such discovery than a man
who knows about his parents. He is continually fancying all manner of
horrible surprises, until the mind becomes morbidly sensitive on the
subject. I confess I am morbidly sensitive on the subject; and of one
thing I am certain, that if I made any discovery of the kind I have
been speaking of, I could not stand England--London. I'd emigrate. I'd
go to the United States or Australia; some place where the English
language is spoken, and where I might have a chance of making a living
by my pen. I am telling you all this for a purpose, May. It is all
only a preface to a question. And the question: In case anything of
the kind arose, and I was about to leave for the United States or a
colony, would you marry me and come with me?"
"Oh, how can you ask such a question? I'd go anywhere with you. What
does it matter where I am so long as I am with you, Charlie?"
He thanked her and kissed her, and soon after took his leave; for he
had work to do that evening.
As he walked home in the fresh bright air his step was elastic, and he
carried his head thrown back. His happiness was now complete. The two
great points he had reserved had been cleared up. May cared only for
himself. Whatever time might unearth about his father and mother, she
would not be altered by it; and if anything obliging him to leave the
country did transpire, she would marry him and go with him all the
same as if nothing had come to light. This was the most peaceful,
contented and joyous day of his life.
When Cheyne arrived at the house in Long Acre, he found Mr. Whiteshaw,
the carriage-builder, standing in his wareroom.
"Good afternoon, Cheyne," cried the builder cheerily.
"Good afternoon," said Cheyne, pausing and drawing near.
"What news?" asked the carriage-builder, rubbing his hands, as though
news ever so dismal would be preferable to none.
"Not a word," said Cheyne, stepping into the wareroom.
"Heard anything of the Duke of Shropshire since?"
"No, no. Nothing particular. Except that the Duke of Dorsetshire, in a
note I got from him a day or two ago, says his grace is awfully cut up
by the way these rascally Radicals are behaving."
"If I were at the head of affairs now, I'd pass a law treating all
Radicals as working-men out of situations, and I'd clap every man Jack
of them into jail. That's what I'd do."
"You'd never get a bill like that through the Commons, although you
might through the Lords."
"Ah, I suppose not; I suppose not, Cheyne. We live in a degenerate
age. But you, if you were in the House, would you vote for such a
measure?"
"I am afraid it is extreme," said Cheyne, with a good-humoured smile.
"But you, you ought to be dead against Radicals and demagogues. Your
name alone--why, sir, your name alone shows you come of a great stock,
the great house of Shropshire. (By-the-way, we weren't long putting
that brougham right for his grace. There it is, you see; and a pretty
job too.) But, as I was saying, you must be a member of that family.
Why, look at how few there are of the name."
"No, no. I assure you, most sincerely, I am in no way connected with
any great house. The name is common enough in England--common enough.
Well, I must be off to work. I have a whole lot of stuff to get away
by to-night's mail for the morning."
With these words Cheyne walked out of the wareroom and got to the
hall-door, and mounted the stairs.
"I never can understand," thought the carriage-maker, "why this
Cheyne, who lies right and left about noblemen, should have such a
strong objection to thinking he was descended from a big swell."
When Cheyne reached his own room he sat down and thought a moment.
Then he said to himself very gravely:
"I wish Whiteshaw would give up this connecting my name with that of
the Duke of Shropshire. Supposing a person found a poor deserted
child, would it be kinder to name it Fitzalan Howard or plain William
Brown?"
And when he had put the question to himself, he fell to wondering very
unpleasantly whether or not he had at one time been a poor deserted
child, picked up by some passer-by, to whom had been given the
high-sounding name of Charles Augustus Cheyne.
So the afternoon which had been the happiest of his life ended under a
sombre cloud.
CHAPTER VII.
A STORY OF A CITY.
Wyechester is a small city in the Midlands. It does not contain more
than thirty thousand people, so that it is possible for every man and
woman of the middle class to know everyone of the same class, or, at
all events, to know everything about everybody, which is almost as
good, if not better.
Wyechester is not a place of any importance now, save what it draws
from its cathedral and its bishop, and the other great dignitaries
around the cathedral. If the city disappeared wholly one night the
world of England would hardly miss it, provided the cathedral and
church dignitaries were spared. It does not manufacture anything; it
has no mines near it. No one ever thought of hunting or shooting in
the neighbourhood but those who lived in the neighbourhood. The
fishing is poor; and the land, although fairly fertile, is not held in
much esteem by farmers. It is a faded, washed-out, old cathedral city,
surrounded on all sides by an uninteresting country.
It had one virtue, which, as it concerned only itself, did not spread
its fame--it was pious. It was the most pious city in England. It
could not, of course, be said with truth that there was no hypocrisy
in it; but, speaking relatively, there was very little, much less than
in any other city of its size.
It was pious, and it was severe. To do any wrong there was much worse
than to do the same wrong in any other city or town in England. Going
to church twice on Sunday regularly for thirty years entitled one to
consideration; going once freed one from adverse comment; going only
twice a month was looked on as bad, very bad; but not going at all
made middle-class people in Wyechester think that the sooner the
offender left the diocese the better.
Five-and-thirty years before the pole of the omnibus went through the
door of the Duke of Shropshire's brougham, five-and-thirty years
before Edward Graham decided upon painting that landscape revealed to
him under the bridge at Anerly, Mrs. Mansfield, widow of the Rev.
James Mansfield, lived in Wyechester. The Rev. James Mansfield died
very young. He was, at the time of his death, curate to one of the
city churches, and was looked upon as a very exemplary and clever
young man, who had a career before him. But his career seemed never to
have begun, for he died before he was thirty. He left behind him a
widow and daughter and about a hundred and fifty pounds a year, from
money in the Funds, willed him by an aunt who had the warmest
affection for this nephew.
On this modest income, and about seventy pounds a year coming in from
other sources, the widow managed to live quietly, respectably, and to
give her daughter a very good education. Five-and-thirty years before
what may be taken as the present time of this story, a thing occurred
which horrified all Wyechester and bowed down the head of Mrs.
Mansfield for ever.
At that time Harriet Mansfield was on a visit with some friends in the
country. One morning Miss Mansfield left the house of the friends she
was staying with and did not return. Neither did she go home. After
days of anxiety a letter, in the daughter's handwriting, came from
London, in which she simply said she had left her home for good, and
that there was no chance whatever of her going back.
Mrs. Mansfield was then forty-three years of age, but, with the flight
of her daughter, her life may be said to have closed, although she was
living at the time this story opened, being then seventy-eight years
of age. She loved her daughter with all the love she was capable of.
But she was a hard, cold, stern nature. To her daughter she never
showed her love except in rigours, and insisting on doing her own duty
by her child, without any sympathetic conception of what effect doing
her own duty would have on a gentle, soft, and confiding nature like
her daughter's. The result was that the mother did her duty according
to her own lights. She endeavoured to bring up her daughter according
to her own rigid code, and she justified herself to herself.
But the daughter had no Spartan nature. She loved pretty things and
soft subjects to wear. She was not allowed to keep pets, or to be too
familiar with other children. While in the world, and now and then
coming in contact for a brief period with pleasant people and grateful
things, she was under a discipline as rigid as a convent without any
sustaining code; for she did not believe it necessary to be
uncomfortable in order to be good. So when love for the first time
approached her, and she was from under the immediate eye of her
mother, the oppressive goodness of that cathedral city, and the
prospect of love and brightness and sunshine and freedom were all
presented to her eyes by a man who owned the gift of erratic
eloquence, and who was richer than any other man she had ever met,
richer than even the bishop, she did not hesitate long. She fled with
him. She knew that running away was wrong, but she under-estimated the
risk, or indeed did not think there was any risk at all; for she was
as simple as a child, and did willingly all things her lover told her,
as all her life she had reluctantly obeyed her mother when uncongenial
tasks were imposed.
In that letter from London, a letter dictated by the companion of her
flight, she said nothing about him, nothing about marriage. It was
therefore plain to the mother that the daughter was not married. So
the mother cast the image of her daughter out of her heart, and shut
up her heart against her child for ever. All through her widowhood
this girl had been the sole source of her secret love and happiness,
as far as worldly things were allowed to count in the love and
happiness of one who ruled herself by the rule of duty.
Now that child had become the only source of secret and open reproach
to her. Soon after she got that letter everyone in the city knew all
about her misfortune, and the neighbours turned up their eyes and held
aloft their hands in virtuous shame. Her daughter had disgraced her
home, had disgraced the sacred order to which she might be said to
belong, had disgraced the city which had given her birth. Into the
mother's heart the image of the daughter should come no more. Across
the mother's threshold the foot of the daughter should never pass. It
was hard to keep the image out always; but no sooner did it gain an
entrance than she cast it forth with bitter reproaches against herself
for her sinful weakness in holding commune with the only thing which
had ever brought shame to her.
The mother made no steps to follow the daughter. Several people came
and offered help. She wanted no help. Her daughter had taken her fate
into her own hands, and there matters should rest. She was inflexible.
Nothing could move her in the least way.
Clergymen who had been friends of her husband called and expostulated,
and said that it was wrong and sinful of her not to do something to
win back the fugitive. But she would not listen to them with patience.
She told them she had done her duty by the girl, and the girl had
taken herself off, and she, the mother, could not think of receiving
her daughter back. They then told her this was not a Christian spirit,
and that she must remember the story of the poor Prodigal. And, upon
this, she grew angry with them, for it hurt her beyond endurance to
hear her daughter, her only child, referred to in such a way. She told
them she knew her duty as a Christian as well as anyone, that they
ought to be aware she had been under good guidance, the guidance of
her husband, for many years, and that she was much obliged to them,
but that her mind was made up beyond the chance of change.
Time proved she could adhere to her resolve, for she never made the
least inquiry. Nor did she ever see her child again.
Harriet Mansfield had behaved very badly. There could be no excuse for
her running away as she did. She was weak by nature, and her weakness
betrayed her; but her weakness was no justification. Yet her folly had
not betrayed her into such a desperate position as her mother
imagined. She had run away, and she had run away with a lover; but
there the disgrace ended.
The people with whom Harriet Mansfield was staying when she eloped
were Mr. and Mrs. Gore, old friends of Mrs. Mansfield. They were
childless, and lived in good style in a comfortable house close by an
excellent trout-stream. Mr. Gore went to his office in town close by
every day, and came home to a late dinner. During most of the day Mrs.
