The Man Between: An International Romance
by Amelia E. Barr · English · Gutenberg #787 · 357,286 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Man Between: An International Romance
Author: Amelia E. Barr
Release date: January 1, 1997 [eBook #787]
Most recently updated: October 31, 2016
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/787
Credits: Produced by Charles Keller, and David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN BETWEEN: AN INTERNATIONAL ROMANCE ***
Produced by Charles Keller
THE MAN BETWEEN
An International Romance
By Amelia E. Barr
PART FIRST -- O LOVE WILL VENTURE IN!
THE MAN BETWEEN
CHAPTER I
THE thing that I know least about is my beginning. For it is possible
to introduce Ethel Rawdon in so many picturesque ways that the choice
is embarrassing, and forces me to the conclusion that the actual
circumstances, though commonplace, may be the most suitable. Certainly
the events that shape our lives are seldom ushered in with pomp or
ceremony; they steal upon us unannounced, and begin their work without
giving any premonition of their importance.
Consequently Ethel had no idea when she returned home one night from
a rather stupid entertainment that she was about to open a new and
important chapter of her life. Hitherto that life had been one of the
sweetest and simplest character--the lessons and sports of childhood
and girlhood had claimed her nineteen years; and Ethel was just at that
wonderful age when, the brook and the river having met, she was feeling
the first swell of those irresistible tides which would carry her day by
day to the haven of all days.
It was Saturday night in the January of 1900, verging toward twelve
o’clock. When she entered her room, she saw that one of the windows was
open, and she stood a moment or two at it, looking across the straight
miles of white lights, in whose illumined shadows thousands of sleepers
were holding their lives in pause.
“It is not New York at all,” she whispered, “it is some magical city
that I have seen, but have never trod. It will vanish about six o’clock
in the morning, and there will be only common streets, full of common
people. Of course,” and here she closed the window and leisurely removed
her opera cloak, “of course, this is only dreaming, but to dream waking,
or to dream sleeping, is very pleasant. In dreams we can have men as we
like them, and women as we want them, and make all the world happy and
beautiful.”
She was in no hurry of feeling or movement. She had been in a crowd for
some hours, and was glad to be quite alone and talk to herself a little.
It was also so restful to gradually relinquish all the restraining gauds
of fashionable attire, and as she leisurely performed these duties, she
entered into conversation with her own heart--talked over with it the
events of the past week, and decided that its fretless days, full of
good things, had been, from the beginning to the end, sweet as a cup of
new milk. For a woman’s heart is very talkative, and requires little to
make it eloquent in its own way.
In the midst of this intimate companionship she turned her head, and
saw two letters lying upon a table. She rose and lifted them. One was an
invitation to a studio reception, and she let it flutter indeterminately
from her hand; the other was both familiar and appealing; none of her
correspondents but Dora Denning used that peculiar shade of blue paper,
and she instantly began to wonder why Dora had written to her.
“I saw her yesterday afternoon,” she reflected, “and she told me
everything she had to tell--and what does she-mean by such a tantalizing
message as this? ‘Dearest Ethel: I have the most extraordinary news.
Come to me immediately. Dora.’ How exactly like Dora!” she commented.
“Come to me im-mediately--whether you are in bed or asleep--whether
you are sick or well--whether it is midnight or high noon--come to
me immediately. Well, Dora, I am going to sleep now, and to-morrow is
Sunday, and I never know what view father is going to take of Sunday. He
may ask me to go to church with him, and he may not. He may want me to
drive in the afternoon, and again he may not; but Sunday is father’s
home day, and Ruth and I make a point of obliging him in regard to it.
That is one of our family principles; and a girl ought to have a few
principles of conduct involving self-denial. Aunt Ruth says, ‘Life
cannot stand erect without self-denial,’ and aunt is usually right--but
I do wonder what Dora wants! I cannot imagine what extraordinary news
has come. I must try and see her to-morrow--it may be difficult--but I
must make the effort”--and with this satisfying resolution she easily
fell asleep.
When she awoke the church bells were ringing and she knew that her
father and aunt would have breakfasted. The feet did not trouble her. It
was an accidental sleep-over; she had not planned it, and circumstances
would take care of themselves. In any case, she had no fear of rebuke.
No one was ever cross with Ethel. It was a matter of pretty general
belief that whatever Ethel did was just right. So she dressed herself
becomingly in a cloth suit, and, with her plumed hat on her head, went
down to see what the day had to offer her.
“The first thing is coffee, and then, all being agreeable, Dora. I shall
not look further ahead,” she thought.
As she entered the room she called “Good morning!” and her voice was
like the voice of the birds when they call “Spring!”; and her face was
radiant with smiles, and the touch of her lips and the clasp of her hand
warm with love and life; and her father and aunt forgot that she was
late, and that her breakfast was yet to order.
She took up the reproach herself. “I am so sorry, Aunt Ruth. I only want
a cup of coffee and a roll.”
“My dear, you cannot go without a proper breakfast. Never mind the hour.
What would you like best?”
“You are so good, Ruth. I should like a nice breakfast--a breast of
chicken and mushrooms, and some hot muffins and marmalade would do.
How comfortable you look here! Father, you are buried in newspapers. Is
anyone going to church?”
Ruth ordered the desired breakfast and Mr. Rawdon took out his watch--“I
am afraid you have delayed us too long this morning, Ethel.”
“Am I to be the scapegoat? Now, I do not believe anyone wanted to go to
church. Ruth had her book, you, the newspapers. It is warm and pleasant
here, it is cold and windy outside. I know what confession would be
made, if honesty were the fashion.”
“Well, my little girl, honesty is the fashion in this house. I believe
in going to church. Religion is the Mother of Duty, and we should all
make a sad mess of life without duty. Is not that so, Ruth?”
“Truth itself, Edward; but religion is not going to church and listening
to sermons. Those who built the old cathedrals of Europe had no idea
that sitting in comfortable pews and listening to some man talking was
worshiping God. Those great naves were intended for men and women to
stand or kneel in before God. And there were no high or low standing
or kneeling places; all were on a level before Him. It is our modern
Protestantism which has brought in lazy lolling in cushioned pews; and
the gallery, which makes a church as like a playhouse as possible!”
“What are you aiming at, Ruth?”
“I only meant to say, I would like going to church much better if we
went solely to praise God, and entreat His mercy. I do not care to hear
sermons.”
“My dear Ruth, sermons are a large fact in our social economy. When a
million or two are preached every year, they have a strong claim on
our attention. To use a trade phrase, sermons are firm, and I believe a
moderate tax on them would yield an astonishing income.”
“See how you talk of them, Edward; as if they were a commercial
commodity. If you respected them----”
“I do. I grant them a steady pneumatic pressure in the region of morals,
and even faith. Picture to yourself, Ruth, New York without sermons. The
dear old city would be like a ship without ballast, heeling over with
every wind, and letting in the waters of immorality and scepticism.
Remove this pulpit balance just for one week from New York City, and
where should we be?”
“Well then,” said Ethel, “the clergy ought to give New York a first-rate
article in sermons, either of home or foreign manufacture. New York
expects the very best of everything; and when she gets it, she opens her
heart and her pocketbook enjoys it, and pays for it.”
“That is the truth, Ethel. I was thinking of your grandmother Rawdon.
You have your hat on--are you going to see her?”
“I am going to see Dora Denning. I had an urgent note from her last
night. She says she has ‘extraordinary news’ and begs me to ‘come to
her immediately.’ I cannot imagine what her news is. I saw her Friday
afternoon.”
“She has a new poodle, or a new lover, or a new way of crimping her
hair,” suggested Ruth Bayard scornfully. “She imposes on you, Ethel; why
do you submit to her selfishness?”
“I suppose because I have become used to it. Four years ago I began
to take her part, when the girls teased and tormented her in the
schoolroom, and I have big-sistered her ever since. I suppose we get to
love those who make us kind and give us trouble. Dora is not perfect,
but I like her better than any friend I have. And she must like me, for
she asks my advice about everything in her life.”
“Does she take it?”
“Yes--generally. Sometimes I have to make her take it.”
“She has a mother. Why does she not go to her?”
“Mrs. Denning knows nothing about certain subjects. I am Dora’s social
godmother, and she must dress and behave as I tell her to do. Poor Mrs.
Denning! I am so sorry for her--another cup of coffee, Ruth--it is not
very strong.”
“Why should you be sorry for Mrs. Denning, Her husband is enormously
rich--she lives in a palace, and has a crowd of men and women servants
to wait upon her--carriages, horses, motor cars, what not, at her
command.”
“Yet really, Ruth, she is a most unhappy woman. In that little Western
town from which they came, she was everybody. She ran the churches, and
was chairwoman in all the clubs, and President of the Temperance Union,
and manager of every religious, social, and political festival; and her
days were full to the brim of just the things she liked to do. Her dress
there was considered magnificent; people begged her for patterns, and
regarded her as the very glass of fashion. Servants thought it a great
privilege to be employed on the Denning place, and she ordered her house
and managed her half-score of men and maids with pleasant autocracy.
NOW! Well, I will tell you how it is, NOW. She sits all day in her
splendid rooms, or rides out in her car or carriage, and no one knows
her, and of course no one speaks to her. Mr. Denning has his Wall Street
friends----”
“And enemies,” interrupted Judge Rawdon.
“And enemies! You are right, father. But he enjoys one as much as the
other--that is, he would as willingly fight his enemies as feast his
friends. He says a big day in Wall Street makes him alive from head to
foot. He really looks happy. Bryce Denning has got into two clubs, and
his money passes him, for he plays, and is willing to love prudently.
But no one cares about Mrs. Denning. She is quite old--forty-five, I
dare say; and she is stout, and does not wear the colors and style she
ought to wear--none of her things have the right ‘look,’ and of course
I cannot advise a matron. Then, her fine English servants take her house
out of her hands. She is afraid of them. The butler suavely tries to
inform her; the housekeeper removed the white crotcheted scarfs
and things from the gilded chairs, and I am sure Mrs. Denning had a
heartache about their loss; but she saw that they had also vanished from
Dora’s parlor, so she took the hint, and accepted the lesson. Really,
her humility and isolation are pitiful. I am going to ask grandmother
to go and see her. Grandmother might take her to church, and get Dr.
Simpson and Mrs. Simpson to introduce her. Her money and adaptability
would do the rest. There, I have had a good breakfast, though I was
late. It is not always the early bird that gets chicken and mushrooms.
Now I will go and see what Dora wants”--and lifting her furs with a
smile, and a “Good morning!” equally charming, she disappeared.
“Did you notice her voice, Ruth?” asked Judge Rawdon. “What a tone there
is in her ‘good morning!’”
“There is a tone in every one’s good morning, Edward. I think people’s
salutations set to music would reveal their inmost character. Ethel’s
good morning says in D major ‘How good is the day!’ and her good
night drops into the minor third, and says pensively ‘How sweet is the
night!’”
“Nay, Ruth, I don’t understand all that; but I do understand the voice.
It goes straight to my heart.”
“And to my heart also, Edward. I think too there is a measured music,
a central time and tune, in every life. Quick, melodious natures like
Ethel’s never wander far from their keynote, and are therefore joyously
set; while slow, irresolute people deviate far, and only come back after
painful dissonances and frequent changes.”
“You are generally right, Ruth, even where I cannot follow you. I hope
Ethel will be home for dinner. I like my Sunday dinner with both of you,
and I may bring my mother back with me.”
Then he said “Good morning” with an intentional cheerfulness, and Ruth
was left alone with her book. She gave a moment’s thought to the value
of good example, and then with a sigh of content let her eyes rest on
the words Ethel’s presence had for awhile silenced:
“I am filled with a sense of sweetness and wonder that such, little
things can make a mortal so exceedingly rich. But I confess that the
chiefest of all my delights is still the religious.” (Theodore Parker.)
She read the words again, then closed her eyes and let the honey of some
sacred memory satisfy her soul. And in those few minutes of reverie,
Ruth Bayard revealed the keynote of her being. Wanderings from it,
caused by the exigencies and duties of life, frequently occurred; but
she quickly returned to its central and controlling harmony; and
her serenity and poise were therefore as natural as was her niece’s
joyousness and hope. Nor was her religious character the result of
temperament, or of a secluded life. Ruth Bayard was a woman of thought
and culture, and wise in the ways of the world, but not worldly. Her
personality was very attractive, she had a good form, an agreeable face,
speaking gray eyes, and brown hair, soft and naturally wavy. She was a
distant cousin of Ethel’s mother, but had been brought up with her in
the same household, and always regarded her as a sister, and Ethel never
remembered that she was only her aunt by adoption. Ten years older than
her niece, she had mothered her with a wise and loving patience, and
her thoughts never wandered long or far from the girl. Consequently,
she soon found herself wondering what reason there could be for Dora
Denning’s urgency.
In the meantime Ethel had reached her friend’s residence a new building
of unusual size and very ornate architecture. Liveried footmen and
waiting women bowed her with mute attention to Miss Denning’s suite, an
absolutely private arrangement of five rooms, marvelously furnished
for the young lady’s comfort and delight. The windows of her parlor
overlooked the park, and she was standing at one of them as Ethel
entered the room. In a passion of welcoming gladness she turned to her,
exclaiming: “I have been watching for you hours and hours, Ethel. I have
the most wonderful thing to tell you. I am so happy! So happy! No one
was ever as happy as I am.”
Then Ethel took both her hands, and, as they stood together, she looked
intently at her friend. Some new charm transfigured her face; for her
dark, gazelle eyes were not more lambent than her cheeks, though in
a different way; while her black hair in its picturesquely arranged
disorder seemed instinct with life, and hardly to be restrained. She was
constantly pushing it back, caressing or arranging it; and her white,
slender fingers, sparkling with jewels, moved among the crimped and wavy
locks, as if there was an intelligent sympathy between them.