Gore was engaged about domestic affairs, and could give little
attention to her guest. This was the first time Harriet had ever been
free. It was lovely weather, and she soon found out a few pleasant
walks in the neighbourhood. The place was beautiful compared to the
dull monotony of the scenery round Wyechester. Her favourite walk was
along the banks of this trout-stream, which wound in and out through
delightful shady glens and peaceful meadows.
One day by chance she met here a fine stalwart gentleman fishing. He
was more impetuous than careful, and he managed to fix one of the
flies of his casting-line in her dress. The hook had to be extracted
at the cost of some slight injury to the dress; apologies had to be
made; and by the time apologies had been offered and accepted, an
acquaintance had been established. He asked if he might be permitted
to know the name of the lady to whom he had caused such annoyance, and
whose dress he had so shamefully injured. She told him her name, and
then he in return told her his name was Cheyne.
From that day forth they met daily by the stream, and before a
fortnight had gone he had asked her to marry him and she had
consented. He was impulsive, chivalric, romantic; the man more than
any other calculated to set on fire the heart of a girl who had been
so repressed all her life.
He obtained a complete mastery over her. She submitted herself to his
word as she had submitted herself to her mother's; only one submission
was voluntary, joyous--the other a task, a burden. He made passionate
speeches to her, explaining how, if they got married now, it must for
his sake be kept an inviolate secret. She did not understand the
reasons he gave, but she understood his wish--that no word of their
marriage should go abroad then or it would injure him--and she made
the necessary promise. She understood only one thing of the reason why
their marriage should not be made known at present; and that was, that
if it was known he had married a poor woman now, a property worth ten
thousand a year might be taken from him. Whereas, under the will of
his father, he would in a year or so come into more than would pay all
his debts twice over.
He had told her the simple truth. If he had told her the simplest lie,
it would have been just as satisfactory to her; for she did not think
in any matter which concerned him. She was willing to do, to dare, to
suffer anything for the love of him. So she took him at his word, and
ran away with him on the understanding that they were to be married in
some quiet out-of-the-way place, and that she was to say nothing of
their marriage until he came into his fortune.
He brought her first to London, where she wrote that letter dictated
by him. Then he took her to Anerly, where he married her. Between the
time of his taking her away from the Gores' house until the ceremony
at Anerly Church he treated her as though she were a foreign princess
whom he was escorting to espouse a prince.
For a few months after the marriage the life of Harriet Cheyne went on
like a dream of delight. Her husband was erratic; but he was kindly
erratic. He never tired of inventing or devising some agreeable treat
or pleasing wonder for her. They travelled much in England and on the
Continent. Every place she went to was Fairyland, and he was the
enchanter. He was never from her side. He told her he would rather
hear her call his name than find the praise of all the world else
within his ears. She was intoxicated with happiness, and could
scarcely speak, her joy was so great. The black dreary past was more
than a million times compensated for. When she lay down at night she
dreaded to go to sleep, lest on waking she should find herself back in
cold wretched Wyechester. Each waking of mornings was a new delivery
from the past. She now knew how unwise her mother's treatment of her
had been. But she forgave her; and often, when she woke at dead of
night, she thought of her hard-faced stern mother at home, and a tear
stole down her cheek--a tear of pity for the poor woman who had the
misfortune to bring up a daughter that had acted with such perfect
indifference to a mother's feelings.
But at last a sad change came. They were abroad. A letter arrived one
day to her husband, saying that some of his enemies had got hold of
the fact of his marriage, and were preparing to sell the information
to his creditors. Something must be done at once. The bride and
bridegroom were then at Brussels. It was essential he should set off
at once for England, and under the circumstances it would be
exceedingly dangerous for her to accompany him. So he went, giving her
emphatic instructions not to leave Brussels, no matter what might
happen, until she saw him or heard from him.
She never heard from him nor saw him afterwards.
He got to England safely, and reached Anerly, made an ineffectual
attempt to bribe Goolby, left Anerly that day, and died within a
couple of days. His death made a final settlement with his creditors,
and whether he had married or not was no longer a matter of the least
consequence to them.
At Brussels, Cheyne's child was born months afterwards. The mother,
whose stock of money had by this time dwindled down to almost nothing,
had saved a twenty-pound note, and this she gave to a woman whom she
knew she could trust to bring her baby-boy to Wyechester to her
mother; for she was dying, and knew it. She sent a very brief note
with the boy, saying he had not been christened, that his name was
Charles Augustus Cheyne, that she was dying, that she had been legally
married, but that owing to circumstances the fact of her marriage
could not be divulged. Then she appealed to her mother in very
pathetic terms to be kind to the boy and provide for him, as she had
no means, and had not heard of her husband for months. She also said
she sent by bearer a sealed packet of letters and papers belonging to
her husband, and begged her mother to keep it, and not to break the
seals until some momentous occasion arose for doing so, as she was
under important promises to her husband regarding certain matters
reference to which was contained in the papers in the packet. Then
there came a plea for forgiveness.
At first Mrs. Mansfield was filled with dismay. It was horrible to
think of her daughter dying, deserted by the man who had taken her
away, and dying in a foreign land too. There was of course an appeal
for forgiveness in the letter; but to Mrs. Mansfield's mind the appeal
came far too late, and even if it had come earlier it would have
appeared an appeal to an affection of the flesh, which was in itself
an offence against the spirit.
Mrs. Mansfield had tried to crush down Nature, but Nature was too
strong for her; and when the messenger threw back the covering from
the face of the infant, the tears, tears of the flesh, stood in her
eyes, and her hand trembled. For that small, white, contented,
sleeping baby-face reminded her of the time when her own infant lay in
her own arms, and she speculated as to what her baby's future might
be. And now here was her child's child; and the little one who had
lain sleeping in her lap years ago, that seemed no farther off than
yesterday, was dying in disgrace among strangers. Her own baby had
come into the world sanctified, to her mind, by the very atmosphere in
which it was born. Its father was an exemplar of what a man and a
clergyman should be. There was every reason to suppose her baby would
grow up into a woman who would be spoken of as a model of all a woman
should be. Now here was her child's child. It was an unholy, an
unrighteous child. There was no blessing or grace about it.
Ah, it was hard to hold that babe in her arms and think of her own
child, and have a proper Christian feeling towards its father!
And the grandmother, who was not yet forty-five years of age, undid
the baby's hood and passed her hand over the child's beating head, and
touched the little fat double chin with her bent finger, softly
pinched its white cheeks, and forgot for a while all that had happened
since, and was back again in the old time.
Then all at once, as though God had taken pity on her, her tears began
to fall, and she became less of a rigid Christian of the poor and
narrow kind, and more of a Christian in light of the Sermon on the
Mount and the story of the Good Samaritan. She said: "I'll take the
boy and do my duty by him." She added after a pause: "I'll take the
boy and do all I can for him," At that moment she did not so much want
to do her own duty as to be good to him.
But when the messenger had gone, and she found herself alone with the
baby, she receded somewhat from the advanced position she had taken.
She had resolved for a few moments to keep the boy and live down the
talk of idle tongues. Now that idea seemed no more than a temptation
to give way to vainglory, and she resolved to send the boy away as
speedily as possible.
She took the boy with her to a town a hundred miles from Wyechester,
and had him there baptized Charles Augustus Cheyne. Subsequently she
got a nurse for him, and, having made a liberal arrangement with the
nurse, she said:
"I shall come and see you and him at irregular intervals; and whenever
I come and find him looking well and comfortable, I will give you a
guinea in addition to what I have arranged with you for."
By this she intended to secure the continual good treatment of the
child; for though she had failed in her heroic resolve of living down
talk of the idle tongues of Wyechester, she had made up her mind to be
as good to the orphan as she could.
When she got home she found news awaiting her of the death of her
daughter. She put away the thought of her daughter as much as she
could from her mind; and, in a few years, when the boy was old enough
to go to school, she went to that town again, and having requested an
attorney to preserve secrecy in the matter, without giving him any
reason for it, she asked the lawyer to find a school for the boy.
Accordingly he was sent to the school kept by the old maid, and later
to a college. Subsequently he was put to business in London; but from
the time he left the place where he had been brought up, he had never
seen his grandmother, and the early days at his nurse's had completely
faded out of his memory.
The grandmother was now a very old woman. She still lived in her house
at Wyechester. She had altered greatly in face and figure, but her
nature had softened in no way with years. She was still as stiff and
intellectually assured as ever she had been. She had the willing power
of one hundred and fifty pounds a year; the other seventy died with
her; and she had made this will in favour of Charles Augustus Cheyne,
of Long Acre, in London. Although he had never within his memory heard
her name, she had always taken care to know what he was doing, and how
he was getting on.
She had even so far given way to worldliness as to read the
publications to which he contributed; and as she read them she thought
of how strange it should be that his grandfather was younger than his
grandson when he died, and here was she now reading what the grandson
had written!
But in all that Charles Augustus Cheyne had ever written, there was
nothing so surprising as would have been the result of bringing
together the sealed packet held by his grandmother, the registry of
Anerly Church, and Charles Augustus Cheyne.
CHAPTER VIII.
ON BOARD THE YACHT "SEABIRD."
The bodily and mental conditions of the Marquis of Southwold, which
forbade him living ashore any length of time, were many and almost
insurmountable. The greatest doctors had of course been consulted, but
without being able to afford any relief. They had called his
lordship's symptoms by a number of very learned names, seldom heard in
the medical profession. They could go no further than that. They had
tried every resource of their art, and had failed. Men at the top of
the profession can afford to confess failure much better than their
brethren of a less degree. When the greatest doctors declare a patient
must die soon, the sooner that patient dies the better for
conventional decency.
The doctors had not said that Lord Southwold must die soon; but they
had declared him incurable, and advised him to try the sea. He tried
the sea, and the remedy was most successful. On shore his eyes were
tender and dim, his limbs dumb and nerveless, his appetite failed, and
his spirits sank almost to melancholia. But no sooner did he go on
board a ship than all these symptoms began to abate. His eyes grew
stronger, his sight improved, the lassitude lessened, he could eat
with relish, and his spirits gradually returned.
The Marquis of Southwold was now a man of thirty-eight years of age,
tall, lank, long-cheeked, and without the hereditary bow-legs. His
features were vague and expressionless. He had a remarkably large
mouth, and dull faded grey eyes. There was upon his face always the
look of pain past rather than pain present. His face was that of one
who was fading out, rather than of one who suffered any violent
assault. He was more languid and subdued than his father; but, like
him too, he was very taciturn.