“How beautiful you are to-day, Dora! Who has worked wonders on you?”
“Basil Stanhope. He loves me! He loves me! He told me so last night--in
the sweetest words that were ever uttered. I shall never forget one
of them--never, as long as I live! Let us sit down. I want to tell you
everything.”
“I am astonished, Dora!”
“So was mother, and father, and Bryce. No one suspected our affection.
Mother used to grumble about my going ‘at all hours’ to St. Jude’s
church; but that was because St. Jude’s is so very High Church, and
mother is a Methodist Episcopal. It was the morning and evening prayers
she objected to. No one had any suspicion of the clergyman. Oh, Ethel,
he is so handsome! So good! So clever! I think every woman in the church
is in love with him.”
“Then if he is a good man, he must be very unhappy.”
“Of course he is quite ignorant of their admiration, and therefore quite
innocent. I am the only woman he loves, and he never even remembers me
when he is in the sacred office. If you could see him come out of the
vestry in his white surplice, with his rapt face and prophetic eyes. So
mystical! So beautiful! You would not wonder that I worship him.”
“But I do not understand--how did you meet him socially?”
“I met him at Mrs. Taylor’s first. Then he spoke to me one morning as I
came out of church, and the next morning he walked through the park with
me. And after that--all was easy enough.”
“I see. What does your father and mother think--or rather, what do they
say?”
“Father always says what he thinks, and mother thinks and says what I
do. This condition simplified matters very much. Basil wrote to father,
and yesterday after dinner he had an interview with him. I expected
it, and was quite prepared for any climax that might come. I wore my
loveliest white frock, and had lilies of the valley in my hair and on
my breast; and father called me ‘his little angel’ and piously wondered
‘how I could be his daughter.’ All dinner time I tried to be angelic,
and after dinner I sang ‘Little Boy Blue’ and some of the songs he
loves; and I felt, when Basil’s card came in, that I had prepared the
proper atmosphere for the interview.”
“You are really very clever, Dora.”
“I tried to continue singing and playing, but I could not; the notes all
ran together, the words were lost. I went to mother’s side and put my
hand in hers, and she said softly: ‘I can hear your father storming a
little, but he will settle down the quicker for it. I dare say he will
bring Mr. Stanhope in here before long.”
“Did he?”
“No. That was Bryce’s fault. How Bryce happened to be in the house at
that hour, I cannot imagine; but it seems to be natural for him to drop
into any interview where he can make trouble. However, it turned out all
for the best, for when mother heard Bryce’s voice above all the other
sounds, she said, ‘Come Dora, we shall have to interfere now.’ Then
I was delighted. I was angelically dressed, and I felt equal to the
interview.”
“Do you really mean that you joined the three quarreling men?”
“Of course. Mother was quite calm--calm enough to freeze a tempest--but
she gave father a look he comprehended. Then she shook hands with
Basil, and would have made some remark to Bryce, but with his usual
impertinence he took the initiative, and told he: very authoritatively
to ‘retire and take me with her’--calling me that ‘demure little flirt’
in a tone that was very offensive. You should have seen father blaze
into anger at his words. He told Bryce to remember that ‘Mr. Ben Denning
owned the house, and that Bryce had four or five rooms in it by his
courtesy.’ He said also that the ‘ladies present were Mr. Ben Denning’s
wife and daughter, and that it was impertinent in him to order them out
of his parlor, where they were always welcome.’ Bryce was white with
passion, but he answered in his affected way--‘Sir, that sly girl with
her pretended piety and her sneak of a lover is my sister, and I shall
not permit her to disgrace my family without making a protest.’”
“And then?”
“I began to cry, and I put my arms around father’s neck and said he must
defend me; that I was not ‘sly,’ and Basil was not ‘a sneak,’ and father
kissed me, and said he would settle with any man, and every man, who
presumed to call me either sly or a flirt.”
“I think Mr. Denning acted beautifully. What did Bryce say?”
“He turned to Basil, and said: ‘Mr. Stanhope, if you are not a cad, you
will leave the house. You have no right to intrude yourself into family
affairs and family quarrels.’ Basil had seated mother, and was
standing with one hand on the back of her chair, and he did not answer
Bryce--there was no need, father answered quick enough. He said Mr.
Stanhope had asked to become one of the family, and for his part he
would welcome him freely; and then he asked mother if she was of his
mind, and mother smiled and reached her hand backward to Basil. Then
father kissed me again, and somehow Basil’s arm was round me, and I know
I looked lovely--almost like a bride! Oh, Ethel, it was just heavenly!”
“I am sure it was. Did Bryce leave the room then?”
“Yes; he went out in a passion, declaring he would never notice me
again. This morning at breakfast I said I was sorry Bryce felt so hurt,
but father was sure Bryce would find plenty of consolation in the fact
that his disapproval of my choice would excuse him from giving me a
wedding present. You know Bryce is a mean little miser!”
“On the contrary, I thought he was very; luxurious and extravagant.”
“Where Bryce is concerned, yes; toward everyone else his conduct is too
mean to consider. Why, father makes him an allowance of $20,000 a year
and he empties father’s cigar boxes whenever he can do so without----”
“Let us talk about Mr. Stanhope he is far more interesting. When are you
going to marry him?”
“In the Spring. Father is going to give me some money and I have the
fortune Grandmother Cahill left me. It has been well invested, and
father told me this morning I was a fairly rich little woman. Basil has
some private fortune, also his stipend--we shall do very well. Basil’s
family is one of the finest among the old Boston aristocrats, and he is
closely connected with the English Stanhopes, who rank with the greatest
of the nobility.”
“I wish Americans would learn to rely on their own nobility. I am tired
of their everlasting attempts to graft on some English noble family.
No matter how great or clever a man may be, you are sure to read of his
descent from some Scottish chief or English earl.”
“They can’t help their descent, Ethel.”
“They need not pin all they have done on to it. Often father frets me in
the same way. If he wins a difficult case, he does it naturally, because
he is a Rawdon. He is handsome, gentlemanly, honorable, even a perfect
horseman, all because, being a Rawdon, he was by nature and inheritance
compelled to such perfection. It is very provoking, Dora, and if I
were you I would not allow Basil to begin a song about ‘the English
Stanhopes.’ Aunt Ruth and I get very tired often of the English Rawdons,
and are really thankful for the separating Atlantic.”
“I don’t think I shall feel in that way, Ethel. I like the nobility; so
does father, he says the Dennings are a fine old family.”
“Why talk of genealogies when there is such a man as Basil Stanhope to
consider? Let us grant him perfection and agree that he is to marry
you in the Spring; well then, there is the ceremony, and the wedding
garments! Of course it is to be a church wedding?”
“We shall be married in Basil’s own church. I can hardly eat or sleep
for thinking of the joy and the triumph of it! There will be women there
ready to eat their hearts with envy--I believe indeed, Ethel, that every
woman in the church is in love with Basil.”
“You have said that before, and I am sure you are wrong. A great many of
them are married and are in love with their own husbands; and the kind
of girls who go to St. Jude’s are not the kind who marry clergymen. Mr.
Stanhope’s whole income would hardly buy their gloves and parasols.”
“I don’t think you are pleased that I am going to marry. You must not be
jealous of Basil. I shall love you just the same.”
“Under no conditions, Dora, would I allow jealousy to trouble my life.
All the same, you will not love me after your marriage as you have loved
me in the past. I shall not expect it.”
Passionate denials of this assertion, reminiscences of the past,
assurances for the future followed, and Ethel accepted them without
dispute and without faith. But she understood that the mere circumstance
of her engagement was all that Dora could manage at present; and
that the details of the marriage merged themselves constantly in the
wonderful fact that Basil Stanhope loved her, and that some time, not
far off, she was going to be his wife. This joyful certainty filled her
heart and her comprehension, and she had a natural reluctance to subject
it to the details of the social and religious ceremonies necessary, Such
things permitted others to participate in her joy, and she resented the
idea. For a time she wished to keep her lover in a world where no other
thought might trouble the thought of Dora.
Ethel understood her friend’s mood, and was rather relieved when her
carriage arrived. She felt that her presence was preventing Dora’s
absolute surrender of herself to thoughts of her lover, and all the way
home she marveled at the girl’s infatuation, and wondered if it would
be possible for her to fall into such a dotage of love for any man. She
answered this query positively--“No, if I should lose my heart, I shall
not therefore lose my head”--and then, before she could finish assuring
herself of her determinate wisdom, some mocking lines she had often
quoted to love-sick girls went laughing through her memory--
“O Woman! Woman! O our frail, frail sex!
No wonder tragedies are made from us!
Always the same--nothing but loves and cradles.”
She found Ruth Bayard dressed for dinner, but her father was not
present. That was satisfactory, for he was always a little impatient
when the talk was of lovers and weddings; and just then this topic was
uppermost in Ethel’s mind.
“Ruth,” she said, “Dora is engaged,” and then in a few sentences she
told the little romance Dora had lived for the past year, and its happy
culmination. “Setting money aside, I think he will make a very suitable
husband. What do you think, Ruth?”
“From what I know of Mr. Stanhope, I should doubt it. I am sure he
will put his duties before every earthly thing, and I am sure Dora will
object to that. Then I wonder if Dora is made on a pattern large enough
to be the moneyed partner in matrimony. I should think Mr. Stanhope was
a proud man.”
“Dora says he is connected with the English noble family of Stanhopes.”
“We shall certainly have all the connections of the English nobility in
America very soon now--but why does he marry Dora? Is it her money?”
“I think not. I have heard from various sources some fine things of
Basil Stanhope. There are many richer girls than Dora in St. Jude’s. I
dare say some one of them would have married him.”
“You are mistaken. Do you think Margery Starey, Jane Lewes, or any of
the girls of their order would marry a man with a few thousands a
year? And to marry for love is beyond the frontiers of such women’s
intelligence. In their creed a husband is a banker, not a man to be
loved and cared for. You know how much of a banker Mr. Stanhope could
be.”
“Bryce Denning is very angry at what he evidently considers his sister’s
mesalliance.”
“If Mr. Stanhope is connected with the English Stanhopes, the
mesalliance must be laid to his charge.”
“Indeed the Dennings have some pretenses to good lineage, and Bryce
spoke of his sister ‘disgracing his family by her contemplated
marriage.’”
“His family! My dear Ethel, his grandfather was a manufacturer of
tin tacks. And now that we have got as far away as the Denning’s
grandfather, suppose we drop the subject.”
“Content; I am a little tired of the clan Denning--that is their
original name Dora says. I will go now and dress for dinner.”
Then Ruth rose and looked inquisitively around the room. It was as she
wished it to be--the very expression of elegant comfort--warm and light,
and holding the scent of roses: a place of deep, large chairs with no
odds and ends to worry about, a room to lounge and chat in, and where
the last touch of perfect home freedom was given by a big mastiff who,
having heard the door-bell ring, strolled in to see who had called.
CHAPTER II
DURING dinner both Ruth and Ethel were aware of some sub-interest in the
Judge’s manner; his absent-mindedness was unusual, and once Ruth saw a
faint smile that nothing evident could have induced. Unconsciously also
he set a tone of constraint and hurry; the meal was not loitered over,
the conversation flagged, and all rose from the table with a sense of
relief; perhaps, indeed, with a feeling of expectation.
They entered the parlor together, and the mastiff rose to meet them,
asking permission to remain with the little coaxing push of his nose
which brought the ready answer:
“Certainly, Sultan. Make yourself comfortable.”
Then they grouped themselves round the fire, and the Judge lit his cigar
and looked at Ethel in a way that instantly brought curiosity to the
question:
“You have a secret, father,” she said. “Is it about grandmother?”
“It is news rather than a secret, Ethel. And grandmother has a good deal
to do with it, for it is about her family--the Mostyns.”
“Oh!”
The tone of Ethel’s “Oh!” was not encouraging, and Ruth’s look of
interest held in abeyance was just as chilling. But something like this
attitude had been expected, and Judge Rawdon was not discouraged by it;
he knew that youth is capable of great and sudden changes, and that its
ability to find reasonable motives for them is unlimited, so he calmly
continued:
“You are aware that your grandmother’s name before marriage was Rachel
Mostyn?”
“I have seen it a thousand times at the bottom of her sampler, father,
the one that is framed and hanging in her morning room--Rachel Mostyn,
November, Anno Domini, 1827.”
“Very well. She married George Rawdon, and they came to New York in
1834. They had a pretty house on the Bowling Green and lived very
happily there. I was born in 1850, the youngest of their children. You
know that I sign my name Edward M. Rawdon; it is really Edward Mostyn
Rawdon.”
He paused, and Ruth said, “I suppose Mrs. Rawdon has had some news from
her old home?”
“She had a letter last night, and I shall probably receive one
to-morrow. Frederick Mostyn, her grand-nephew, is coming to New York,
and Squire Rawdon, of Rawdon Manor, writes to recommend the young man to
our hospitality.”
“But you surely do not intend to invite him here, Edward. I think that
would not do.”
“He is going to the Holland House. But he is our kinsman, and therefore
we must be hospitable.”
“I have been trying to count the kinship. It is out of my reckoning,”
said Ethel. “I hope at least he is nice and presentable.”
“The Mostyns are a handsome family. Look at your grandmother. And Squire
Rawdon speaks very well of Mr. Mostyn. He has taken the right side
in politics, and is likely to make his mark. They were always great
sportsmen, and I dare say this representative of the family is a
good-looking fellow, well-mannered, and perfectly dressed.”
Ethel laughed. “If his clothes fit him he will be an English wonder. I
have seen lots of Englishmen; they are all frights as to trousers and
vests. There was Lord Wycomb, his broadcloths and satins and linen were
marvels in quality, but the make! The girls hated to be seen walking
with him, and he would walk--‘good for the constitution,’ was his
explanation for all his peculiarities. The Caylers were weary to death
of them.”
“And yet,” said Ruth, “they sang songs of triumph when Lou Cayler
married him.”
“That was a different thing. Lou would make him get ‘fits’ and stop
wearing sloppy, baggy arrangements. And I do not suppose the English
lord has now a single peculiarity left, unless it be his constitutional
walk--that, of course. I have heard English babies get out of their
cradles to take a constitutional.”
During this tirade Ruth had been thinking. “Edward,” she asked, “why
does Squire Rawdon introduce Mr. Mostyn? Their relationship cannot be
worth counting.”
“There you are wrong, Ruth.” He spoke with a little excitement.
“Englishmen never deny matrimonial relationships, if they are worthy
ones. Mostyn and Rawdon are bound together by many a gold wedding ring;
we reckon such ties relationships. Squire Raw-don lost his son and his
two grandsons a year ago. Perhaps this young man may eventually stand
in their place. The Squire is nearly eighty years old; he is the last of
the English Rawdons--at least of our branch of it.”
“You suppose this Mr. Mostyn may become Squire of Rawdon Manor?”
“He may, Ruth, but it is not certain. There is a large mortgage on the
Manor.”
“Oh!”
Both girls made the ejaculation at the same moment, and in both voices
there was the same curious tone of speculation. It was a cry after
truth apprehended, but not realized. Mr. Rawdon remained silent; he was
debating with himself the advisability of further confidence, but
he came quickly to the conclusion that enough had been told for the
present. Turning to Ethel, he said: “I suppose girls have a code of
honor about their secrets. Is Dora Denning’s ‘extraordinary news’ shut
up in it?”
“Oh, no, father. She is going to be married. That is all.”
“That is enough. Who is the man?”
“Reverend Mr. Stanhope.”
“Nonsense!”
“Positively.”
“I never heard anything more ridiculous. That saintly young priest! Why,
Dora will be tired to death of him in a month. And he? Poor fellow!”
“Why poor fellow? He is very much in love with her.”
“It is hard to understand. St. Jerome’s love ‘pale with midnight prayer’
would be more believable than the butterfly Dora. Goodness, gracious!
The idea of that man being in love! It pulls him down a bit. I thought
he never looked at a woman.”
“Do you know him, father?”
“As many people know him--by good report. I know that he is a clergyman
who believes what he preaches. I know a Wall Street broker who left St.
Jude’s church because Mr. Stanhope’s sermons on Sunday put such a fine
edge on his conscience that Mondays were dangerous days for him to do
business on. And whatever Wall Street financiers think of the Bible
personally, they do like a man who sticks to his colors, and who holds
intact the truth committed to him. Stanhope does this emphatically; and
he is so well trusted that if he wanted to build a new church he could
get all the money necessary, from Wall Street men in an hour. And he is
going to marry! Going to marry Dora Denning! It is ‘extraordinary news,’
indeed!”
Ethel was a little offended at such unusual surprise. “I think you don’t
quite understand Dora,” she said. “It will be Mr. Stanhope’s fault
if she is not led in the right way; for if he only loves and pets her
enough he may do all he wishes with her. I know, I have both coaxed and
ordered her for four years--sometimes one way is best, and sometimes the
other.”
“How is a man to tell which way to take? What do her parents think of
the marriage?”
“They are pleased with it.”
“Pleased with it! Then I have nothing more to say, except that I hope
they will not appeal to me on any question of divorce that may arise
from such an unlikely marriage.”
“They are only lovers yet, Edward,” said Ruth. “It is not fair, or kind,
to even think of divorce.”
“My dear Ruth, the fashionable girl of today accepts marriage with the
provision of divorce.”
“Dora is hardly one of that set.”
“I hope she may keep out of it, but marriage will give her many
opportunities. Well, I am sorry for the young priest. He isn’t fit to
manage a woman like Dora Denning. I am afraid he will get the worst of
it.”
“I think you are very unkind, father. Dora is my friend, and I know her.
She is a girl of intense feelings and very affectionate. And she has
dissolved all her life and mind in Mr. Stanhope’s life and mind, just as
a lump of sugar is dissolved in water.”
Ruth laughed. “Can you not find a more poetic simile, Ethel?”
“It will do. This is an age of matter; a material symbol is the proper
thing.”
“I am glad to hear she has dissolved her mind in Stanhope’s,” said Judge
Rawdon. “Dora’s intellect in itself is childish. What did the man see in
her that he should desire her?”
“Father, you never can tell how much brains men like with their beauty.
Very little will do generally. And Dora has beauty--great beauty; no one
can deny that. I think Dora is giving up a great deal. To her, at least,
marriage is a state of passing from perfect freedom into the comparative
condition of a slave, giving up her own way constantly for some one
else’s way.”
“Well, Ethel, the remedy is in the lady’s hands. She is not forced to
marry, and the slavery that is voluntary is no hardship. Now, my dear, I
have a case to look over, and you must excuse me to-night. To-morrow we
shall know more concerning Mr. Mostyn, and it is easier to talk about
certainties than probabilities.”
But if conversation ceased about Mr. Mostyn, thought did not; for, a
couple of hours afterwards, Ethel tapped at her aunt’s door and said,
“Just a moment, Ruth.”
“Yes, dear, what is it?”
“Did you notice what father said about the mortgage on Rawdon Manor”’
“Yes.”
“He seemed to know all about it.”
“I think he does know all about it.”
“Do you think he holds it?”
“He may do so--it is not unlikely.”
“Oh! Then Mr. Fred Mostyn, if he is to inherit Rawdon, would like the
mortgage removed?”
“Of course he would.”
“And the way to remove it would be to marry the daughter of the holder
of the mortgage?”
“It would be one way.”
“So he is coming to look me over. I am a matrimonial possibility. How do
you like that idea, Aunt Ruth?”
“I do not entertain it for a moment. Mr. Mostyn may not even know of the
mortgage. When men mortgage their estates they do not make confidences
about the matter, or talk it over with their friends. They always
conceal and hide the transaction. If your father holds the mortgage, I
feel sure that no one but himself and Squire Rawdon know anything about
it. Don’t look at the wrong side of events, Ethel; be content with the
right side of life’s tapestry. Why are you not asleep? What are you
worrying about?”
“Nothing, only I have not heard all I wanted to hear.”
“And perhaps that is good for you.”
“I shall go and see grandmother first thing in the morning.”
“I would not if I were you. You cannot make any excuse she will not see
through. Your father will call on Mr. Mostyn to-morrow, and we shall get
unprejudiced information.”
“Oh, I don’t know that, Ruth. Father is intensely American three hundred
and sixty-four days and twenty-three hours in a year, and then in the
odd hour he will flare up Yorkshire like a conflagration.”
“English, you mean?”
“No. Yorkshire IS England to grandmother and father. They don’t think
anything much of the other counties, and people from them are just
respectable foreigners. You may depend upon it, whatever grandmother
says of Mr. Fred Mostyn, father will believe it, too.”
“Your father always believes whatever your grandmother says. Good night,
dear.”
“Good night. I think I shall go to grandmother in the morning. I
know how to manage her. I shall meet her squarely with the truth, and
acknowledge that I am dying with curiosity about Mr. Mostyn.”
“And she will tease and lecture you, say you are ‘not sweetheart high
yet, only a little maid,’ and so on. Far better go and talk with Dora.
To-morrow she will need you, I am sure. Ethel, I am very sleepy. Good
night again, dear.”
“Good night!” Then with a sudden animation, “I know what to do, I shall
tell grandmother about Dora’s marriage. It is all plain enough now.
Good night, Ruth.” And this good night, though dropping sweetly into the
minor third, had yet on its final inflection something of the
pleasant hopefulness of its major key--it expressed anticipation and
satisfaction.
What happened in the night session she could not tell, but she awoke
with a positive disinclination to ask a question about Mr. Mostyn. “I
have received orders from some one,” she said to Ruth; “I simply do not
care whether I ever see or hear of the man again. I am going to Dora,
and I may not come home until late. You know they will depend upon me
for every suggestion.”
In fact, Ethel did not return home until the following day, for a
snowstorm came up in the afternoon, and the girl was weary with planning
and writing, and well inclined to eat with Dora the delicate little
dinner served to them in Dora’s private parlor. Then about nine o’clock
Mr. Stanhope called, and Ethel found it pleasant enough to watch the
lovers and listen to Mrs. Denning’s opinions of what had been already
planned. And the next day she seemed to be so absolutely necessary
to the movement of the marriage preparations, that it was nearly dark
before she was permitted to return home.
It was but a short walk between the two houses, and Ethel was resolved
to have the refreshment of the exercise. And how good it was to feel the
pinch of the frost and the gust of the north wind, and after it to come
to the happy portal of home, and the familiar atmosphere of the cheerful
hall, and then to peep into the firelit room in which Ruth lay dreaming
in the dusky shadows.
“Ruth, darling!”
“Ethel! I have just sent for you to come home.” Then she rose and took
Ethel in her arms. “How delightfully cold you are! And what rosy cheeks!
Do you know that we have a little dinner party?”
“Mr. Mostyn?”
“Yes, and your grandmother, and perhaps Dr. Fisher--the Doctor is not
certain.”
“And I see that you are already dressed. How handsome you look! That
black lace dress, with the dull gold ornaments, is all right.”
“I felt as if jewels would be overdress for a family dinner.”
“Yes, but jewels always snub men so completely. It is not altogether
that they represent money; they give an air of royalty, and a woman
without jewels is like an uncrowned queen--she does not get the homage.
I can’t account for it, but there it is. I shall wear my sapphire
necklace. What did father say about our new kinsman?”
“Very little. It was impossible to judge from his words what he thought.
I fancied that he might have been a little disappointed.”
“I should not wonder. We shall see.”
“You will be dressed in an hour?”
“In less time. Shall I wear white or blue?”
“Pale blue and white flowers. There are some white violets in the
library. I have a red rose. We shall contrast each other very well.”
“What is it all about? Do we really care how we look in the eyes of this
Mr. Mostyn?”
“Of course we care. We should not be women if we did not care. We must
make some sort of an impression, and naturally we prefer that it should
be a pleasant one.”
“If we consider the mortgage----”
“Nonsense! The mortgage is not in it.”
“Good-by. Tell Mattie to bring me a cup of tea upstairs. I will be
dressed in an hour.”
The tea was brought and drank, and Ethel fell asleep while her maid
prepared every item for her toilet. Then she spoke to her mistress, and
Ethel awakened, as she always did, with a smile; nature’s surest sign of
a radically sweet temper. And everything went in accord with the smile;
her hair fell naturally into its most becoming waves, her dress into its
most graceful folds; the sapphire necklace matched the blue of her happy
eyes, the roses of youth were on her cheeks, and white violets on her
breast. She felt her own beauty and was glad of it, and with a laughing
word of pleasure went down to the parlor.
Madam Rawdon was standing before the fire, but when she heard the door
open she turned her face toward it.
“Come here, Ethel Rawdon,” she said, “and let me have a look at you.”
And Ethel went to her side, laid her hand lightly on the old lady’s
shoulder and kissed her cheek. “You do look middling well,” she
continued, “and your dress is about as it should be. I like a girl to
dress like a girl--still, the sapphires. Are they necessary?”
“You would not say corals, would you, grandmother? I have those you gave
me when I was three years old.”
“Keep your wit, my dear, for this evening. I should not wonder but you
might need it. Fred Mostyn is rather better than I expected. It was a
great pleasure to see him. It was like a bit of my own youth back again.
When you are a very old woman there are few things sweeter, Ethel.”
“But you are not an old woman, grandmother.”
Nor was she. In spite of her seventy-five years she stood erect at the
side of her grand-daughter. Her abundant hair was partly gray, but the
gray mingled with the little oval of costly lace that lay upon it, and
the effect was soft and fair as powdering. She had been very handsome,
and her beauty lingered as the beauty of some flowers linger, in fainter
tints and in less firm outlines; for she had never fallen from that
“grace of God vouchsafed to children,” and therefore she had kept not
only the enthusiasms of her youth, but that sweet promise of the “times
of restitution” when the child shall die one hundred years old, because
the child-heart shall be kept in all its freshness and trust. Yes, in
Rachel Rawdon’s heart the well-springs of love and life lay too deep for
the frosts of age to touch. She would be eternally young before she grew
old.
She sat down as Ethel spoke, and drew the girl to her side. “I hear your
friend is going to marry,” she said.
“Dora? Yes.”
“Are you sorry?”
“Perhaps not. Dora has been a care to me for four years. I hope her
husband may manage her as well as I have done.”
“Are you afraid he will not?”
“I cannot tell, grandmother. I see all Dora’s faults. Mr. Stanhope is
certain that she has no faults. Hitherto she has had her own way in
everything. Excepting myself, no one has ventured to contradict her.
But, then, Dora is over head and ears in love, and love, it is said,
makes all things easy to bear and to do.”
“One thing, girls, amazes me--it is how readily women go to church and
promise to love, honor, and obey their husbands, when they never intend
to do anything of the kind.”
“There is a still more amazing thing, Madam,” answered Ruth; “that is
that men should be so foolish as to think, or hope, they perhaps might
do so.”
“Old-fashioned women used to manage it some way or other, Ruth. But the
old-fashioned woman was a very soft-hearted creature, and, maybe, it was
just as well that she was.”
“But Woman’s Dark Ages are nearly over, Madam; and is not the New Woman
a great improvement on the Old Woman?”
“I haven’t made up my mind yet, Ruth, about the New Woman. I notice one
thing that a few of the new kind have got into their pretty heads, and
that is, that they ought to have been men; and they have followed up
that idea so far that there is now very little difference in their
looks, and still less in their walk; they go stamping along with the
step of an athlete and the stride of a peasant on fresh plowed fields.