His health was good while on board the yacht, although she only lay at
anchor in Silver Bay, beneath the ducal castle. Thus, for a large
portion of the year, his grace's schooner-yacht, the _Seabird_ lay at
anchor in Silver Bay. The bay was excellently suited to the
requirements of the ailing nobleman: for it was protected from the
wind by high lands on three sides, and from the rolling sea of the
German Ocean by a barrier of rocks, extending more than halfway across
the bay from the northern side. The best anchorage was just under the
shelter of this jagged barrier of rocks. Here, even in the most severe
gales from the east, the water was always smooth. The holding ground
was also excellent; and the rocks, as they rose twenty, thirty, forty
feet high, protected the hull of the schooner from the force of the
wind.
The entrance to this bay was safe and easy. It was about a quarter of
a mile wide, and quite free from rocks. The largest vessel afloat
would have water enough in any part of that opening, from a point
twenty fathoms from the end of the bar to a point twenty fathoms from
the opposite shore of the bay. The only great danger was if, in
tacking in or out in heavy weather, anything should give way; for it
was necessary to reach in or out on the one tack, there being no room
for tacking in the passage itself in a strong wind and high sea.
Of course, if Lord Southwold wished for a steam-yacht, he might have
the finest that could be designed. But he could not endure a steamer.
It was almost worse for him than being on shore. The air is never
brisk aboard a steamboat, and then the vibration jarred upon him
horribly.
He was not an enterprising sailor, and did not court adventure. He did
not love the sea for its perils, or for the chance it affords of
enjoying the sense of struggling successfully against an enemy. He
looked on dwelling afloat as a birthright, or birthwrong, against
which there was no good in growling. His father allowed him twenty
thousand a year pocket-money. He would have given up his twenty
thousand a year and his right of succession to the title and vast
estates, if he might have a thousand a year and the constitution of a
navvy. It is not utterly impossible that a navvy may become a duke,
but it is utterly impossible that a man with such a constitution as
his could enjoy the health of a navvy.
He found it impossible to spend his pocket-money, and he hated the
notion of it accumulating at his banker's. When he had a large
balance, it always seemed as if it were placed there as the wages of
his bodily infirmities. He hated money as honourable men hate debt.
When he found a balance of ten or twelve thousand at his banker's, he
could, he knew, draw it out and drop it over the side of the yacht.
But that would be wilful waste. He might have given it in charity; but
he had so little contact with the world that he had hardly any sense
of the necessity for charity, except through reading, which is a cold
and formal way of kindling one's sympathy. He might have gambled; but
he had hardly ever attended a race or coursing match. They very rarely
had a guest at the Castle or on board the yacht; and he did not care
for cards, even if guests were more numerous. He led an isolated and
dreary life; but he had experience of hardly any other. He could not
with comfort, live more than a few days ashore, or with safety more
than a couple of weeks.
He was now no longer what may be called a young man, and he intended
not to marry. His feeling was, that when such as he chanced to be the
only representative of his race his race ought to die out. On this
point his father had expostulated with him in vain. He never would
marry. The vital power of his race was expiring in him--let it die.
When his father died he should be Duke of Shropshire, with three to
four hundred thousand a year. What better off should he be then than
he now was. No better. He should, in fact, be worse, for he would have
lost the only friend and companion he had, his father. He should have
to draw more cheques, to see more people, to transact more business.
But he should eat nor drink nor lie no better, nor should his health
be improved. His capacity for enjoyment would be in no way increased,
and there would be a great addition to his labours. His father was
hale and hardy, and might live twenty-five years yet; and the heir
hoped with all his heart he might die before his father.
He marry! Why should he marry? What woman would care to share the
stupid life he was compelled to lead? No woman would be likely to love
him for himself, for he knew he was an uninteresting invalid.
Thousands of women would marry him because he was the Marquis of
Southwold and heir to the great dukedom of Shropshire. That went
without saying. But no woman would willingly share his life; and why
should he marry a woman who would unwillingly abide by him, or insist
upon keeping up fitting state in London and the country while he was a
frail despised rover of the sea? No! let the race go, and let the
lawyers pocket the spoil--the spoil would be enough to found fifty
families--and let the title die. What good would the title be to him?
Could he soothe the winds with it, or stop a leak with it, or claw off
a lee-shore with it?
Neither the Duke nor the Marquis was an intellectual man. But when one
is everlastingly on ship-board he must do something. Common sailors
who cannot read cultivate superstition, a knowledge of the weather,
and the use of abnormal quantities of tobacco.
A sailor carries away from a book he has read a more accurate notion
of what is in it than any other class of man of similar intellectual
lights and acquirements. As the sailor who has studied his chart by
day can see, when approaching an invisible shore through the trackless
darkness of water and night, in his mind's eye the shore and the
beacons of the shore that still lie hidden below the horizon, so the
sailor who has read a book can see that book by aid of the chart he
has made of it when the book has been closed up for ever.
As neither father nor son played the fiddle, or carved ivory, or cared
much for shooting at bottles in the water, or hunting the great
sea-serpent to earth, if the phrase may be allowed, or discovering the
North Pole, or exploring cannibal islands, or going in search of
novelty in foreign parts, a great deal of their time was spent in
reading and fishing. Fishing at sea is not a very high or exciting
art. Indeed, it is an art that is almost independent of the artist.
And it is almost necessary to have some other occupation at the same
time, so that reading goes hand-in-hand with fishing.
Thus it happened that both the Duke and his son read enormous piles of
newspapers and books. The Duke read newspapers chiefly, and political
books, and articles in the quarterlies. When a young man he had been
active in politics, but now he took only a reflected interest in them.
He hated Radicals with a complete and abiding hatred. He would root
them out of the country at any cost. They disturbed his cities and
boroughs. They were a low lot, and never washed their hands.
The Marquis of Southwold, on the contrary, took little or no interest
in politics. As far as he had any political feeling, it was against
his order and in favour of the Radicals. This feeling he kept to
himself, not because he was afraid to put forward anything opposed to
his father's views, but because he did not care to speak on a subject
he knew so little about. Personally he had a poor opinion of dukes,
but they might in reality be better than Radicals for all he knew to
the contrary, for he had met two dukes besides his father, but never a
Radical. He knew there was a wide gulf between dukes and Radicals. He
had an idea a Radical was a kind of political poet. He didn't think
much of poets; he knew little of Radicals; and he was perfectly sure
dukes were useless. He had a vague general conviction that politicians
who were not dukes were fools or rogues, but he was quite sure dukes
were supernumeraries without parts in the play of life.
But if he did not care anything about poetry and politics, he was much
interested in fiction. One of the few ways open to him, by which he
could now and then reduce by a few pounds the balance at his banker's,
was in ordering all the new novels which appeared, and ordering them,
not at a library, but from the publisher, through his bookseller. Thus
while this arrangement existed, every author who got out a novel was
sure of finding at least one buyer.
It so happened that in the same month of June Edward Graham set up his
easel to paint that landscape under Anerly Bridge, a novel was
published called "The Duke of Fenwick: a Romance. By Charles Augustus
Cheyne." According to the ordinary rule, the novel had been published
in three volumes before it had fully run through the paper in which it
appeared from week to week.
The same week the book was published it found its way down to
Silverview Castle, and from the Castle to the yacht _Seabird_, in the
hands of George Temple Cheyne, by courtesy called Marquis of
Southwold.
The title naturally attracted the nobleman, who had no faith in dukes.
He opened the book and found, by a curious coincidence, that the book
had been written by a namesake.
"A book by a namesake," thought he; "but by no relative! There never
yet was a Cheyne who could write anything more worthy of public notice
than 'Trespassers will be prosecuted. Dogs found in these preserves
will be shot.'"
But a book by a namesake dealing with a duke was of much more than
ordinary interest; so he immediately found the easiest of couches, and
lay down under the awning on deck to hear what his namesake had to say
about a duke.
Certainly he had never met a duke like his Grace of Fenwick; but then
he had met only his own father and two others. The two strange dukes
he had met were like the farmers who came to pay his father rent. But
then his father was very like a groom or jockey, and yet was not
particularly fond of riding or of horses; so that it was, perhaps, not
the nature of dukes to look like what they were. His namesake had no
thought of drawing any member of the Shropshire family, for his duke
was represented as being tall, well-made, and handsome. None of the
Shropshire family had been tall, well-made, and handsome. They had all
been short and bandy-legged until he had come. He was tall, it was
true, and not bandy-legged; but then he was not handsome or well-made.
Stop, there had been his uncle, Lord George Temple Cheyne, who had
been tall, well-made, and handsome; but he had died upwards of thirty
years ago.
What a strange thing that the two last representatives of the race
should have escaped the hereditary bow-legs! What a pity his uncle had
not lived! He would have married, no doubt, and then his sons would
have come into the title, and the property and the old name might have
been carried down generations by men of wholesome make.
"What a ridiculous way that story ended! A violoncello-player turned
out to be the real Duke of Fenwick. I wish to goodness he could turn
me from being Marquis of Southwold into a man who had only warts on
his fingers from the strings of the big fiddle. He wouldn't catch me
going back again to the Marquis or Duke of Anything or Anywhere. Not
I. I'd very soon pay off that landlord. But stop! How could I pay him
off if I had no money? If I was the poor violoncello-player, I
shouldn't have any money. But I am always wanting not to have any
money; and if I had none when he came, I'd tell him I couldn't pay him
then, but that I would the moment I got my next quarter's allowance
from the Duke----. But I should be the Duke of Fenwick then, and there
would be, as far as I was concerned, no Duke of Shropshire. Who really
should I be then? It is the most puzzling thing I ever thought of.
What's the good of writing a story that twists a man's head round and
round like that, until he doesn't know which is front or which is
back--I mean, which is his face or which is his poll? Before I had got
rid of tutors they had so twisted my head round and round that,
although I have been trying ever since, I have not been able to twist
it back again.
"I know why this fellow wrote this book. I know it all now. Cheyne is
an assumed name. He knows our name is Cheyne, and that the race dies
with me. He knows I am an invalid. He knows--someone told him--I get
all the novels which are published; and he has written this one to
spite me, and offend my father. Low cad! But I will take good care my
father does not see the filthy rubbish. Boy, bring me a marline-spike
and a piece of spun-yarn."