It is the most hideous of walks imaginable. The Grecian bend, which
you cannot remember, but may have heard of, was a lackadaisical, vulgar
walking fad, but it was grace itself compared with the hideous stride
which the New Woman has acquired on the golf links or somewhere else.”
“But men stamp and stride in the same way, grandmother.”
“A long stride suits a man’s anatomy well enough; it does not suit a
woman’s--she feels every stride she takes, I’ll warrant her.”
“If she plays golf----”
“My dear Ethel, there is no need for her to play golf. It is a man’s
game and was played for centuries by men only. In Scotland, the home of
golf, it was not thought nice for women to even go to the links, because
of the awful language they were likely to hear.”
“Then, grandmother, is it not well for ladies to play golf if it keeps
men from using ‘awful language’ to each other?”
“God love you, child! Men will think what they dare not speak.”
“If we could only have some new men!” sighed Ethel. “The lover of to-day
is just what a girl can pick up; he has no wit and no wisdom and no
illusions. He talks of his muscles and smells of cigarettes--perhaps
of whisky”--and at these words, Judge Rawdon, accompanied by Mr. Fred
Mostyn, entered the room.
The introductions slipped over easily, they hardly seemed to be
necessary, and the young man took the chair offered as naturally as
if he had sat by the hearth all his life. There was no pause and no
embarrassment and no useless polite platitudes; and Ethel’s first
feeling about her kinsman was one of admiration for the perfect ease and
almost instinctive at-homeness with which he took his place. He had come
to his own and his own had received him; that was the situation, a very
pleasant one, which he accepted with the smiling trust that was at once
the most perfect and polite of acknowledgments.
“So you do not enjoy traveling?” said Judge Rawdon as if continuing a
conversation.
“I think it the most painful way of taking pleasure, sir--that is the
actual transit. And sleeping cars and electric-lighted steamers and
hotels do not mitigate the suffering. If Dante was writing now he might
depict a constant round of personally conducted tours in Purgatory.
I should think the punishment adequate for any offense. But I like
arriving at places. New York has given me a lot of new sensations
to-day, and I have forgotten the transit troubles already.”
He talked well and temperately, and yet Ethel could not avoid the
conclusion that he was a man of positive character and uncompromising
prejudices. And she also felt a little disappointed in his personality,
which contradicted her ideal of a Yorkshire squire. For he was small and
slender in stature, and his face was keen and thin, from the high
cheek bones to the sharp point of the clean-shaven chin. Yet it was
an interesting face, for the brows were broad and the eyes bright
and glancing. That his nature held the opposite of his qualities was
evident from the mouth, which was composed and discreet and generally
clothed with a frank smile, negatived by the deep, sonorous voice which
belongs to the indiscreet and quarrelsome. His dress was perfect. Ethel
could find no fault in it, except the monocle which he did not use once
during the evening, and which she therefore decided was a quite idle and
unhandsome adjunct.
One feature of his character was definite--he was a home-loving man.
He liked the society of women with whom he could be familiar, and
he preferred the company of books and music to fashionable social
functions. This pleasant habit of domesticity was illustrated during
the evening by an accidental incident--a noisy, mechanical street
organ stopped before the windows, and in a blatant manner began its
performance. Conversation was paralyzed by the intrusion and when it
was removed Judge Rawdon said: “What a democratic, leveling, aggressive
thing music is! It insists on being heard. It is always in the way,
it thrusts itself upon you, whether you want it or not. Now art is
different. You go to see pictures when you wish to.”
Mostyn did not notice the criticism on music itself, but added in a
soft, disapproving way: “That man has no music in him. Do you know that
was one of Mendelssohn’s delicious dreams. This is how it should have
been rendered,” and he went impulsively to the piano and then the sweet
monotonous cadences and melodious reveries slipped from his long white
fingers till the whole room was permeated with a delicious sense of
moonlit solitude and conversation was stilled in its languor. The young
man had played his own dismissal, but it was an effective one, and
he complimented himself on his readiness to seize opportunities for
display, and on his genius in satisfying them.
“I think I astonished them a little,” he mused, “and I wonder what that
pretty, cousin of mine thought of the music and the musician. I fancy we
shall be good friends; she is proud--that is no fault; and she has very
decided opinions--which might be a great fault; but I think I rather
astonished them.”
To such reflections he stepped rather pompously down the avenue, not at
all influenced by any premonition that his satisfactory feelings
might be imperfectly shared. Yet silence was the first result of his
departure. Judge Rawdon took out his pocketbook and began to study its
entries. Ruth Bayard rose and closed the piano. Ethel lifted a magazine,
while it was Madam who finally asked in an impatient tone:
“What do you think of Frederick? I suppose, Edward, you have an opinion.
Isn’t he a very clever man?”
“I should not wonder if he were, mother, clever to a fault.”
“I never heard a young man talk better.”
“He talked a great deal, but then, you know, he was not on his oath.”
“I’ll warrant every word he said.”
“Your warrant is fine surety, mother, but I am not bound to believe all
I hear. You women can please yourselves.”
And with these words he left the women to find out, if they could, what
manner of man their newly-found kinsman might be.
* * * * *
CHAPTER III
ONE of the most comfortable things about Frederick Mostyn was his almost
boyish delight in the new life which New York opened to him. Every phase
of it was so fresh, so unusual, that his Yorkshire existence at Mostyn
Hall gave him no precedents and no experiences by which to measure
events. The simplest things were surprising or interesting. He was never
weary of taking those exciting “lifts” to the top of twenty-three story
buildings and admiring the wonderful views such altitudes gave him. He
did not perhaps comprehend how much he was influenced by the friction
of two million wills and interests; did not realize how they evoked
an electric condition that got behind the foreground of existence and
stirred something more at the roots of his being than any previous
experience had ever done. And this feeling was especially entrancing
when he saw the great city and majestic river lying at his feet in the
white, uncanny light of electricity, all its color gone, its breath
cold, its life strangely remote and quiet, men moving like shadows,
and sounds hollow and faint and far off, as if they came from a distant
world. It gave him a sense of dreamland quite as much as that of
reality. The Yorkshire moors and words grew dull and dreary in his
memory; even the thought of the hunting field could not lure his desire.
New York was full of marvelous novelties; its daily routine, even in the
hotel and on the streets, gripped his heart and his imagination; and he
confessed to himself that New York was life at first hand; fresh drawn,
its very foam sparkling and intoxicating. He walked from the Park to the
Battery and examined all that caught his eye. He had a history of
the city and sought out every historical site; he even went over to
Weehawken, and did his best to locate the spot where Burr and Hamilton
fought. He admired Hamilton, but after reading all about the two men,
gave his sympathy to Burr, “a clever, unlucky little chap,” he said.
“Why do clever men hate each other?” and then he smiled queerly as he
remembered political enemies of great men in his own day and his own
country; and concluded that “it was their nature to do so.”
But in these outside enthusiasms he did not forget his personal
relations. It took him but a few days to domesticate himself in both the
Rawdon houses. When the weather drove him off the streets, he found a
pleasant refuge either with Madam or with Ethel and Miss Bayard. Ethel
he saw less frequently than he liked; she was nearly always with Dora
Denning, but with Ruth Bayard he contracted a very pleasant friendship.
He told her all his adventures and found her more sympathetic than Madam
ever pretended to be. Madam thought him provincial in his tastes, and
was better pleased to hear that he had a visiting entry at two good
clubs, and had hired a motor ear, and was learning how to manage it.
Then she told herself that if he was good to her, she would buy him one
to be proud of before he returned to Yorkshire.
It was at the Elite Club Bryce Denning first saw him. He came in with
Shaw McLaren, a young man whose acquaintance was considered as most
definitely satisfactory. Vainly Bryce Denning had striven to obtain any
notice whatever from McLaren, whose exclusiveness was proverbial. Who
then was this stranger he appeared so anxious to entertain? His look of
supreme satisfaction, his high-bred air, and peculiar intonation quickly
satisfied Bryce as to his nationality.
“English, of course,” he reflected, “and probably one of the aristocrats
that Shaw meets at his recently ennobled sister’s place. He is forever
bragging about them. I must find out who Shaw’s last British lion is,”
and just as he arrived at this decision the person appeared who could
satisfy him.
“That man!” was the reply to the inevitable question--“why, he is some
relative of the old lady Rawdon. He is staying at the Holland House,
but spends his time with the Rawdons, old and young; the young one is a
beauty, you know.”
“Do you think so? She is a good deal at our house. I suppose the fellow
has some pretentions. Judge Rawdon will be a man hard to satisfy with a
son-in-law.”
“I fancy his daughter will take that subject in her own hand. She
looks like a girl of spirit; and this man is not as handsome as most
Englishmen.”
“Not if you judge him by bulk, but women want more than mere bulk; he
has an air of breeding you can’t mistake, and he looks clever.”
“His name is Mostyn. I have heard him spoken of. Would you like to know
him?”
“I could live without that honor”--then Bryce turned the conversation
upon a recent horse sale, and a few moments later was sauntering up the
avenue. He was now resolved to make up his quarrel with Dora. Through
Dora he could manage to meet Mostyn socially, and he smiled in
anticipation of that proud moment when he should parade in his own
friendly leash McLaren’s new British lion. Besides, the introduction to
Mr. Mostyn might, if judiciously managed, promote his own acquaintance
with Shaw McLaren, a sequence to be much desired; an end he had
persistently looked for.
He went straight to his sister’s apartments and touched the bell quite
gently. Her maid opened the door and looked annoyed and uncertain. She
knew all about the cruelly wicked opposition of Miss Denning’s brother
to that nice young man, Basil Stanhope; and also the general attitude of
the Denning household, which was a comprehensive disapproval of all that
Mr. Bryce said and did.
Dora had, however, talked all her anger away; she wished now to be
friends with her brother. She knew that his absence from her wedding
would cause unpleasant notice, and she had other reasons, purely
selfish, all emphasizing the advantages of a reconciliation. So she went
to meet Bryce with a pretty, pathetic air of injury patiently endured,
and when Bryce put out his hands and said, “Forgive me, Dodo! I cannot
bear your anger any longer!” she was quite ready for the next act, which
was to lay her pretty head on his shoulder and murmur, “I am not angry,
Bryce--I am grieved, dear.”
“I know, Dodo--forgive me! It was all my fault. I think I was jealous of
you; it was hard to find that you loved a stranger better than you loved
me. Kiss me, and be my own sweet, beautiful sister again. I shall try to
like all the people you like--for your sake, you know.”
Then Dora was charming. She sat and talked and planned and told him
all that had been done and all that was yet to do. And Bryce never
once named either Ethel or Mr. Mostyn. He knew Dora was a shrewd little
woman, and that he would have to be very careful in introducing the
subject of Mr. Mostyn, or else she would be sure to reach the central
truth of his submission to her. But, somehow, things happen for those
who are content to leave their desires to contingencies and accidentals.
The next morning he breakfasted with the family and felt himself
repaid for his concession to Dora by the evident pleasure their renewed
affection gave his father and mother; and though the elder Denning
made no remark in the renewed family solidarity, Bryce anticipated many
little favors and accommodations from his father’s satisfaction.
After breakfast he sat down, lit his cigar and waited. Both his mother
and Dora had much to tell him, and he listened, and gave them such
excellent advice that they were compelled to regret the arrangements
already made had lacked the benefit of his counsels.
“But you had Ethel Rawdon,” he said. “I thought she was everybody rolled
into one.”
“Oh, Ethel doesn’t know as much as she thinks she does,” said Mrs.
Denning. “I don’t agree with lots of things she advises.”
“Then take my advice, mother.”
“Oh, Bryce, it is the best of all.”
“Bryce does not know about dress and such things, mother. Ethel finds
out what she does not know. Bryce cannot go to modistes and milliners
with me.”
“Well, Ethel does not pay as much attention as she might--she is
always going somewhere or other with that Englishman, that she says is a
relative--for my part, I doubt it.”
“Oh, mother!”
“Girls will say anything, Dora, to hide a love affair. Why does she
never bring him here to call?”
“Because I asked her not. I do not want to make new friends, especially
English ones, now. I am so busy all day, and of course my evenings
belong to Basil.”
“Yes, and there is no one to talk to me. Ethel and the Englishman
would pass an hour or two very nicely, and your father is very fond of
foreigners. I think you ought to ask Ethel to introduce him to us;
then we could have a little dinner for him and invite him to our opera
box--don’t you agree with me, Bryce?”
“If Dora does. Of course, at this time, Dora’s wishes and engagements
are the most important. I have seen the young man at the club with Shaw
McLaren and about town with Judge Rawdon and others. He seems a nice
little fellow. Jack Lacy wanted to introduce me to him yesterday, but I
told him I could live without the honor. Of course, if Dora feels
like having him here that is a very different matter. He is certainly
distinguished looking, and would give an air to the wedding.”
“Is he handsome, Bryce?”
“Yes--and no. Women would rave about him; men would think him finical
and dandified. He looks as if he were the happiest fellow in the
world--in fact, he looked to me so provokingly happy that I disliked
him; but now that Dodo is my little sister again, I can be happy enough
to envy no one.”
Then Dora slipped her hand into her brother’s hand, and Bryce knew that
he might take his way to his little office in William Street, the advent
of Mr. Mostyn into his life being now as certain as anything in this
questionable, fluctuating world could be. As he was sauntering down
the avenue he met Ethel and he turned and walked back with her to the
Denning house. He was so good-natured and so good-humored that Ethel
could not avoid an inquisitive look at the usually glum young man, and
he caught it with a laugh and said, “I suppose you wonder what is the
matter with me, Miss Rawdon?”
“You look more than usually happy. If I suppose you have found a wife or
a fortune, shall I be wrong?”