The Marquis of Southwold bound up the three volumes of Charles
Augustus Cheyne's "The Duke of Fenwick," and having looped to them the
marline-spike by way of a sinker, dropped them slowly over the side of
the _Seabird_ into the still blue waters of Silver Bay, under the Duke
of Shropshire's stately castle.
CHAPTER IX.
THE MARQUIS OF SOUTHWOLD'S LETTER.
"Oh, what a way it is up! My wind isn't now what it used to be, when
first I met you warm and young, Cheyne, is it? Such confounded
stairs!" said Mr. John Wilkinson, a very stout puffy-looking man for
thirty-six years of age, and editor and staff of _The Coal-Vase
Reporter_, one of the most prosperous of the minor trade papers in
London.
"My wind is as sound as ever," said the Duke of Long Acre, rising; for
Wilkinson was not alone.
"Going up and down these breakneck flights once a day would keep a man
in training. Cheyne, allow me to introduce my friend Freemantle. He
has a great taste for poetry, writes very beautiful poetry indeed, and
is most anxious to make your acquaintance. He has just read your book,
'The Duke of Fenwick,' and is delighted with it. I haven't had time to
read it yet! but I shall read it this week, and review it in next
week's _Reporter_."
Cheyne shook hands with Freemantle, set a chair for him, and pushed
his new acquaintance down on it in his jovial freehanded manner.
"And how are you, Freemantle?" asked Cheyne, as though they had known
one another for many years. Turning to Wilkinson, he said: "Look up a
chair for yourself."
"I am quite well, thank you, Mr. Cheyne."
"For Heaven's sake don't Mister me. I am never Mistered by anyone but
duns."
"I beg your grace's pardon," said Wilkinson. "May I have the honour of
presenting to your grace Mr. Harry Freemantle? Mr. Harry Freemantle,
his Grace the Duke of Long Acre."
The two men rose and bowed profoundly to one another. Then Cheyne,
again bowing profoundly and causing his head to describe a semicircle
parallel to the horizon, said:
"The interesting preliminaries of introduction having been
disposed of, his grace left the room to draw the beer out of his
four-and-a-half-gallon cask, kept on the landing outside his grace's
bedroom."
He returned in a few minutes with a jug and three glasses. When the
three men had settled themselves and lighted their pipes, Wilkinson
said:
"I hope we are not disturbing you now, Cheyne? You are not busy?"
"No, not a bit. I have just written a reply to a letter I had this
morning from the Earl of Sark. He is an old chum of mine, and has
read my book. He wants me to go and stay with him for awhile. But I
can't--not just now, anyway."
"Well, you see," said Wilkinson, "Freemantle here is very anxious to
do something in the way of verse--publishing it, I mean. He has
several poems ready for publication. Poetry isn't in my way, Cheyne,
so I thought I'd bring him to you."
"May I ask if you expect it to pay?"
"Well, no," said Freemantle, with a candid smile.
"You are independent of it?"
"In a certain sense I am. I am an attorney, and am employed in the
office of Baker and Tranter, Bedford Street."
"Oh, that is all right. Is your purpose to publish a volume?"
"No, I do not aim so high as that."
"I am glad to hear it. There aren't more than six men whose volumes
pay the mere expenses of printing and publication. Poetry is the most
beggarly of all arts now. Living poets of fame and exquisite merit do
not make as much by their trade as the humblest Italian artisan
employed in casting plaster-of-Paris in Leather Lane. Writing and
publishing poetry is an expensive luxury, and the readers of poetry
are now a lost tribe."
"I thought of a much more modest attempt than a book. I thought I
might be able to get a few little bits of verse into a magazine or
two. I have brought a few little bits with me; I should feel very much
obliged to you if you will look at them, and tell me what you think of
them, and if there is any chance of their getting in anywhere; and if
there is, when?"
"Oh, I'll be glad to do you more than that, if they are all right.
I'll give you an introduction to an editor or two, whom I think likely
to take them. In fact, if they are all right, I think there can be no
question of our planting them somewhere."
"I am sure I am very much obliged to you. You were speaking a moment
ago of having had a letter from a nobleman who has read your novel."
"Yes, my old friend, my kind old chum, the Earl of Sark."
"Well, if both of you will promise me to keep a secret anything I may
say about another nobleman who has read your book, I can tell you
something which will interest you a good deal."
The promise asked was given.
"I know I may depend on you both."
"Entirely."
Wilkinson answered for the two.
"Now, you know of the Duke of Shropshire and his son, the Marquis of
Southwold? And you know they happen to bear the same name as you,
Cheyne?"
"Yes," said the Duke of Long Acre guardedly. If Freemantle had not
thus early mentioned the identity of names between the two, no doubt
Cheyne would have claimed acquaintance with both; but here was the
wretched name springing up again. Should he never get rid of this
odious name?
"Well, Baker and Tranter have had a letter from the Marquis of
Southwold, saying he has read your novel (Baker and Tranter are the
Duke of Shropshire's lawyers), and that he thinks it a most impudent
and barefaced outrage upon his father and his house----"
"What!" exclaimed the Duke of Long Acre, in the profoundest
astonishment.
"It is a fact. He says the book is all about a dukedom which is on the
point of becoming extinct, as in the case of the dukedom of
Shropshire. That you have no claim or title to the name of Cheyne----"
"He lies!" cried Cheyne, all the more vehemently because he was not
certain.
"And he wants to know if criminal proceedings cannot be taken against
you for slander, malicious injury, and assuming a great name, with a
view to annoy or----"
"Go on."
"Or possibly extract money."
"Great heavens! What next?"
"Of course, Cheyne, you do not confound mine with any of the opinions
expressed in this letter. Indeed, I now think it would have been
better if I had not mentioned it at all. And, for more reasons than
one, I should not have done so, only that, of course, the whole thing
is utterly absurd. Baker and Tranter have written back that, having
had the book and the case placed before counsel, counsel and they
agree no action of a criminal or civil nature can be taken in the
matter. You will, of course, make no use of anything I have told you?"
"What, sir! Do you, too, doubt my word, question my honour?"
He struck the leaf of the table a mighty blow of his right fist. The
leaf of the table flew to the ground, torn from the table; the table
tilted up; and all the glasses, pipes, books, and papers went flying
in wild confusion around the room. Cheyne sprang to his feet with an
oath, and stood, pale as death, except his eyes, which were blazing.
He looked like a wild beast ready to spring.
The other two men were also standing now.
"No, no, no, old man," said Wilkinson, in a soothing voice; "nothing
is farther from the thoughts of anyone here. Why, we _know_ you--old
man!"
Wilkinson did not like to call the furious man either your grace or
Cheyne now. Mortal offence might be in either.
"For if any man asperses my mother's name or impugns my honour, I
shall take him by the hips and pitch him head downward through that
window."
He meant what he said; and they both felt sure he could do it.
"Do be quiet, old man!" said Wilkinson. "I am sure either Freemantle
or myself would be one of the very first to defend your mother's name
or your honour, if anyone here had dared to call either in question.
But no one here has dreamed of any such absurdity."
"Then where is this leprous Marquis, who has dared to do both? By----,
I'll choke him with the tongue that said these things, as sure as my
name is----" His whole frame was convulsed, the muscles of his throat
and his face flushed, deepened into purple. He could not speak. The
conflict was too terrible. At last he got breath. "Oh God, is it not
horrible that a wretch whom Thou has marked with the sign of Thine own
displeasure should try to sully spotless names, and spit its unclean
venom on wholesome men with wholesome honours? As sure as the same
Great Power made you and me, you shall answer to me for this, foot to
foot, eye to eye, life to life!"
Without saying another word, he took up his hat, crushed it down on
his head, and dashed out of the room, leaving the two men mute,
incapable of speech.
Freemantle was the first to recover.
"Don't you think we ought to follow him? He'll do mischief to himself
or somebody else, I am afraid. He's a raving maniac at this moment."
"I do not think he will do any mischief."
"I never saw a man look so like as if he meant what he said."
"No doubt. But I have known Cheyne many years, and you have met him
for the first time today. All the time I have known him he has been
the most peaceful of men."
"Yes; but these peaceful men, when they break out, are always the
worst. How infernally unlucky I was to say anything about that
letter!"
"But no one could have foreseen the consequences. Ninety-nine out of a
hundred would have laughed at the whole thing. But you did not know
Cheyne is sensitive about his name being the same as that of the Duke
of Shropshire."
"I hadn't the slightest idea of anything of the kind."
"Of course not, or you would not have spoken. Cheyne is the very soul
of honour, and a very excellent fellow, although he tells lies about
knowing peers and big pots of all kinds. He said to you he had just
had a letter from the Earl of Sark. Now 111 lay you a level shilling
that there is----"
"No such title."
"Oh no! Cheyne isn't such a fool as that. But I'll lay you a level
shilling that if you look in a morning paper you'll find the Earl of
Sark has been doing or saying something. He has either spoken in the
House, or written a letter to the secretary of a club, or laid the
foundation-stone of a church, or bought a racer of some note, or done
something else that has for the moment lifted him out of the ruck of
the peers."
"Then you don't attach any importance to what he said?"
"I think he is very angry now, but that before he has got half a mile
he will cool down. How far is it from here to where this Marquis
lives?"
"Oh, a long way! A couple of hundred miles or more: two-fifty."
"It would be sheer nonsense to suppose his anger could last half the
way. And I believe this Marquis spends most of his life at sea?"
"A good deal of it. He was so knocked up by reading this book that he
put out to sea almost at once, he and the Duke."
"Then we may dismiss the matter altogether from our minds. I'll lay
you another level shilling he draws no blood over this affair. What a
horrible mess he has made of the place! He has spilt all the beer and
tobacco. There's no cure for spilt beer, but there is for spilt
'baccy. Let us pick up a fill each and have another pipe before we
go."
CHAPTER X.
ROUSING THE LION.
But, notwithstanding John Wilkinson's opinion to the contrary, there
was not a man in all London so sure of the endurance of his rage as
Charles Augustus Cheyne. That letter of the Marquis of Southwold had
hit him on two of his sore points, namely, his doubtful parentage and
personal honour. It used to be his boast that he never lost his
temper, never once in all his life; and even still he might say the
same thing. He had not lost his temper; his reason had fled him. He
was not in a legal sense insane, but morally he could scarcely be held
responsible for his acts.