“You come near the truth; I have found a sister. Do you know I am very
fond of Dora and we have made up our quarrel?”
Then Ethel looked at him again. She did not believe him. She was sure
that Dora was not the only evoker of the unbounded satisfaction in
Bryce Denning’s face and manner. But she let the reason pass; she had
no likely arguments to use against it. And that day Mrs. Denning, with a
slight air of injury, opened the subject of Mr. Mostyn’s introduction to
them. She thought Ethel had hardly treated the Dennings fairly. Everyone
was wondering they had not met him. Of course, she knew they were not
aristocrats and she supposed Ethel was ashamed of them, but, for her
part, she thought they were as good as most people, and if it came to
money, they could put down dollar for dollar with any multi-millionaire
in America, or England either, for that matter.
When the reproach took this tone there seemed to be only one thing for
Ethel to say or to do; but that one thing was exactly what she did not
say or do. She took up Mrs. Denning’s reproach and complained that “her
relative and friend had been purposely and definitely ignored. Dora had
told her plainly she did not wish to make Mr. Mostyn’s acquaintance;
and, in accord with this feeling, no one in the Denning family had
called on Mr. Mostyn, or shown him the least courtesy. She thought the
whole Rawdon family had the best of reasons for feeling hurt at the
neglect.”
This view of the case had not entered Mrs. Denning’s mind. She was
quickly sorry and apologetic for Dora’s selfishness and her own
thoughtlessness, and Ethel was not difficult to pacify. There was then
no duty so imperative as the arrangement of a little dinner for Mr.
Mostyn. “We will make it quite a family affair,” said Mrs. Denning,
“then we can go to the opera afterwards. Shall I call on Mr. Mostyn at
the Holland House?” she asked anxiously.
“I will ask Bryce to call,” said Dora. “Bryce will do anything to please
me now, mother.”
In this way, Bryce Denning’s desires were all arranged for him, and that
evening Dora made her request. Bryce heard it with a pronounced pout of
his lips, but finally told Dora she was “irresistible,” and as his time
for pleasing her was nearly out, he would even call on the Englishman at
her request.
“Mind!” he added, “I think he is as proud as Lucifer, and I may get
nothing for my civility but the excuse of a previous engagement.”
But Bryce Denning expected much more than this, and he got all that he
expected. The young men had a common ground to meet on, and they quickly
became as intimate as ever Frederick Mostyn permitted himself to be with
a stranger. Bryce could hardly help catching enthusiasm from Mostyn on
the subject of New York, and he was able to show his new acquaintance
phases of life in the marvelous city which were of the greatest interest
to the inquisitive Yorkshire squire--Chinese theaters and opium dives;
German, Italian, Spanish, Jewish, French cities sheltering themselves
within the great arms of the great American city; queer restaurants,
where he could eat of the national dishes of every civilized country
under the sun; places of amusement, legal and illegal, and the vast
under side of the evident life--all the uncared for toiling of the
thousands who work through the midnight hours. In these excursions the
young men became in a way familiar, though neither of them ever told the
other the real feelings of their hearts or the real aim of their lives.
The proposed dinner took place ten days after its suggestion. There was
nothing remarkable in the function itself; all millionaires have
the same delicacies and the same wines, and serve these things with
precisely the same ceremonies. And, as a general thing, the company
follow rigidly ordained laws of conversation. Stories about public
people, remarks about the weather and the opera, are in order; but
original ideas or decided opinions are unpardonable social errors.
Yet even these commonplace events may contain some element that shall
unexpectedly cut a life in two, and so change its aims and desires as
to virtually create a new character. It was Frederick Mostyn who in
this instance underwent this great personal change; a change totally
unexpected and for which he was absolutely unprepared. For the people
gathered in Mrs. Denning’s drawing-room were mostly known to him, and
the exceptions did not appear to possess any remarkable traits, except
Basil Stanhope, who stood thoughtfully at a window, his pale, lofty
beauty wearing an air of expectation. Mostyn decided that he was
naturally impatient for the presence of his fiancee, whose delayed
entrance he perceived was also annoying Ethel. Then there was a slight
movement, a sudden silence, and Mostyn saw Stanhope’s face flush and
turn magically radiant. Mechanically he followed his movement and the
next moment his eyes met Fate, and Love slipped in between. Dora was
there, a fairy-like vision in pale amber draperies, softened with silk
lace. Diamonds were in her wonderfully waved hair and round her fair
white neck. They clasped her belt and adorned the instep of her little
amber silk slippers. She held a yellow rose in her hand, and yellow
rosebuds lay among the lace at her bosom, and Mostyn, stupefied by her
undreamed-of loveliness, saw golden emanations from the clear pallor of
her face. He felt for a moment or two as if he should certainly faint;
only by a miracle of stubborn will did he drag his consciousness from
that golden-tinted, sparkling haze of beauty which had smitten him like
an enchantment. Then the girl was looking at him with her soft, dark,
gazelle eyes; she was even speaking to him, but what she said, or what
reply he made, he could never by any means remember. Miss Bayard was
to be his companion, and with some effort and a few indistinct words he
gave her his arm. She asked if he was ill, and when a shake of the head
answered the query, she covered the few minutes of his disconcertion
with her conversation. He looked at her gratefully and gathered his
personality together. For Love had come to him like a two-edged sword,
dividing the flesh and the spirit, and he longed to cry aloud and
relieve the sweet torture of the possession.
Reaction, however, came quickly, and with it a wonderful access of
all his powers. The sweet, strong wine of Love went to his brain like
celestial nectar. All the witty, amusing things he had ever heard came
trooping into his memory, and the dinner was long delayed by his fine
humor, his pleasant anecdotes, and the laughing thoughts which others
caught up and illustrated in their own way.
It was a feast full of good things, but its spirit was not able to bear
transition. The company scattered quickly when it was over to the opera
or theater or to the rest of a quiet evening at home, for at the end
enthusiasm of any kind has a chilling effect on the feelings. None
of the party understood this result, and yet all were, in their way,
affected by the sudden fall of mental temperature. Mr. Denning went
to his library and took out his private ledger, a penitential sort of
reading which he relished after moods of any kind of enjoyment. Mrs.
Denning selected Ethel Rawdon for her text of disillusion. She “thought
Ethel had been a little jealous of Dora’s dress,” and Dora said, “It was
one of her surprises, and Ethel thought she ought to know everything.”
“You are too obedient to Ethel,” continued Mrs. Denning and Dora looked
with a charming demureness at her lover, and said, “She had to be
obedient to some one wiser than herself,” and so slipped her hand
into Basil’s hand. And he understood the promise, and with a look of
passionate affection raised the little jeweled pledge and kissed it.
Perhaps no one was more affected by this chill, critical after-hour
than Miss Bayard and Ethel. Mostyn accompanied them home, but he was
depressed, and his courtesy had the air of an obligation. He said he
had a sudden headache, and was not sorry when the ladies bid him “good
night” on the threshold. Indeed, he felt that he must have refused any
invitation to lengthen out the hours with them or anybody. He wanted
one thing, and he wanted that with all his soul--solitude, that he might
fill it with images of Dora, and with passionate promises that either by
fair means or by foul, by right or by wrong, he would win the bewitching
woman for his wife.
CHAPTER IV
“WHAT do you think of the evening, Aunt Ruth?” Ethel was in her
aunt’s room, comfortably wrapped in a pink kimono, when she asked this
question.
“What do you think of it, Ethel?”
“I am not sure.”
“The dinner was well served.”
“Yes. Who was the little dark man you talked with, aunt?”
“He was a Mr. Marriot, a banker, and a friend of Bryce Denning’s. He is
a fresh addition to society, I think. He had the word ‘gold’ always on
his lips; and he believes in it as good men believe in God. The general
conversation annoyed him; he could not understand men being entertained
by it.”
“They were, though, for once Jamie Sayer forgot to talk about his
pictures.”
“Is that the name of your escort?”
“Yes.”
“And is he an artist?”
“A second-rate one. He is painting Dora’s picture, and is a great
favorite of Mrs. Denning’s.”
“A strange, wild-looking man. When I saw him first he was lying,
dislocated, over his ottoman rather than sitting on it.”
“Oh, that is a part of his affectations. He is really a childish,
self-conscious creature, with a very decided dash of vulgarity. He only
tries to look strange and wild, and he would be delighted if he knew you
had thought him so.”
“I was glad to see Claudine Jeffrys. How slim and graceful she is! And,
pray, who is that Miss Ullman?”
“A very rich woman. She has Bryce under consideration. Many other men
have been in the same position, for she is sure they all want her money
and not her. Perhaps she is right. I saw you talking to her, aunt.”
“For a short time. I did not enjoy her company. She is so mercilessly
realistic, she takes all the color out of life. Everything about her,
even her speech, is sharp-lined as the edge of a knife. She could make
Bryce’s life very miserable.”
“Perhaps it might turn out the other way. Bryce Denning has capacities
in the same line. How far apart, how far above every man there, stood
Basil Stanhope!”
“He is strikingly handsome and graceful, and I am sure that his luminous
serenity does not arise from apathy. I should say he was a man of very
strong and tender feelings.”
“And he gives all the strength and tenderness of his feelings to Dora.
Men are strange creatures.”
“Who directed Dora’s dress this evening?”
“Herself or her maid. I had nothing to do with it. The effect was
stunning.”
“Fred thought so. In fact, Fred Hostyn----”
“Fell in love with her.”
“Exactly. ‘Fell,’ that is the word--fell prostrate. Usually the lover
of to-day walks very timidly and carefully into the condition, step
by step, and calculating every step before he takes it. Fred
plunged headlong into the whirling vortex. I am very sorry. It is a
catastrophe.”
“I never witnessed the accident before. I have heard of men getting
wounds and falls, and developing new faculties in consequence, but we
saw the phenomenon take place this evening.”
“Love, if it be love, is known in a moment. Man who never saw the
sun before would know it was the sun. In Fred’s case it was an
instantaneous, impetuous passion, flaming up at the sight of such
unexpected beauty--a passion that will probably fade as rapidly as it
rose.”
“Fred is not that kind of a man, aunt. He does not like every one and
everything, but whoever or whatever he does like becomes a lasting part
of his life. Even the old chairs and tables at Mostyn are held as sacred
objects by him, though I have no doubt an American girl would trundle
them off to the garret. It is the same with the people. He actually
regards the Rawdons as belonging in some way to the Mostyns; and I do
not believe he has ever been in love before.”
“Nonsense!”
“He was so surprised by the attack. If it had been the tenth or
twentieth time he would have taken it more philosophically; besides, if
he had ever loved any woman, he would have gone on loving her, and we
should have known all about her perfections by this time.”
“Dora is nearly a married woman, and Mostyn knows it.”
“Nearly may make all the difference. When Dora is married he will be
compelled to accept the inevitable and make the best of it.”
“When Dora is married he will idealize her, and assure himself that her
marriage is the tragedy of both their lives.”
“Dora will give him no reason to suppose such a thing. I am sure she
will not. She is too much in love with Mr. Stanhope to notice any other
lover.”
“You are mistaken, Ethel. Swiftly as Fred was vanquished she noticed
it, and many times--once even while leaning on Mr. Stanhope’s arm--she
turned the arrow in the heart wound with sweet little glances and
smiles, and pretty appeals to the blind adoration of her new lover. It
was, to me, a humiliating spectacle. How could she do it?”
“I am sure Dora meant no wrong. It is so natural for a lovely girl to
show off a little. She will marry and forget Fred Mostyn lives.”
“And Fred will forget?”
“Fred will not forget.”
“Then I shall be very sorry for your father and grandmother.”
“What have they to do with Fred marrying?”
“A great deal. Fred has been so familiar and homely the last two or
three weeks, that they have come to look upon him as a future member
of the family. It has been ‘Cousin Ethel’ and ‘Aunt Ruth’ and even
‘grandmother’ and ‘Cousin Fred,’ and no objections have been made to the
use of such personal terms. I think your father hopes for a closer tie
between you and Fred Mostyn than cousinship.”
“Whatever might have been is over. Do you imagine I could consent to be
the secondary deity, to come after Dora--Dora of all the girls I have
ever known? The idea is an insult to my heart and my intelligence.
Nothing on earth could make me submit to such an indignity.”
“I do not suppose, Ethel, that any wife is the first object of her
husband’s love.”
“At least they tell her she is so, swear it an inch deep; and no woman
is fool enough to look beyond that oath, but when she is sure that she
is a second best! AH! That is not a position I will ever take in any
man’s heart knowingly.”
“Of course, Fred Mostyn will have to marry.”
“Of course, he will make a duty of the event. The line of Mostyns must
be continued. England might go to ruin if the Mostyns perished off the
English earth; but, Aunt Ruth, I count myself worthy of a better fate
than to become a mere branch in the genealogical tree of the Mostyns.
And that is all Fred Mostyn’s wife will ever be to him, unless he
marries Dora.”
“But that very supposition implies tragedy, and it is most unlikely.”
“Yes, for Dora is a good little thing. She has never been familiar
with vice. She has even a horror of poor women divorced from impossible
husbands. She believes her marriage will be watched by the angels, and
recorded in heaven. Basil has instructed her to regard marriage as a
holy sacrament, and I am sure he does the same.”
“Then why should we forecast evil to their names? As for Cousin Fred, I
dare say he is comfortably asleep.”
“I am sure he is not. I believe he is smoking and calling himself names
for not having come to New York last May, when father first invited him.
Had he done so things might have been different.”
“Yes, they might. When Good Fortune calls, and the called ‘will not when
they may,’ then, ‘when they will’ Good Fortune has become Misfortune.
Welcome a pleasure or a gain at once, or don’t answer it at all. It was
on this rock, Ethel, the bark that carried my love went to pieces. I
know; yes, I know!”