Ever since he had been old enough to be capable of appreciating
feelings of the kind, his most anxious thoughts had been devoted to
reducing as much as possible all inquiry respecting his parentage. And
here now was the wretched, drivelling, imbecile Marquis not only
directing attention to his early history, but putting forth in as many
words the horrible suspicion that he, Charles Cheyne, had no right or
title to the name he bore! The one great fear of his life had been
realised. He had been called an impostor of the most shameful class,
and in addition to this, his own honour had been impugned. He had in
effect been called a knave, a liar, a cheat, a low-minded bully, who
wanted to levy blackmail on unoffending people. It was intolerable,
monstrous, unendurable.
Nothing but a personal encounter with the man who had dared to say or
insinuate such things would appease him.
He would go to this wretched Marquis of Southwold; he would give
the man his name; he would confess his authorship of the book, and
then----
Suppose, when he had done all this, the Marquis said nothing; what
farther should he do? For had he not promised the man who told him
that he would not speak of the nature of that letter? What should he
do? How could he bring that wretched man to book? Yet the thing must
be done somehow, anyhow.
Then he suffered a revulsion. All his life he had been boasting of his
acquaintance with lords, and yet he had never, to his knowledge,
spoken to one. Now he was quite resolved to meet and to speak with
one, no matter what the risk, no matter what the consequences. He
would never allude to the aristocracy in the old way again. He was
conscious there was a kind of poetic justice in the fact that a fatal
stab to the reputation of his mother and his own honour had been dealt
by one of the class with which he claimed intercourse. Henceforth and
for ever let that class be to him accursed. Henceforth and for ever he
would be a Radical, a Socialist.
But how should he manage to keep his word with Freemantle, and yet be
able to taunt Southwold with his calumnies? He could think of only one
way. He would go to the Marquis, declare who he was, state he was the
author of "The Duke of Fenwick," and await the course events might
then take. It was more than likely that the Marquis would say
something offensive to him. He would then challenge the heir; and if
the latter would not fight him with pistol or sword, if the Marquis
declined such a combat, Cheyne would, after warning him, attack him
with such weapons as Nature had given him--his hands and his vast
strength. He would take the neck of that man in his hands, and
strangle him with his thumbs; then they might hang him upon the
nearest tree.
He knew the Marquis was a man of delicate health, of poor physique.
He, Cheyne, would first offer him an equal combat, that the matter
might be settled with pistols. If the heir refused, Cheyne would then
offer him swords, in which skill would compensate for strength. If
swords were refused, then he should tell the Marquis to defend himself
as best he could, as he, Cheyne, meant to kill him as they stood.
No doubt in a stand-up man-to-man fight for life without artificial
weapons, the Marquis would have no chance. Still, was it in essence an
unequal fight? Who had struck the first blow? Who had given the
affront? This man had slandered his mother and himself. Suppose what
had been published to the few had been published to the many; suppose,
instead of writing to his lawyers, he had written to the newspapers,
and he, Cheyne, had taken an action against him, and recovered, say a
thousand, say ten thousand pounds damages, what injury would that be
to the heir to one of the richest dukedoms in England? But the stain
could never be washed out of his own or his mother's character. Give a
dog a bad name, and hang him. Give the lie twenty-four hours' start of
the truth, and the truth will never overtake the lie. In any conflict
whatever, a rich nobleman must have enormous advantages over a poor
commoner--except in one. There is no law or rule for giving the rich
noble as fine a physique as the poor commoner. When, therefore, the
rich noble has a physique inferior to the poor commoner, all the
noble's other advantages must be put into the scale with him before
the two are weighed for a physical encounter. Therefore he, Cheyne,
would be perfectly justified in using every resource of his muscles,
and, by Heaven, he would; and he would strangle that libellous ruffian
as he would strangle a venomous snake!
Cheyne found himself in Hyde Park before he had any consciousness of
surrounding objects. In every man, it is a common saying, there is a
chained-down madman. We are all capable of being driven insane by
something or other--we may not know what. Men have gone mad for joy,
for sorrow, for success, for reverse, for love, for hate, for faith,
for unfaith, for gold, for lack of gold. All Cheyne's life he had been
devoted to the nobility and the concealment of his own early history.
This blow therefore fell with a double weight. It was, dealt by a
member of the nobility at his early history. So that his own mind,
never very well rooted in firm ground, was torn up and scattered, and
he could not now recognise any of the old landmarks, or see anything
in the old way. All mental objects were obscured by one--the figure of
the man who, he believed, had done him irreparable wrong. He did not
wait to see whether the Marquis had merely made a random guess, or had
spoken from ascertained facts. To Cheyne it was as bad as bad could be
even to hint at the chance of his having no right to the name he bore,
or the title of an honourable man. If he had known anything, no matter
how small, of his parents, his birth, his early history, he should not
have minded it so much. But here was his titled namesake, the head of
all the Cheynes in the empire, plainly asserting that he, Charles
Augustus Cheyne, had no right or title to the name.
Then, out of the depths of his own mind--depths which he did not dare
to explore--came the question: Was the Marquis's shot a chance one, or
did he, the Marquis, absolutely _know_ that he, Cheyne, had no right
to carry the name?
Horrible! Horrible question! Most horrible question because it was
unanswerable--because he had no more clue to it than he had to the
mysteries that would be solved by man a thousand years hence. The
Marquis and he were of the one name. Could it be the Marquis knew his
history? Could it be the Marquis knew the history of Charles Cheyne;
and into that book, at no particular leaf, at no single paragraph,
should he ever be permitted to look, save with the sanction of the
Shropshire family?
After thinking over this for awhile, he dismissed the supposition with
a contemptuous gesture. The idea of the great Shropshire house knowing
anything of his humble history was absurd. The Marquis had shot a
random shaft, which hit an old sore and rankled. But the very fact
that it had been shot at random made the offence the more grievous.
Why should the titled scoundrel be privileged to blast the name of a
woman whom he had never seen, never heard of--that of a man of whose
existence he had not known of until the publication of that novel?
It never occurred to Cheyne for a moment to think that, when the
Marquis spoke of his possibly having no title to the name, the writer
might have meant that the name Cheyne had merely been assumed for
literary purposes, and that the man's real name was Brown, or Jones,
or Robinson, or Smith, and that the Marquis did not intend the
slightest imputation on the character of any woman who ever lived.
Long brooding on the subject of his birth and parentage had made
Cheyne's mind morbidly sensitive to any allusion of the kind; and one
might as well try to talk down a storm, or to obtain practical results
by expostulation with an earthquake, as to make him see the matter in
any other than its very worst and most offensive light. Hence his wild
homicidal fury.
When he became conscious, he was in Hyde Park. He never noticed the
warm sweet sunshine, the bright-green, well-kept grass, the wholesome
looking well-dressed people, the fair, slight, blue-eyed children, the
brilliant equipages and stately footmen and coachmen, the trees in the
pride of their full primal leafiness. He took no heed of all these;
and yet they all contributed in an obscure way, in a way he could not
trace, to bring his mind suddenly back to the one object which
constituted the shining brightness of his own life. He thought of his
bright and sprightly May.
Under the circumstances, the vision of her was anything but quieting.
It was all very well for him who had no relative in the world to talk
of killing this man, and being himself hanged to the nearest tree; but
if he had no relatives in the world, there was a being with whom he
purposed forming the closest of human ties. To the world it would not
matter a fig whether he were hanged or died quietly in his bed. He was
no cynic. There was not a flaw of cynicism in his large generous
nature. Yes, he knew the boys would be sorry if he died in his bed or
were hanged; but then May? How would it be with his little May, his
bright, gay, winsome little sweetheart, who was to be his wife?
It was easy to ask that question, and easy to answer it. May would be
heart-broken. What heart he ever had to give woman he had given her.
He knew that what heart she had to give man she had given him. On
neither heart had there been a previous mortgage. Each heart was
perfectly unencumbered. Yes; it would break May's heart, as the saying
went. That is, it would take all the brightness and hope out of her
life; it would crush her for ever. She would never again be the same
gay, animated, cheering darling she was now.
Then for a long time he walked about the Park, with eyes cast down,
brooding over the image and the memories of May.
The question arose in his mind, whether he owed more to the name of
his dead mother than to the happiness of his affianced wife? To him
there could not be a moment's pause in answering this question. A man,
whether married or single, engaged or free, was bound, if occasion
demanded, to die in defence of his country, of his home, of the honour
of his name--the last part of the code was growing a little obsolete
now; but the man who could sit still while they blackened the memory
of a dead mother must be that worst of all reptiles--a cowardly cad.
No; he had resolved not to go near May. Seeing her might jeopardise
his revenge; and revenge his mother he would at any peril. How could a
man who was not ready and able to defend his mother's name be
considered capable of defending a sweetheart or a wife? It would be a
poor rascally world for us, if men learned to sit still while evil
tongues wagged over the fame of their womankind, mothers or sisters or
wives.
So he set his back towards Knightsbridge and walked in the direction
of Long Acre. When he arrived at his own place, he gathered up the
papers which had been scattered on the floor, kicked the broken
glasses into one corner, and then, taking some notepaper, wrote three
notes, two of these being to editors, and one to Marion Durrant. The
last was as follows:
"My darling May,
"News which I heard quite by accident this morning obliges me to leave
town very suddenly. I am unable to say good-bye. In fact, I haven't
time to write even a reasonably long letter; for the train I go by to
the east leaves very soon, and I have to pack a portmanteau and get to
the station in a very short time. I am not sure how long I shall be
away; a few days, anyway. I hope my darling girl will take great care
of herself until I get back, for her own ever fond
"Charlie."
Three days passed, and she heard no more of him than of the dead. What
had happened to him--to her darling, darling Charlie? She knew him too
well to think he could write and would not. She knew him too well to
think he had deserted her for some other woman. What had happened to
her darling Charlie? When, hour after hour, she heard the postman
knock in the street, and yet no tidings came to her of him, she began
to think the postman must have been bribed to suppress his letters.
Only two men suspected whither Cheyne had gone, and they waited in
fear and trembling of some terrible catastrophe; and at last news was
at hand, filling the whole country with his name.
From the day Charles Augustus Cheyne set out for the east coast of
England his name never appeared to another story or on the title page
of another book.
CHAPTER XI.
AT BANKLEIGH.
When Cheyne had packed his portmanteau he took it and a hatbox down
the steep staircase, carrying at the same time his letters in his
teeth. He wore a low-crowned soft hat, instead of his ordinary silk
one. He jumped into the street, and having thrust his letters into a
pillar-post, hailed the first empty hansom and drove away to the
railway-station.
Either his watch must have been slow or he must have looked at the
wrong line of figures in the time-table, for when he got to the
station they told him the train was on the point of starting, instead
of having, as he had calculated, a good ten minutes to spare.
He took a first-class single ticket to Bankleigh, the nearest
railway-station to Silver Bay. Then, with his portmanteau in one hand
and his hatbox in the other, he dashed along the way leading to the
platform from which the train for Bankleigh starts. The door was shut
against him. The train had not yet started, but the time was up. The
next train did not go till evening, which meant getting into a small
unknown town long past midnight, a thing no one cares to do,
particularly when he does not know even the name of a hotel or the
hotel in it.
The gate was closed against him. The man refused to open the gate. The
gate was five feet high, and Cheyne about six. Cheyne raised his
hatbox and portmanteau over the barrier and let them fall. The man
inside thought the traveller merely wished to get rid of the trouble
of carrying his luggage any longer. Instantly Cheyne stepped on the
lowest cross-rail of the gate, bent his chest over the top-rail of the
gate, seized the ticket-taker by the leather waist-belt, and lifted
him slowly over the gate. When he had deposited the ticket-taker
safely on the ground he thrust half-a-crown into the man's hand,
vaulted the gate, and taking up his portmanteau and hatbox, ran for a
seat, and succeeded in scrambling into a carriage just as the train
was in motion, and before the astonished but grateful ticket-taker
could climb over the gate and regain the platform. Two or three of the
porters had seen the feat, but it was not their duty to interfere. One
of the guards saw it also; but having been, when younger, something of
an athlete, and admiring the way in which the thing had been done,
affected not to have seen it, and absolutely held the carriage-door
open for Cheyne when he was getting in.
At the first station where the train stopped, the guard who had seen
Cheyne lift the man over the gate, thrust his head into Cheyne's
compartment, there being no one else in it, and said:
"That was a very neat trick sir, very. It isn't often we see a thing
like that nowadays, sir."
"Confound it!" thought Cheyne, "this fellow must have his tip too."
He put his hand into his waistcoat-pocket and drew out a coin.
The guard saw what the passenger was doing, drew back, and said:
"No, sir; nothing for me, sir, thank you. It's not often nowadays we
see a trick like that done, and I'd give a trifle myself to see it
done again. But 'tisn't everyone, or half everyone, could do it."
And he moved along the platform, shaking his head to himself with the
intelligent approval of one who knows a good deal of the difficulties
in the performance of the feat which he applauded.
The train took eight hours to get to Bankleigh, but at last it drew up
at that station, and Cheyne alighted.
It was then dusk, and the traveller having learned there was only one
place in the town or village which accommodated strangers, and that it
was only a few hundred yards away, gave his portmanteau to a porter,
and bade the man lead him to the Shropshire Arms.
Now on the local London lines of railway, where there was a chance of
meeting a friend or acquaintance, Cheyne always travelled first class,
the difference in the fares of the first and third being only a few
pence. But when he went farther into the open country, where there was
practically no chance of meeting anyone who would know him, and where
the difference came to many shillings, he always travelled third
class. This was the most important journey of his life. He, a
gentleman, was about to call upon another gentleman, and demand
satisfaction, and it would not do to travel in any way that did not
befit the station of men of their class.
All the way down in the train the deadliness of his design had not
been lessened. He would meet this man, he would tell this man who he
was, and then he would challenge him. There should be no seconds and
no doctor. If the Marquis declined pistols and swords, then Cheyne
would try to kill him with his hands, his fists, his thumbs dug into
his throat. It was not every man, it was not one in ten thousand,
could have lifted that burly ticket-collector over that gate with the
neat precision he had shown. He could have thrown that man
headforemost twenty feet, and broken his neck against a wall.
Cheyne engaged the best room at The Shropshire Arms, and ordered
supper. It was only meet that a man come upon such a mission should be
housed and fed as became a man of blood.
It would have been quite impossible for Cheyne to indulge in the
luxuries of first-class travelling and first-class hotel
accommodation, only he was one who always lived within his means, and
had by him, when starting from London, all the money he had got for
the right of re-publication in three volumes of his novel "The Duke of
Fenwick." The money would not last for ever, but it would keep him
going comfortably for a month or six weeks.
Cheyne was not in the least superstitious; but he did look on it as an
extraordinary coincidence that the money he had got for the book which
had exasperated Lord Southwold, now enabled him to come down from
London, and seek satisfaction for the affront which had been put upon
his mother and himself.
He asked the waiter who served the supper, if his Grace the Duke of
Southwold was at home.
"No, sir, I think not. His Grace the Duke and Lord Southwold--that is,
you know, sir, his lordship's only son and heir----"
"Yes, yes, I know."
"Well, sir, the two of them are gone to sea in his Grace's yacht, the
_Seabird_, a couple, ay, or maybe three, days ago."
"And where have they sailed for?"
"Nowhere, sir."
"Why, what do you mean?"
"They never sails for nowhere, sir, great folks like them; and they
never go nowhere, just as a man might walk out into the middle of a
grass field and come back whistling no tune, nor bringing no daisy nor
buttercup, nor as much as cutting a switch for himself in the hedge. I
have never been to sea, sir, never. Where's the good of going to sea?
But I've seen my share of salt water in my time, and all I ever saw of
it was as like as two pea's, ay, liker; for some of the green peas is
yellow, and some of the yellow peas is green. But all the sea-water I
ever saw was the same in colour and smell and beastliness of taste and
disposition, only fit for sharks and alligators and sorts like them.
And not a single useful fish would be in the sea but would be poisoned
by the beastly sea-water, only for the sweet waters of the rivers
running into the sea and cheering up the fishes, poor souls, like a
pint of cold bitter after a long walk of a hot day."
"And when do you think the yacht will come back?"
"There's no telling that, not unless you was a prophet. Even the
sporting prophets knows nothing about it; for his grace has no
dealings with dogs or horses, no more than the miller's wife that's
been dead this five year."
"Are they often long away--months?"
"No, sir, not often months. But they are often away a tidy bit. It's
like hanging a leg of mutton Christmas-time; it mostly depends on the
weather whether the leg will ripen by Christmas-day, or will ripen too
soon, or won't be ripe enough."
"And is it the bad or the good weather that brings them home?"
"Well, sir, seeing that this house is built on the Duke's property and
called after the Duke, and that the landlord, sir, holds it by lease
under the Duke, it wouldn't be becoming in me or anyone else of us to
call it bad weather that brings the Duke back to us; but I'm free to
say it isn't the kind of weather that everybody would order if he was
going on a desolate island and wanted to enjoy himself on the sly away
from the old woman. We call it the Duke's wind here; for if he's
afloat it brings him home, and that's the only good it ever brings,
but the doctors and the coffin-makers and grave-diggers. Most people
call it the nor'-east wind. You see his grace is over sixty now, and
has got all his joints pretty well blocked up with rheumatism; and the
minute the nor'-east sets in it screws him up, and they have to run
for home. His lordship stops aboard the _Seabird_ in the shelter of
the bay, and his grace goes up to the Castle, and never goes out of
his warm rooms at the back of the Castle, farthest away from the
nor'-east, until the wind changes."
"And how far is the castle from here?"
"About four mile, or maybe a trifle less. We like to think we're a
trifle nearer to it than four miles. Anyway, we're sure of one
thing--we're the nearest public-house or inn by a mile."
"There is no railway, I suppose, from here to Silverview?"
"Railway! Railway! Why, it's my belief his grace would rather have a
row of public-houses opposite the Castle gate, and the courtyard made
into a bowling-green with green wooden boxes all round for
refreshments, rather than see the snout of a railway-engine within a
mile of his place."
"Then I shall walk over to the place and have a look at to-morrow
morning," thought Cheyne, as he strolled out into the porch to smoke a
couple of cigars before going to bed.
But he did not smoke even half one of his cigars there. The air had
grown suddenly chilly, nay, downright cold. So he left the porch and
went into the cosy little bar, where there was a fire for boiling
water for those who liked a drop of something hot.
Here were half-a-dozen men smoking and chatting and drinking. As he
entered, all were silent.
"Turned quite cold, sir," said the host, who was sitting at a table
with the rest.
"Yes, indeed," said Cheyne, taking a chair. "I thought I would smoke
in the porch, but it was too cold to sit there."
"Ah," said the landlord, "I think we're in for a stinging
nor'-easter--the Duke's weather, as we call it hereabouts, sir."
"Do you think so?" said Cheyne.
"Ay, no doubt of it."
"Then," thought Cheyne, "I shall not have long to wait."
CHAPTER XII.
THE DUKE'S WEATHER.
That night Cheyne slept heavily. The journey and the change of air had
helped to deepen his slumbers. Then there had been the exhausting
excitement of the day he had just passed. It was near nine o'clock
when he opened his eyes. For awhile he lay awake, unable to recall the
events which had brought him to this strange place.
"The sea," he thought--"is that the rolling of the sea? Have I gone to
Brighton or to Margate in my sleep?"
He jumped out of bed, and approached the window. Before he had crossed
the floor he remembered all. This was Bankleigh, whither he had come
for the purpose of settling affairs with the Marquis of Southwold, and
this roaring sound abroad was not the beating of the sea upon the
shore, but the headlong flight of the wind across the land.
How did the wind blow?
He pulled up the blind, and looked out. The wind beat at an acute
angle against his window; but as he did not know how the house faced,
he could not tell from what quarter the wind blew. He rang the bell.
When the waiter entered, he asked abruptly:
"How's the wind?"
"Regular Duke's weather, sir. Your boots and the hot water, sir. It
has been blowing a gale all night, sir. A gale, sir, it would take
soda-water bottles to hold. You couldn't bottle a gale like that in
any of your flimsy fifteenpenny claret bottles. Schwepps himself might
be proud of a gale like that. Some of the early customers that came in
this morning says that the sea is awful, and that many's the tree
there's down here and there along the road. Duke's weather all out."
"And you think there is a likelihood the Duke's yacht will be in
soon."
"She will, sir, as sure as country eggs are eggs, which they mostly
are, sir. But town eggs, sir, especially them at thirteen for a
shilling, are very often not eggs at all, but young chickens which
hadn't the heart to face life. Talking about eggs, sir, reminds me to
ask what you would like for breakfast. I never could make out, sir,
why we should eat eggs more in the morning than any other time of the
day, unless it may be that we are vexed with the whole breed and
generation of fowl by being woke up at first light by cocks crowing,
and then, when we see an egg, we revenge ourselves."