“My dear aunt!”
“It is all right now, dear; but things might have been that are not. As
to Dora, I think she may be trusted with Basil Stanhope. He is one of
the best and handsomest men I ever saw, and he has now rights in Dora’s
love no one can tamper with. Mostyn is an honorable man.”
“All right, but--
“Love will venture in,
Where he daurna well be seen;
O Love will venture in,
Where Wisdom once has been--
and then, aunt, what then?”
PART SECOND -- PLAYING WITH FIRE
CHAPTER V
THE next day after lunch Ethel said she was going to walk down to
Gramercy Park and spend an hour or two with her grandmother, and “Will
you send the carriage for me at five o’clock?” she asked.
“Your father has ordered the carriage to be at the Holland House at five
o’clock. It can call for you first, and then go to the Holland House.
But do not keep your father waiting. If he is not at the entrance give
your card to the outside porter; he will have it sent up to Fred’s
apartments.”
“Then father is calling on Fred? What for? Is he sick?”
“Oh, no, business of some kind. I hope you will have a pleasant walk.”
“There is no doubt of it.”
Indeed, she was radiant with its exhilaration when she reached Gramercy
Park. As she ran up the steps of the big, old-fashioned house she saw
Madam at the window picking up some dropped stitches in her knitting.
Madam saw her at the same moment, and the old face and the young face
both alike kindled with love, as well as with happy anticipation of
coveted intercourse.
“I am so glad to see you, darling Granny. I could not wait until
to-morrow.”
“And why should you, child? I have been watching for you all morning. I
want to hear about the Denning dinner. I suppose you went?”
“Yes, we went; we had to. Dinners in strange houses are a common
calamity; I can’t expect to be spared what everyone has to endure.”
“Don’t be affected, Ethel. You like going out to dinner. Of course, you
do! It is only natural, considering.”
“I don’t, Granny. I like dances and theaters and operas, but I don’t
like dinners. However, the Denning dinner was a grand exception. It gave
me and the others a sensation.”
“I expected that.”
“It was beautifully ordered. Majordomo Parkinson saw to that. If he had
arranged it for his late employer, the Duke of Richmond, it could not
have been finer. There was not a break anywhere.”
“How many were present?”
“Just a dozen.”
“Mr. Denning and Bryce, of course. Who were the others?”
“Mr. Stanhope, of course. Granny, he wore his clerical dress. It made
him look so remarkable.”
“He did right. A clergyman ought to look different from other men. I
do not believe Basil Stanhope, having assumed the dress of a servant of
God, would put it off one hour for any social exigency. Why should he?
It is a grander attire than any military or naval uniform, and no court
dress is comparable, for it is the court dress of the King of kings.”
“All right, dear Granny; you always make things clear to me, yet I meet
lots of clergymen in evening dress.”
“Then they ought not to be clergymen. They ought not to wear coats in
which they can hold any kind of opinions. Who was your companion?”
“Jamie Sayer.”
“I never heard of the man.”
“He is an artist, and is painting Dora’s likeness. He is getting on now,
but in the past, like all artists, he has suffered a deal.”
“God’s will be done. Let them suffer. It is good for genius to suffer.
Is he in love with you?”
“Gracious, Granny! His head is so full of pictures that no woman could
find room there, and if one did, the next new picture would crowd her
out.”
“End that story, it is long enough.”
“Do you know Miss Ullman?”
“I have heard of her. Who has not?”
“She has Bryce Denning on trial now. If he marries her I shall pity
him.”
“Pity him! Not I, indeed! He would have his just reward. Like to like,
and Amen to it.”
“Then there was Claudine Jeffrys, looking quite ethereal, but very
lovely.”
“I know. Her lover was killed in Cuba, and she has been the type of
faithful grief ever since. She looks it and dresses it to perfection.”
“And feels it?”
“Perhaps she does. I am not skilled in the feelings of pensive,
heart-broken maidens. But her case is a very common one. Lovers are
nowhere against husbands, yet how many thousands of good women lose
their husbands every year? If they are poor, they have to hide their
grief and work for them-selves and their families; if they are rich,
very few people believe that they are really sorry to be widows. Are
any poor creatures more jeered at than widows? No man believes they
are grieving for the loss of their husbands. Then why should they all
sympathize with Claudine about the loss of a lover?”
“Perhaps lovers are nicer than husbands.”
“Pretty much all alike. I have known a few good husbands. Your
grandfather was one, your father another. But you have said nothing
about Fred. Did he look handsome? Did he make a sensation? Was he a
cousin to be proud of?”
“Indeed, Granny, Fred was the whole party. He is not naturally handsome,
but he has distinction, and he was well-dressed. And I never heard
anyone talk as he did. He told the most delightful stories, he was full
of mimicry and wit, and said things that brought everyone into the
merry talk; and I am sure he charmed and astonished the whole party.
Mr. Denning asked me quietly afterwards ‘what university he was educated
at.’ I think he took it all as education, and had some wild ideas of
finishing Bryce in a similar manner.”
Madam was radiant. “I told you so,” she said proudly. “The Mostyns have
intellect as well as land. There are no stupid Mostyns. I hope you asked
him to play. I think his way of handling a piano would have taught them
a few things Russians and Poles know nothing about. Poor things! How can
they have any feelings left?”
“There was no piano in the room, Granny, and the company separated very
soon after dinner.”
“Somehow you ought to have managed it, Ethel.” Then with a touch of
anxiety, “I hope all this cleverness was natural--I mean, I hope it
wasn’t champagne. You know, Ethel, we think as we drink, and Fred isn’t
used to those frisky wines. Mostyn cellars are full of old sherry and
claret, and Fred’s father was always against frothing, sparkling wines.”
“Granny, it was all Fred. Wine had nothing to do with it, but a certain
woman had; in fact, she was the inspirer, and Fred fell fifty fathoms
deep in love with her the very moment she entered the room. He heard
not, felt not, thought not, so struck with love was he. Ruth got him
to a window for a few moments and so hid his emotion until he could get
himself together.”
“Oh, what a tale! What a cobweb tale! I don’t believe a word of it,” and
she laughed merrily.
“‘Tis true as gospel, Granny.”
“Name her, then. Who was the woman?”
“Dora.”
“It is beyond belief, above belief, out of all reason. It cannot be,
and it shall not be, and if you are making up a story to tease me, Ethel
Rawdon----”
“Grandmother, let me tell you just how it came about. We were all in the
room waiting for Dora, and she suddenly entered. She was dressed in soft
amber silk from head to feet; diamonds were in her black hair, and on
the bands across her shoulders, on her corsage, on her belt, her hands,
and even her slippers. Under the electric lights she looked as if she
was in a golden aura, scintillating with stars. She took Fred’s breath
away. He was talking to Ruth, and he could not finish the word he was
saying. Ruth thought he was going to faint----”
“Don’t tell me such nonsense.”
“Well, grandmother, this nonsense is truth. As I said before, Ruth
took him aside until he got control of himself; then, as he was Dora’s
escort, he had to go to her. Ruth introduced them, and as she raised her
soft, black eyes to his, and put her hand on his arm, something happened
again, but this time it was like possession. He was the courtier in a
moment, his eyes flashed back her glances, he gave her smile for smile,
and then when they were seated side by side he became inspired and
talked as I have told you. It is the truth, grandmother.”
“Well, there are many different kinds of fools, but Fred Mostyn is the
worst I ever heard tell of. Does he not know that the girl is engaged?”
“Knows it as well as I do.”
“None of our family were ever fools before, and I hope Fred will come
round quickly. Do you think Dora noticed the impression she made?”
“Yes, Aunt Ruth noticed Dora; and Ruth says Dora ‘turned the arrow in
the heart wound’ all the evening.”
“What rubbish you are talking! Say in good English what you mean.”
“She tried every moment they, were together to make him more and more
in love with her.”
“What is her intention? A girl doesn’t carry on that way for nothing.”
“I do not know. Dora has got beyond me lately. And, grandmother, I
am not troubling about the event as it regards Dora or Fred or Basil
Stanhope, but as it regards Ethel.”
“What have you to do with it?”
“That is just what I want to have clearly understood. Aunt Ruth told me
that father and you would be disappointed if I did not marry Fred.”
“Well?”
“I am sorry to disappoint you, but I never shall marry Fred Mostyn.
Never!”
“I rather think you will have to settle that question with your father,
Ethel.”
“No. I have settled it with myself. The man has given to Dora all the
love that he has to give. I will have a man’s whole heart, and not
fragments and finger-ends of it.”
“To be sure, that is right. But I can’t say much, Ethel, when I only
know one side of the case, can I? I must wait and hear what Fred has
to say. But I like your spirit and your way of bringing what is wrong
straight up to question. You are a bit Yorkshire yet, whatever you think
gets quick to your tongue, and then out it comes. Good girl, your heart
is on your lips.”
They talked the afternoon away on this subject, but Madam’s last words
were not only advisory, they were in a great measure sympathetic. “Be
straight with yourself, Ethel,” she said, “then Fred Mostyn can do as he
likes; you will be all right.”
She accepted the counsel with a kiss, and then drove to the Holland
House for her father. He was not waiting, as Ruth had supposed he would
be, but then she was five minutes too soon. She sent up her card, and
then let her eyes fall upon a wretched beggar man who was trying to play
a violin, but was unable by reason of hunger and cold. He looked as if
he was dying, and she was moved with a great pity, and longed for her
father to come and give some help. While she was anxiously watching, a
young man was also struck with the suffering on the violinist’s face.
He spoke a few words to him, and taking the violin, drew from it such
strains of melody, that in a few moments a crowd had gathered within the
hotel and before it. First there was silence, then a shout of delight;
and when it ceased the player’s voice thrilled every heart to passionate
patriotism, as he sang with magnificent power and feeling--
There is not a spot on this wide-peopled earth
So dear to our heart as the Land of our Birth, etc.
A tumult of hearty applause followed, and then he cried, “Gentlemen,
this old man fought for the land of our birth. He is dying of hunger,”
and into the old man’s hat he dropped a bill and then handed it round to
millionaire and workingman alike. Ethel’s purse was in her hand. As
he passed along the curb at which her carriage stood, he looked at
her eager face, and with a smile held out the battered hat. She, also
smiling, dropped her purse into it. In a few moments the hat was nearly
full; the old man and the money were confided to the care of an hotel
officer, the stream of traffic and pleasure went on its usual way, and
the musician disappeared.
All that evening the conversation turned constantly to this event.
Mostyn was sure he was a member of some operatic troupe. “Voices of
such rare compass and exceptional training were not to be found among
non-professional people,” he said, and Judge Rawdon was of his opinion.
“His voice will haunt me for many days,” he said. “Those two lines, for
instance--
‘Tis the home of our childhood, that beautiful spot
Which memory retains when all else is forgot.
The melody was wonderful. I wish we could find out where he is singing.
His voice, as I said, haunts my ear.”
Ethel might have made the same remark, but she was silent. She had
noticed the musician more closely than her father or Fred Mostyn, and
when Ruth Bayard asked her if his personality was interesting, she was
able to give a very clear description of the man.
“I do not believe he is a professional singer; he is too young,” she
answered. “I should think he was about twenty-five years old, tall,
slender, and alert. He was fashionably dressed, as if he had been, or
was going, to an afternoon reception. Above all things, I should say he
was a gentleman.”
Oh, why are our hearts so accessible to our eyes? Only a smiling glance
had passed between Ethel and the Unknown, yet his image was prisoned
behind the bars of her eyelids. On this day of days she had met Love on
the crowded street, and he had
“But touched his lute wherein was audible
The certain secret thing he had to tell;
Only their mirrored eyes met silently”;
and a sweet trouble, a restless, pleasing curiosity, had filled her
consciousness. Who was he? Where had he gone to? When should they meet
again? Ah, she understood now how Emmeline Labiche had felt constrained
to seek her lover from the snows of Canada to the moss-veiled oaks of
Louisiana.
But her joyous, hopeful soul could not think of love and disappointment
at the same moment. “I have seen him, and I shall see him again. We met
by appointment. Destiny introduced us. Neither of us will forget, and
somewhere, some day, I shall be waiting, and he will come.”
Thus this daughter of sunshine and hope answered herself; and why not?
All good things come to those who can wait in sweet tranquillity for
them, and seldom does Fortune fail to bring love and heart’s-ease upon
the changeful stream of changeful days to those who trust her for them.
On the following morning, when the two girls entered the parlor, they
found the Judge smoking there. He had already breakfasted, and looked
over the three or four newspapers whose opinions he thought worthy of
his consideration. They were lying in a state of confusion at his side,
and Ethel glanced at them curiously.
“Did any of the papers speak of the singing before the Holland House?”
she asked.
“Yes. I think reporters must be ubiquitous. All my papers had some sort
of a notice of the affair.”
“What do they say?”
“One gave the bare circumstances of the case; another indulged in what
was supposed to be humorous description; a third thought it might have
been the result of a bet or dare; a fourth was of the opinion that
conspiracy between the old beggar and the young man was not unlikely,
and credited the exhibition as a cleverly original way of obtaining
money. But all agreed in believing the singer to be a member of some
opera company now in the city.”
Ethel was indignant. “It was neither ‘bet’ nor ‘dare’ nor ‘conspiracy,’”
she said. “I saw the singer as he came walking rapidly down the avenue,
and he looked as happy and careless as a boy whistling on a country
lane. When his eyes fell on the old man he hesitated, just a moment,
and then spoke to him. I am sure they were absolute strangers to each
other.”
“But how can you be sure of a thing like that, Ethel?”
“I don’t know ‘how,’ Ruth, but all the same, I am sure. And as for it
being a new way of begging, that is not correct. Not many years ago, one
of the De Reszke brothers led a crippled soldier into a Paris cafe, and
sang the starving man into comfort in twenty minutes.”