Cheyne gave the necessary order for breakfast, and dismissed the
talkative waiter.
The wind had not fallen. It was blowing a full gale from the
north-east. The landscape, which yesterday had been flushed with the
mellow green of early summer, now looked cold and bleak and
dispiriting. The trees bent in the blast, and showed the dry faded
green of their underleaf to the ashen sky. The grass and corn lay flat
and quivering like a muddy green lake. The clouds were low and long,
stretching in great jagged strips up into the wind, down into the lee.
Birds were silent, and rarely left shelter. Everything was parched and
gritty. All the life had gone out of the scene, all Nature looked
barren, forlorn.
Cheyne dressed himself with deliberation and care. The yacht might
come in to-day, and she might not. It was well to be prepared. When
she did come in, he would lose no time in going aboard. He should go
aboard, ask for the Marquis of Southwold, tell the Marquis he had
something of importance to say which should be said to him alone.
When they were alone, he should lock the door, and say what he had to
say--do what he had to do. He should not be very long in coming to the
point, once he found himself face to face with this cowardly nobleman.
Nothing should move him from his resolution of wiping out, in blood,
the deadly insult of that letter. When the good name of a man's mother
was called in question, and when, at the same time, a man's own honour
had been assailed, no one but a mean dastard could for a moment
hesitate as to the course one ought to pursue.
No doubt Lord Southwold would refuse to fight. In all likelihood he
would refuse pistols or swords. Then he should tell this arrogant liar
that they should fight as they stood, armed with only manhood against
manhood.
If, again, this lying miscreant refused, he should strike him, with
his open hand, across the face. If this son of seven dukes did not
respond to this, he would tell him, in plain words, what he was going
to do. Then he should seize him and crush the vile breath out of his
body, as sure as that they both owed their breath and their bodies and
their manhood to the one great Maker.
They would call this murder. But was murder of the body of a living
man worse than--anything nearly so bad as--murder of a dead woman's
fair fame? Eternal curses attend this reprobate wretch!
He ate his breakfast, but what it consisted of he did not know. The
talkative waiter kept up a running fire of words; but what they meant,
or what his answers conveyed, he did not know.
He made up his mind to walk over to Silver Bay, and, as soon as
breakfast was over, he asked the way and set off.
The gale had not moderated; and although Cheyne was one of the
strongest men in England, he could not make rapid headway against it.
In ordinary weather he would have backed himself to walk the four
miles in less than three-quarters of an hour. This day, at the end of
three-quarters of an hour, he had got little more than halfway.
He was in no hurry, and he liked the wind. He liked to feel it beat
against his face and tug at his clothes. He exulted in the conflict,
for at every pace he was conquering the enemy. He was in an excited
angry humour--in a rage, the first rage he had ever known in all his
life--and he exulted in having some kind of foe in front of him.
Then again, if what that loquacious waiter had told him was true, the
wind against which he fought there was fighting for him out at sea,
was driving that yacht with its accursed passenger towards him. When
this thought crossed his mind, he reached out his arms to embrace the
wind. It was no longer a foe, but a loyal friend, doing his work with
all its might.
He wondered, Would the yacht come in to-day? Almost certainly not. She
had, according to the man at the Shropshire Arms, gone to sea two or
three days ago. This gale had been blowing only twelve hours, and it
was not likely she had been last night within twenty-four hours' sail
of this bay. But then one should remember that twenty-four hours of
such a gale would do more than three days of light winds. That was so
if the light winds had been fair winds, and the gale was a fair wind.
But if the light winds had been fair, and this was foul, how would
that be? To answer this question, one should know particulars as to
the course the yacht had sailed, and where she was when the gale had
struck her first. He knew none of these particulars, and therefore he
had no choice but to give up trying to solve the problem.
Thanks to this wind, his victim would soon be in his hands.
Unless--what an intolerable disappointment that would be!--unless the
waves swallowed his victim up, that victim would soon be in his hands.
It would be too bad if the sea robbed him of his revenge. Vengeance
for an insult to a mother was the inalienable right of a son, and it
would be monstrous to take it from him.
He pressed onward through the rain and blinding dust.
What should he do if this man refused to see him? Suppose, when he
tried to get aboard that yacht, they would not let him, what should he
do? He had never thought of that before. In case they refused to let
him go on board, he should have to go on board by force. He should
have the strength of ten. Ay, but he should have more than ten against
him. He could not hope to fight his way on board, across the deck,
down the companion, and into the cabin, against such odds as would be
opposed to him.
What should he do? What could he do?
Ah, that was a good thought! He should send in the name of Baker and
Tranter, and make no other use of the name of the firm or of the
information he had got through Freemantle. What an excellent thought
that was! With the proceeds of the book, "The Duke of Fenwick," he had
been able to undertake this journey, and face any reasonable delay.
With the name of the firm to which this man had written the libel on
himself and his mother, he should gain admittance to the loathsome
detractor. Here was a complete circle of poetic justice!
When asked for his name, he should say:
"A gentleman on business. Kindly mention the name of Messrs. Baker and
Tranter. I do not happen to have a card of the firm by me."
When he found himself in the presence of the Marquis, he should
announce his own name, and say that he had written that book.
But suppose, when all this had happened, the Marquis said nothing,
made no accusations, no admissions, what then?
Oh, confound it, Southwold would say something. Surely the Marquis
would betray his opinions in some way or another, and then----
"Ah, is this the bay? Silver Bay? And here is the Castle--Silverview
Castle."
The gale struck him with all its force; for he now stood on top of the
high land by which the bay was surrounded. On his right rose the
favourite home of the great Duke of Shropshire. He was in the ducal
grounds, opposite the vast castellated pile of buildings, where the
Duke lived when on shore; and before him lay the unquiet green waters
of the bay, bounded on the seaward side by the reef of grey rocks and
the narrow opening through which the heavy waters wallowed in huge
uncouth billows towards the shore at his feet; while all along the
reef, and high above the summit of its rock, rose and fell at regular
intervals a slow-moving irregular wall of dingy white spray. Beyond
the reef lay the German Ocean, heaving and tumbling beneath the
impetuous blast.
On the left or northern shore of the bay the water was comparatively
smooth, and here a few fishing-boats lay moored. Somewhat south-west
of the fishing-boats rose and fell the buoy at which the yacht
_Seabird_ swung when in port. At the northern corner of the bay lay
the only strip of level ground on the shores of the bay, and there
stood a few fishermen's cottages; and from this rose a long private
road of gradual ascent to the level of the Castle, reaching the upper
land a little to the north-east of the Castle.
Except at that one strip of land at the north-east corner of the bay,
at the right angle formed where the reef joined the mainland, the
water of the bay was unapproachable by cart or carriage. There were
three precipitous paths leading, at different points, from the top of
the cliffs to three small sandy coves below. The road and the cottages
had been the work of the present Duke. He had made the road, that he
might have easy access to the water; and he had built the few
cottages, that he might have at hand a few seafaring young men, from
whom he might fill up vacancies in the yacht's crew, for neither he
nor his son liked strangers. While the wild north-east wind swept over
the sea and the downs, the cottages lay in secure shelter under the
shadow of the high cliff and gaunt rocks, while the huge Castle stood
up white against the withering gale.
The road to the little jetty was visible the whole way from the Castle
to the water. That cluster of cottages was the only one within three
miles of the Castle.
For awhile Cheyne stood leaning forward against the wind contemplating
the scene. He looked out under the low clouds streaming up towards
him, and could see no craft of any kind. He looked into the bay, and
saw a few fishing-boats rolling slowly in the comparatively smooth
water between him and the reef. He looked at the reef itself, and the
cataracts of white foam and waving haloes of dun spray. He heard the
thunder of the ocean billows on the reef, and swash of lesser waves
upon the shore.
"What a storm!" he thought. "And that yacht is out there--out there
where the long waves, each with the weight of thousands of tons, press
onward ceaselessly to the shore. It is wonderful to think man can
build anything which can withstand the onslaught of such mighty waves,
the fury of such relentless wind! It is almost incredible that any
structure of wood could live afloat under conditions such as these!"
He pressed his hand firmly over his eyes, drew his coat tightly round
him, and, leaning still more forward into the wind, pushed resolutely
down the road leading to the jetty.
CHAPTER XIII.
A NOR'-EASTER AT SEA.
When this north-east wind began to blow, the yacht _Seabird_ lay well
away to the southward and eastward of Silver Bay, the reckoning being
that she was from the bay a hundred-and-thirty miles as a crow flies.
The gale had not come on the schooner suddenly. The Duke, the Marquis,
and the captain were standing together when the south-west wind on
which they had been sailing, began to die, and finally shook out of
the sails.
It was a beautiful moonless starlight night. When the wind fell, and
the sails flapped idly against the masts, the Duke turned to Captain
Drew and said:
"Well, captain, what do you think of it now?"
"I don't think much of it, your grace; I think we're going to have a
stiff'ner. I don't like the look of it at all."
"Where do you expect it from now?"
"Not out of the south'ard and west'ard again. No such luck. It would
not surprise me a bit if it went all the way round to north, or even
the east'ard of north. The glass is falling, it's been un-naturally
hot for days, and I think we'll have a change."
"So do I. I think the thermometer must have fallen also. Has it,
captain?"
"Yes, your grace, it has dropped from sixty-seven to sixty, and it is
going down still."
"I'm sure it isn't sixty now. I think you're right, Drew. I think
it will be out of the north. I feel it in my shoulder. I feel the
north-east is coming. What do you think, George?"
"I think so too. I am almost sure we shall have to put about before
morning. It is growing colder and colder every moment."
For awhile there was silence on deck.
A tall raw-boned man with hollow cadaverous cheeks was at the wheel.
He was a man of forty-five years of age, and one of the best seamen in
the crew. It was the captain's watch, and the next man who spoke aloud
was the man at the wheel. He cried out, in as low a voice as would
reach the second mate:
"Mr. Mate!"
"Ay, ay!" answered the mate from the waist, as he turned and walked
aft to Pritchard, the gaunt cadaverous man at the wheel.
There was a loud flapping of sails at this time. For awhile Pritchard
and Starclay, the second mate, whispered. Starclay took the wheel for
a moment, put it three spokes to starboard, put it three spokes to
port, and then asked of Pritchard:
"When did you notice it?"