“And the angelic Parepa Rosa did as much for a Mexican woman, whom she
found in the depths of sorrow and poverty--brought her lifelong comfort
with a couple of her songs. Is it not likely, then, that the gallant
knight of the Holland House is really a member of some opera company,
that he knew of these examples and followed them?”
“It is not unlikely, Ruth, yet I do not believe that is the
explanation.”
“Well,” said the Judge, throwing his cigarette into the fire, “if the
singer had never heard of De Reszke and Parepa Rosa, we may suppose him
a gentleman of such culture as to be familiar with the exquisite Greek
legend of Phoebus Apollo--that story would be sufficient to inspire any
man with his voice. Do you know it?”
Both girls answered with an enthusiastic entreaty for its recital, and
the Judge went to the library and returned with a queer-looking little
book, bound in marbled paper.
“It was my father’s copy,” he said, “an Oxford edition.” And he turned
the leaves with loving carefulness until he came to the incident. Then
being a fine reader, the words fell from his lips in a stately measure
better than music:
“After Troy fell there came to Argos a scarred soldier seeking alms.
Not deigning to beg, he played upon a lyre; but the handling of arms had
robbed him of his youthful power, and he stood by the portico hour after
hour, and no one dropped him a lepton. Weary, hungry and thirsty, he
leaned in despair against a pillar. A youth came to him and asked, ‘Why
not play on, Akeratos?’ And Akeratos meekly answered, ‘I am no longer
skilled.’ ‘Then,’ said the stranger, ‘hire me thy lyre; here is a
didrachmon. I will play, and thou shalt hold out thy cap and be dumb.’
So the stranger took the lyre and swept the strings, and men heard,
as it were, the clashing of swords. And he sang the fall of Troy--how
Hector perished, slain by Achilles, the rush of chariots, the ring of
hoofs, the roar of flames--and as he sang the people stopped to listen,
breathless and eager, with rapt, attentive ear. And when the singer
ceased the soldier’s cap was filled with coins, and the people begged
for yet another song. Then he sang of Venus, till all men’s hearts were
softly stirred, and the air was purple and misty and full of the scent
of roses. And in their joy men cast before Akeratos not coins only, but
silver bracelets and rings, and gems and ornaments of gold, until the
heap had to its utmost grown, making Akeratos rich in all men’s sight.
Then suddenly the singer stood in a blaze of light, and the men of Argos
saw their god of song, Phoebus Apollo, rise in glory to the skies.”
The girls were delighted; the Judge pleased both with his own rendering
of the legend and the manifest appreciation with which it had been
received. For a moment or two all felt the exquisite touch of the
antique world, and Ethel said, in a tone of longing,
“I wish that I had been a Greek and lived in Argos.”
“You would not have liked it as well as being an American and living in
New York,” said her father.
“And you would have been a pagan,” added Ruth.
“They were such lovely pagans, Ruth, and they dreamed such beautiful
dreams of life. Leave the book with me, father; I will take good care of
it.”
Then the Judge gave her the book, and with a sigh looked into the modern
street. “I ought to be down at Bowling Green instead of reading
Greek stories to you girls,” he said rather brusquely. “I have a very
important railway case on my mind, and Phoebus Apollo has nothing to
do with it. Good morning. And, Ethel, do not deify the singer on the
avenue. He will not turn out, like the singer by the portico, to be a
god; be sure of that.”
The door closed before she could answer, and both women remained silent
a few minutes. Then Ethel went to the window, and Ruth asked if she was
going to Dora’s.
“Yes,” was the answer, but without interest.
“You are tired with all this shopping and worry?”
“It is not only that I am tired, I am troubled about Fred Mostyn.”
“Why?”
“I do not know why. It is only a vague unrest as yet. But one thing I
know, I shall oppose anything like Fred making himself intimate with
Dora.”
“I think you will do wisely in that.”
But in a week Ethel realized that in opposing a lover like Fred Mostyn
she had a task beyond her ability. Fred had nothing to do as important
in his opinion as the cultivation of his friendship with Dora Denning.
He called it “friendship,” but this misnomer deceived no one, not even
Dora. And when Dora encouraged his attentions, how was Ethel to prevent
them without some explanation which would give a sort of reality to what
was as yet a nameless suspicion?
Yet every day the familiarity increased. He seemed to divine their
engagements. If they went to their jeweler’s, or to a bazaar, he was
sure to stroll in after them. When they came out of the milliner’s or
modiste’s, Fred was waiting. “He had secured a table at Sherry’s; he had
ordered lunch, and all was ready.” It was too great an effort to resist
his entreaty. Perhaps no one wished to do so. The girls were utterly
tired and hungry, and the thought of one of Fred’s lunches was very
pleasant. Even if Basil Stanhope was with them, it appeared to be all
the better. Fred always included Dora’s lover with a charming courtesy;
and, indeed, at such hours, was in his most delightful mood. Stanhope
appeared to inspire him. His mentality when the clergyman was present
took possession of every incident that came and went, and clothed it
in wit and pleasantry. Dora’s plighted lover honestly thought Dora’s
undeclared lover the cleverest and most delightful of men. And he had no
opportunity of noting, as Ethel did, the difference in Fred’s attitude
when he was not present. Then Mostyn’s merry mood became sentimental,
and his words were charged with soft meanings and looks of adoration,
and every tone and every movement made to express far more than the
tongue would have dared to utter.
As this flirtation progressed--for on Dora’s part it was only vanity and
flirtation--Ethel grew more and more uneasy. She almost wished for some
trifling overt act which would give her an excuse for warning Dora; and
one day, after three weeks of such philandering, the opportunity came.
“I think you permit Fred Mostyn to take too much liberty with you,
Dora,” she said as soon as they were in Dora’s parlor, and as she spoke
she threw off her coat in a temper which effectively emphasized the
words.
“I have been expecting this ill-nature, Ethel. You were cross all the
time we were at lunch. You spoiled all our pleasure Pray, what have I
been doing wrong with Fred Mostyn?”
“It was Fred who did wrong. His compliments to you were outrageous.
He has no right to say such things, and you have no right to listen to
them.”
“I am not to blame if he compliments me instead of you. He was simply
polite, but then it was to the wrong person.”
“Of course it was. Such politeness he had no right to offer you.”
“It would have been quite proper if offered you, I suppose?”
“It would not. It would have been a great impertinence. I have given
him neither claim nor privilege to address me as ‘My lovely Ethel!’ He
called you many times ‘My lovely Dora!’ You are not his lovely Dora.
When he put on your coat, he drew you closer than was proper; and I saw
him take your hand and hold it in a clasp--not necessary.”
“Why do you listen and watch? It is vulgar. You told me so yourself. And
I am lovely. Basil says that as well as Fred. Do you want a man to lie
and say I am ugly?”
“You are fencing the real question. He had no business to use the word
‘my.’ You are engaged to Basil Stanhope, not to Fred Mostyn.”
“I am Basil’s lovely fiancee; I am Fred’s lovely friend.”
“Oh! I hope Fred understands the difference.”
“Of course he does. Some people are always thinking evil.”
“I was thinking of Mr. Stanhope’s rights.”
“Thank you, Ethel; but I can take care of Mr. Stanhope’s rights without
your assistance. If you had said you were thinking of Ethel Rawdon’s
rights you would have been nearer the truth.”
“Dora, I will not listen----”
“Oh, you shall listen to me! I know that you expected Fred to fall in
love with you, but if he did not like to do so, am I to blame?” Ethel
was resuming her coat at this point in the conversation, and Dora
understood the proud silence with which the act was being accomplished.
Then a score of good reasons for preventing such a definite quarrel
flashed through her selfish little mind, and she threw her arms around
Ethel and begged a thousand pardons for her rudeness. And Ethel had
also reasons for avoiding dissension at this time. A break in their
friendship now would bring Dora forward to explain, and Dora had a
wonderful cleverness in presenting her own side of any question. Ethel
shrunk from her innuendoes concerning Fred, and she knew that Basil
would be made to consider her a meddling, jealous girl who willingly saw
evil in Dora’s guileless enjoyment of a clever man’s company.
To be misunderstood, to be blamed and pitied, to be made a pedestal
for Dora’s superiority, was a situation not to be contemplated. It was
better to look over Dora’s rudeness in the flush of Dora’s pretended
sorrow for it. So they forgave each other, or said they did, and
then Dora explained herself. She declared that she had not the least
intention of any wrong. “You see, Ethel, what a fool the man is about
me. Somebody says we ought to treat a fool according to his folly. That
is all I was doing. I am sure Basil is so far above Fred Mostyn that I
could never put them in comparison--and Basil knows it. He trusts me.”
“Very well, Dora. If Basil knows it, and trusts you, I have no more to
say. I am now sorry I named the subject.”
“Never mind, we will forget that it was named. The fact is, Ethel, I
want all the fun I can get now. When I am Basil’s wife I shall have to
be very sedate, and of course not even pretend to know if any other man
admires me. Little lunches with Fred, theater and opera parties, and
even dances will be over for me. Oh, dear, how much I am giving up for
Basil! And sometimes I think he never realizes how dreadful it must be
for me.”
“You will have your lover all the time then. Surely his constant
companionship will atone for all you relinquish.”
“Take off your coat and hat, Ethel, and sit down comfortably. I don’t
know about Basil’s constant companionship. Tete-a-tetes are tiresome
affairs sometimes.”
“Yes,” replied Ethel, as she half-reluctantly removed her coat, “they
were a bore undoubtedly even in Paradise. I wonder if Eve was tired of
Adam’s conversation, and if that made her listen to--the other party.”
“I am so glad you mentioned that circumstance, Ethel. I shall remember
it. Some day, no doubt, I shall have to remind Basil of the failure of
Adam to satisfy Eve’s idea of perfect companionship.” And Dora put her
pretty, jeweled hands up to her ears and laughed a low, musical laugh
with a childish note of malice running through it.
This pseudo-reconciliation was not conducive to pleasant intercourse.
After a short delay Ethel made an excuse for an early departure, and
Dora accepted it without her usual remonstrance. The day had been one
of continual friction, and Dora’s irritable pettishness hard to bear,
because it had now lost that childish unreason which had always
induced Ethel’s patience, for Dora had lately put away all her ignorant
immaturities. She had become a person of importance, and had realized
the fact. The young ladies of St. Jude’s had made a pet of their revered
rector’s love, and the elder ladies had also shown a marked interest in
her. The Dennings’ fine house was now talked about and visited. Men of
high financial power respected Mr. Dan Denning, and advised the social
recognition of his family; and Mrs. Denning was not now found more
eccentric than many other of the new rich, who had been tolerated in
the ranks of the older plutocrats. Even Bryce had made the standing
he desired. He was seen with the richest and idlest young men, and was
invited to the best houses. Those fashionable women who had marriageable
daughters considered him not ineligible, and men temporarily
hampered for cash knew that they could find smiling assistance for a
consideration at Bryce’s little office on William Street.
These and other points of reflection troubled Ethel, and she was
glad the long trial was nearing its end, for she knew quite well the
disagreement of that evening had done no good. Dora would certainly
repeat their conversation, in her own way of interpreting it, to both
Basil Stanhope and Fred Mostyn. More than likely both Bryce and Mrs.
Denning would also hear how her innocent kindness had been misconstrued;
and in each case she could imagine the conversation that took place, and
the subsequent bestowal of pitying, scornful or angry feeling that would
insensibly find its way to her consciousness without any bird of the air
to carry it.
She felt, too, that reprisals of any kind were out of the question. They
were not only impolitic, they were difficult. Her father had an aversion
to Dora, and was likely to seize the first opportunity for requesting
Ethel to drop the girl’s acquaintance. Ruth also had urged her to
withdraw from any active part in the wedding, strengthening her advice
with the assurance that when a friendship began to decline it ought to
be abandoned at once. There was only her grandmother to go to, and at
first she did not find her at all interested in the trouble. She had
just had a dispute with her milkman, was inclined to give him all her
suspicions and all her angry words--“an impertinent, cheating creature,”
she said; and then Ethel had to hear the history of the month’s cream
and of the milkman’s extortion, with the old lady’s characteristic
declaration:
“I told him plain what I thought of his ways, but I paid him every cent
I owed him. Thank God, I am not unreasonable!”
Neither was she unreasonable when Ethel finally got her to listen to her
own serious grievance with Dora.
“If you will have a woman for a friend, Ethel, you must put up with
womanly ways; and it is best to keep your mouth shut concerning such
ways. I hate to see you whimpering and whining about wrongs you have
been cordially inviting for weeks and months and years.”
“Grandmother!”
“Yes, you have been sowing thorns for yourself, and then you go unshod
over them. I mean that Dora has this fine clergyman, and Fred Mostyn,
and her brother, and mother, and father all on her side; all of them
sure that Dora can do no wrong, all of them sure that Ethel, poor girl,
must be mistaken, or prudish, or jealous, or envious.”
“Oh, grandmother, you are too cruel.”
“Why didn’t you have a few friends on your own side?”
“Father and Ruth never liked Dora. And Fred--I told you how Fred acted
as soon as he saw her!”
“There was Royal Wheelock, James Clifton, or that handsome Dick Potter.
Why didn’t you ask them to join you at your lunches and dances? You
ought to have pillared your own side. A girl without her beaux is always
on the wrong side if the girl with beaux is against her.”
“It was the great time of Dora’s life. I wished her to have all the
glory of it.”
“All her own share--that was right. All of your share, also--that was as
wrong as it could be.”
“Clifton is yachting, Royal and I had a little misunderstanding, and
Dick Potter is too effusive.”