"Not until after the way went off her. I was playing with the wheel,
and I felt something wrong."
"Ay, something wrong, no doubt. I don't know what. We must see to it
at once. I think we're going to have a bit of a twister. Awkward to
have anything wrong there if we get into heavy weather. The captain is
talking to the Duke, and I don't like going to him just now. Mr.
Yarmould is lying down. I'll ask him to turn up."
Yarmould was the first mate.
In a few minutes Yarmould, the first mate, came aft with the second
mate, and taking the wheel in his hand, turned it three spokes to
starboard, and then three spokes to port of "steady," shook his head,
and then asked:
"How much was it free before from steady, Pritchard?"
"One spoke, sir, or maybe two. Did you notice, sir, that when you put
it over three spokes and were putting it back six, between the second
and third spoke you felt something?"
"Yes. It didn't come back smooth. I felt a check at about steady.
That's queer, isn't it, Mr. Starclay?"
Mr. Yarmould was stout and low of stature.
"Yes, sir. I can't make it out. It goes over freely three spokes, and
yet when it's coming back, it grates between two and three."
The chief mate spun the wheel backward and forward once more, and then
looked up quickly. It was impossible to see the expression of his
face; but evidently he had made up his mind as to what was wrong with
the steering apparatus of the yacht _Seabird_.
He said:
"The carpenter is in your watch, Mr. Starclay?"
"Yes, sir."
"Ask him to step aft."
When the carpenter had come, the first mate said:
"Mr. Carpenter, yesterday two spokes or three spokes of the wheel
picked up the slack of the rudder-chain when the wheel was hard over
in smooth water, now it takes six spokes to pick up the slack. Try the
wheel and tell us what you think of it."
The carpenter caught the spokes and put them over, and put them back
again.
"At halfway back I feel something," said the carpenter. "That is bad.
It's not the chains, it's not the wheel, it's not the tackles----"
He paused awhile, and all the men looked gravely into one another's
face, but no one spoke.
The boom, with the great mainsail, lay over at the starboard side of
the schooner. The Duke, the Marquis, and the captain were standing by
the starboard main shrouds. The two noblemen were leaning up against
the bulwark, and the captain was standing five or six planks to
windward, amid-ship from the bulwark, and in a line with a line drawn
from a point about halfway between the mainmast and the companion.
Thus he could not see anything of what was going on at the wheel, and
the flapping of the sails prevented his hearing the words spoken
further aft beyond the cry of "Mr. Mate!" to which he had attached no
importance.
The lower portion of the bodies of the four men now at the wheel had
been all along visible to the Marquis of Southwold. Such a gathering
of the crew on the quarter-deck was, under the circumstances,
exceedingly unusual, and it attracted the heir's attention. At last he
spoke:
"I say, Captain Drew, what can all these men want aft in a calm at
this time of night?"
The captain turned quickly round, stooped so as to be able to see
under the boom, recognised by the bulk and stature of the four men who
they were, and guessing something was wrong from the fact that the
first mate, whose watch it was below, was on deck and in consultation
with Pritchard at the wheel, the second mate, and the carpenter, said:
"I'll go see, my lord," and dived under the boom and disappeared, all
but the lower part of his body.
"What is it, Mr. Mate?" asked the captain.
"Well, sir, it looks bad enough."
"The weather? I know it does. We're going to have it, and I think, Mr.
Mate, a good deal too, of it, out of the north. But we are able for
all we can get. Eh?" The final interrogative was spoken, evidently not
with a view to an answer to the question it put, but with the
intention of encouraging the mate to speak out and explain why a
council should be held on the quarter-deck without him, at such an
hour, and in a calm.
There was a perceptible pause.
"We think," said Yarmould, in a whisper, "that there's going to be a
gale----"
"Well," cried the captain impatiently, "we're not feathers or chaff
that we need be afraid of our being blown away, my sons." He spoke
with the impatient irritation of a man who knew he was being fenced
with, and knew the men who were fencing with him would not be so
unstraight, only that they wished to break to him some unpleasant
fact.
"What is it?" the captain asked, seeing them all hesitate.
"We think, sir, there is something wrong with the steering-gear."
"With the steering-gear! With what part of the steering-gear? The
chain?"
"No."
"The tackles?"
"No."
"The wheel?"
"No."
"The helm?"
"No, sir."
"Then, in the devil's name, what is it?"
"We think the cap-irons of the rudder have worked loose."
"_What!_"
For a few seconds no one spoke.
"Are you sure?" asked the captain.
"Take the wheel, sir, and see what you think of it."
The captain spun the wheel first one way and then another. He
thrust his cap back off his forehead, thrust his hands into his
trousers-pockets, and remained motionless for a few moments.
Over the rudder-head was an ornamental seat.
"Carpenter," said the captain, "bring your tools and a lantern. Knock
away this seat, and let us see how things are."
As the captain gave these orders the sails ceased to flap. Slowly
the boom went over to what had a little while before been the
weather-side; the sails filled, and the schooner began to forge slowly
ahead.
"Drew!" cried the Duke.
"Yes, your grace."
"Put her about and run for the bay. Good-night."
"Ay, ay, your grace. Good-night."
"Anything wrong. Drew?" called out the Marquis.
"I hope not, your lordship. We are going to try; and when we know I
will run below and tell you."
"All right. Good-night, Drew; good-night, men."
"Good-night, your lordship."
The carpenter brought the tools and a lantern. In a few minutes he had
knocked away the ornamental seat, and revealed the rudder-cap.
There, unmistakeably, was the explanation of the irregularity which
Pritchard had noticed. The rudder-head was rotten; and the cap-irons
of the rudder had worked loose upon the wood, so that the helm, to
which the cap-irons were fixed, played a little free to starboard and
port before it gripped the rudder-head.
"What do you think, carpenter?" asked the captain, when the four men
had recovered their upright position, after bending low to examine the
rudder-head by the light of the lantern.
The carpenter shook his head gravely.
"It doesn't look wholesome, does it, captain? You're going to put the
ship about, sir?"
"Yes."
"All right, sir. Put her about, and then we'll see what we can do."
The sails were now full with the north-east breeze, which was yet
light. The yacht was put about. Her head was set for Silver Bay, and
she lay over slightly, steered half a point to the northward of
north-west, on the wind with the wind abeam.
When the yacht was tidy once more, the four men came aft to where the
man stood at the wheel.
"What do you propose to do, carpenter?" asked the master.
"Well, sir, you see there's no time to be lost. It was a bad bit of
timber to start with, and now it's dozed. It's the first rudder she
ever had?"
"It is the first rudder she ever had."
"And it's five years since she has been on the hard or in a dry dock?"
"Five years since she got a good overhauling."
"It is my opinion, sir, that anyone would pass that rudder by sight
until it began to give, which can't be longer ago than a few days."
"What do you propose doing?"
"Well, sir, I'd say the best thing would be to wedge it taut inside
the cap-iron. What do you think, sir?"
"You couldn't fish it?"
"No, sir, in no way; there's no room."
"I think you're right, Mr. Carpenter. There is no other way but to
wedge it. Do you think it will hold?"
"Yes, sir, I think it will. We'll lash it in with half-inch as far as
we can below the iron, and then we'll wedge it inside the iron.
That'll hold it," said the carpenter confidently.
"Ay," said the captain; "I don't think you can do anything better."
The carpenter set to work at once. The man at the helm kept the
wheel steady, and coil after coil was slowly wound round the rotten
rudder-head. The carpenter wound the rope round and round as far down
as the space between the rudder-head and the rudder-case would allow.
Then he improved on his original plan, and wound the line over the
coil already formed, thus doubling the thickness of the serving. When
this had been done, the carpenter brought some pieces of oak, and cut
them into long wedges. These he drove down with a caulker's maul
inside the cap-iron all round the rudder-head.
While the carpenter was lashing the rudder-head and driving in the
wedges, the captain and first mate were walking up and down the
quarter-deck together. As the carpenter had driven in wedge after
wedge, he had noticed with satisfaction that each succeeding one
required more driving. Hence it was obvious the wedges were telling.
It was also plainly revealed, by the light of the lantern, that the
play of the rudder-head within the irons of the rudder-cap had been
reduced to almost nothing. This was exceedingly satisfactory. Now and
then the captain had stopped in his walk to see how the carpenter
progressed.
When the carpenter had driven in ten wedges he paused a moment, asked
the captain to look, and said:
"What do you think of it now, captain?"
"What do you say, Mr. Carpenter?"
"Well, sir, I think 'twill hold now. See." He caught the rudder and
shook it forcibly.
"It works a little yet."
"It does, sir. Do you think, sir, I might put in another wedge or
two?"
"You see, Mr. Carpenter, it works a little free now; we're going to
have a gale; if it works a little now, it will work a great deal more
by-and-by, and I don't like the notion of that iron working freer and
freer with a lee-shore under my bow. I don't like that notion at all.
Do you think you could make it taut with a couple more wedges?"
"Yes, captain; I think I could, if----"
"If what?"
"If the iron will hold."
"Ah!" said the captain, and the three men looked down gravely at
the face of the carpenter, who was kneeling on the deck, and whose
tar-stained caulker's maul was partly illumined by the light of the
lantern. The lantern was tilted up by a spike-nail so that most of the
light was thrown on the rudder-cap and down the rudder-case.
"And what do you think of the iron, Mr. Carpenter?"
The man did not reply immediately. He took up a hammer and struck the
iron sharply with it. The paint cracked and fell down the rudder-case
into the black invisible water below. When most of the yellow paint
had fallen off, the rusty wasted metal became visible.
"It looks all right, captain," said the carpenter, raising his head.
"Well, knock in two more wedges. I don't like the notion of that thing
working loose while we are in a gale with a lee-shore under our bow. I
promised the Duke I'd tell him about this as soon as it had been put
straight. I suppose I may count it straight now, Mr. Carpenter?"
"Yes, sir; I think you may. With the lashing and the wedges I don't
expect anything will stir, and I have no fear of the iron."
The captain walked forward and disappeared down the companion.
CHAPTER XIV.
TWO DISCOVERIES.
The captain knocked at the cabin-door, and, having received
permission, entered.
"Well, Drew, what is the matter?" asked the Duke, from a couch.
"The rudder-head is dozed, your grace."
"Dozed, Drew! and you found that out only now?"
There was a tone of alarm and reproach in
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