“But Dick’s effusiveness would have been a good thing for Fred’s
effusiveness. Two men can’t go on a complimentary ran-tan at the same
table. They freeze one another out. That goes without saying. But Dora’s
indiscretions are none of your business while she is under her father’s
roof; and I don’t know if she hadn’t a friend in the world, if they
would be your business. I have always been against people trying to do
the work of THEM that are above us. We are told THEY seek and THEY
save, and it’s likely they will look after Dora in spite of her being so
unknowing of herself as to marry a priest in a surplice, when a fool in
motley would have been more like the thing.”
“I don’t want to quarrel with Dora. After all, I like her. We have been
friends a long time.”
“Well, then, don’t make an enemy of her. One hundred friends are too few
against one enemy. One hundred friends will wish you well, and one enemy
will DO you ill. God love you, child! Take the world as you find it.
Only God can make it any better. When is this blessed wedding to come
off?”
“In two weeks. You got cards, did you not?”
“I believe I did. They don’t matter. Let Dora and her flirtations alone,
unless you set your own against them. Like cures like. If the priest
sees nothing wrong----”
“He thinks all she does is perfect.”
“I dare say. Priests are a soft lot, they’ll believe anything. He’s
love-blind at present. Some day, like the prophet of Pethor, [1] he will
get his eyes opened. As for Fred Mostyn, I shall have a good deal to say
about him by and by, so I’ll say nothing now.”
[Footnote 1: One of the Hebrew prophets.]
“You promised, grandmother, not to talk to me any more about Fred.”
“It was a very inconsiderate promise, a very irrational promise! I am
sorry I made it--and I don’t intend to keep it.”
“Well, it takes two to hold a conversation, grandmother.”
“To be sure it does. But if I talk to you, I hope to goodness you will
have the decency to answer me. I wouldn’t believe anything different.”
And she looked into Ethel’s face with such a smiling confidence in her
good will and obedience, that Ethel could only laugh and give her twenty
kisses as she stood up to put on her hat and coat.
“You always get your way, Granny,” she said; and the old lady, as she
walked with her to the door, answered, “I have had my way for nearly
eighty years, dearie, and I’ve found it a very good way. I’m not likely
to change it now.”
“And none of us want you to change it, dear. Granny’s way is always a
wise way.” And she kissed her again ere she ran down the steps to her
carriage. Yet as the old lady stepped slowly back to the parlor, she
muttered, “Fred Mostyn is a fool! If he had any sense when he left
England, he has lost it since he came here.”
Of course nothing good came of this irritable interference. Meddling
with the conscience of another person is a delicate and difficult
affair, and Ruth had already warned Ethel of its certain futility. But
the days were rapidly wearing away to the great day, for which so
many other days had been wasted in fatiguing worry, and incredible
extravagance of health and temper and money--and after it? There would
certainly be a break in associations. Temptation would be removed, and
Basil Stanhope, relieved for a time from all the duties of his office,
would have continual opportunities for making eternally secure the
affection of the woman he had chosen.
It was to be a white wedding, and for twenty hours previous to its
celebration it seemed as if all the florists in New York were at work in
the Denning house and in St. Jude’s church. The sacred place was radiant
with white lilies. White lilies everywhere; and the perfume would have
been overpowering, had not the weather been so exquisite that open
windows were possible and even pleasant. To the softest strains of music
Dora entered leaning on her father’s arm and her beauty and splendor
evoked from the crowd present an involuntary, simultaneous stir of
wonder and delight. She had hesitated many days between the simplicity
of white chiffon and lilies of the valley, and the magnificence of
brocaded satin in which a glittering thread of silver was interwoven.
The satin had won the day, and the sunshine fell upon its beauty, as
she knelt at the altar, like sunshine falling upon snow. It shone
and gleamed and glistened as if it were an angel’s robe; and this
scintillating effect was much increased by the sparkling of the diamonds
in her hair, and at her throat and waist and hands and feet. Nor was
her brilliant youth affected by the overshadowing tulle usually so
unbecoming. It veiled her from head to feet, and was held in place by
a diamond coronal. All her eight maids, though lovely girls, looked wan
and of the earth beside her. For her sake they had been content with
the simplicity of chiffon and white lace hats, and she stood among them
lustrous as some angelic being. Stanhope was entranced by her beauty,
and no one on this day wondered at his infatuation or thought remarkable
the ecstasy of reverent rapture with which he received the hand of his
bride. His sense of the gift was ravishing. She was now his love, his
wife forever, and when Ethel slipped forward to part and throw backward
the concealing veil, he very gently restrained her, and with his own
hands uncovered the blushing beauty, and kissed her there at the altar.
Then amid a murmur and stir of delighted sympathy he took his wife upon
his arm, and turned with her to the life they were to face together.
Two hours later all was a past dream. Bride and bridegroom had slipped
quietly away, and the wedding guests had arrived at that rather noisy
indifference which presages the end of an entertainment. Then flushed
and tired with hurrying congratulations and good wishes that stumbled
over each other, carriage after carriage departed; and Ethel and her
companions went to Dora’s parlor to rest awhile and discuss the event of
the day. But Dora’s parlor was in a state of confusion. It had, too, an
air of loss, and felt like a gilded cage from which the bird had flown.
They looked dismally at its discomfort and went downstairs. Men were
removing the faded flowers or sitting at the abandoned table eating
and drinking. Everywhere there was disorder and waste, and from the
servants’ quarter came a noisy sense of riotous feasting.
“Where is Mrs. Denning?” Ethel asked a footman who was gathering
together the silver with the easy unconcern of a man whose ideas were
rosy with champagne. He looked up with a provoking familiarity at the
question, and sputtered out, “She’s lying down crying and making a fuss.
Miss Day is with her, soothing of her.”
“Let us go home,” said Ethel.
And so, weary with pleasure, and heart-heavy with feelings that had no
longer any reason to exist, pale with fatigue, untidy with crush, their
pretty white gowns sullied and passe, each went her way; in every heart
a wonder whether the few hilarious hours of strange emotions were worth
all they claimed as their right and due.
Ruth had gone home earlier, and Ethel found her resting in her room. “I
am worn out, Ruth,” was her first remark. “I am going to bed for three
or four days. It was a dreadful ordeal.”
“One to which you may have to submit.”
“Certainly not. My marriage will be a religious ceremony, with half a
dozen of my nearest relatives as witnesses.”
“I noticed Fred slip away before Dora went. He looked ill.”
“I dare say he is ill--and no wonder. Good night, Ruth. I am going to
sleep. Tell father all about the wedding. I don’t want to hear it named
again--not as long as I live.”
CHAPTER VI
THREE days passed and Ethel had regained her health and spirits, but
Fred Mostyn had not called since the wedding. Ruth thought some inquiry
ought to be made, and Judge Rawdon called at the Holland House. There
he was told that Mr. Mostyn had not been well, and the young man’s
countenance painfully confessed the same thing.
“My dear Fred, why did you not send us word you were ill?” asked the
Judge.
“I had fever, sir, and I feared it might be typhoid. Nothing of the
kind, however. I shall be all right in a day or two.”
The truth was far from typhoid, and Fred knew it. He had left the
wedding breakfast because he had reached the limit of his endurance.
Words, stinging as whips, burned like hot coals in his mouth, and he
felt that he could not restrain them much longer. Hastening to his
hotel, he locked himself in his rooms, and passed the night in a frenzy
of passion. The very remembrance of the bridegroom’s confident transport
put mur-der in his heart--murder which he could only practice by his
wishes, impotent to compass their desires.
“I wish the fellow shot! I wish him hanged! I would kill him twenty
times in twenty different ways! And Dora! Dora! Dora! What did she see
in him? What could she see? Love her? He knows nothing of love--such
love as tortures me.” Backwards and forwards he paced the floor to such
imprecations and ejaculations as welled up from the whirlpool of rage in
his heart, hour following hour, till in the blackness of his misery he
could no longer speak. His brain had become stupefied by the iteration
of inevitable loss, and so refused any longer to voice a woe beyond
remedy. Then he stood still and called will and reason to council him.
“This way madness lies,” he thought. “I must be quiet--I must sleep--I
must forget.”
But it was not until the third day that a dismal, sullen stillness
succeeded the storm of rage and grief, and he awoke from a sleep of
exhaustion feeling as if he were withered at his heart. He knew that
life had to be taken up again, and that in all its farces he must play
his part. At first the thought of Mostyn Hall presented itself as an
asylum. It stood amid thick woods, and there were miles of wind-blown
wolds and hills around it. He was lord and master there, no one could
intrude upon his sorrow; he could nurse it in those lonely rooms to
his heart’s content. Every day, however, this gloomy resolution grew
fainter, and one morning he awoke and laughed it to scorn.
“Frederick’s himself again,” he quoted, “and he must have been very far
off himself when he thought of giving up or of running away. No, Fred
Mostyn, you will stay here. ‘Tis a country where the impossible does not
exist, and the unlikely is sure to happen--a country where marriage is
not for life or death, and where the roads to divorce are manifold and
easy. There are a score of ways and means. I will stay and think them
over; ‘twill be odd if I cannot force Fate to change her mind.”
A week after Dora’s marriage he found himself able to walk up the
avenue to the Rawdon house; but he arrived there weary and wan enough
to instantly win the sympathy of Ruth and Ethel, and he was immensely
strengthened by the sense of home and kindred, and of genuine kindness
to which he felt a sort of right. He asked Ruth if he might eat dinner
with them. He said he was hungry, and the hotel fare did not tempt him.
And when Judge Rawdon returned he welcomed him in the same generous
spirit, and the evening passed delightfully away. At its close, however,
as Mostyn stood gloved and hatted, and the carriage waited for him, he
said a few words to Judge Rawdon which changed the mental and social
atmosphere. “I wish to have a little talk with you, sir, on a business
matter of some importance. At what hour can I see you to-morrow?”
“I am engaged all day until three in the afternoon, Fred. Suppose I call
on you about four or half-past?”
“Very well, sir.”
But both Ethel and Ruth wondered if it was “very well.” A shadow,
fleeting as thought, had passed over Judge Rawdon’s face when he
heard the request for a business interview, and after the young man’s
departure he lost himself in a reverie which was evidently not a happy
one. But he said nothing to the girls, and they were not accustomed to
question him.
The next morning, instead of going direct to his office, he stopped at
Madam, his moth-er’s house in Gramercy Park. A visit at such an early
hour was unusual, and the old lady looked at him in alarm.
“We are well, mother,” he said as she rose. “I called to talk to you
about a little business.” Whereupon Madam sat down, and became suddenly
about twenty years younger, for “business” was a word like a watch-cry;
she called all her senses together when it was uttered in her presence.
“Business!” she ejaculated sharply. “Whose business?”
“I think I may say the business of the whole family.”
“Nay, I am not in it. My business is just as I want it, and I am not
going to talk about it--one way or the other.”
“Is not Rawdon Court of some interest to you? It has been the home and
seat of the family for many centuries. A good many. Mostyn women have
been its mistress.”
“I never heard of any Mostyn woman who would not have been far happier
away from Rawdon Court. It was a Calvary to them all. There was little
Nannie Mostyn, who died with her first baby because Squire Anthony
struck her in a drunken passion; and the proud Alethia Mostyn, who
suffered twenty years’ martyrdom from Squire John; and Sara, who took
thirty thousand pounds to Squire Hubert, to fling away at the green
table; and Harriet, who was made by her husband, Squire Humphrey, to
jump a fence when out hunting with him, and was brought home crippled
and scarred for life--a lovely girl of twenty who went through agonies
for eleven years without aught of love and help, and died alone while he
was following a fox; and there was pretty Barbara Mostyn----”
“Come, come, mother. I did not call here this morning to hear the
Rawdons abused, and you forget your own marriage. It was a happy one, I
am sure. One Rawdon, at least, must be excepted; and I think I treated
my wife as a good husband ought to treat a wife.”
“Not you! You treated Mary very badly.”
“Mother, not even from you----”
“I’ll say it again. The little girl was dying for a year or more, and
you were so busy making money you never saw it. If she said or looked
a little complaint, you moved restless-like and told her ‘she moped too
much.’ As the end came I spoke to you, and you pooh-poohed all I said.
She went suddenly, I know, to most people, but she knew it was her last
day, and she longed so to see you, that I sent a servant to hurry you
home, but she died before you could make up your mind to leave your
‘cases.’ She and I were alone when she whispered her last message for
you--a loving one, too.”
“Mother! Mother! Why recall that bitter day? I did not think--I swear I
did not think----”
“Never mind swearing. I was just reminding you that the Rawdons have
not been the finest specimens of good husbands. They make landlords, and
judges, and soldiers, and even loom-lords of a very respectable sort;
but husbands! Lord help their poor wives! So you see, as a Mostyn woman,
I have no special interest in Rawdon Court.”
“You would not like it to go out of the family?”
“I should not worry myself if it did.”
“I suppose you know Fred Mostyn has a mortgage on it that the present
Squire is unable to lift.”
“Aye, Fred told me he had eighty thousand pounds on the old place. I
told him he was a fool to put his money on it.”
“One of the finest manors and manor-houses in England, mother.”
“I have seen it. I was born and brought up near enough to it, I think.”
“Eighty thousand pounds is a bagatelle for the place; yet if Fred forces
a sale, it may go for that, or even less. I can’t bear to think of it.”
“Why not buy it yourself?”
“I would lift the mortgage to-morrow if I had the means. I have not at
present.”
“Well, I am in the same box. You have just spoken as if the Mostyns
and Rawdons had an equal interest in Rawdon Court. Very well, then, it
cannot be far wrong for Fred Mostyn to have it. Many a Mostyn has gone
there as wife and slave. I would dearly like to see one Mostyn go as
master.”
“I shall get no help from you, then, I understand that.”
“I’m Mostyn by birth, I’m only Rawdon by, marriage. The birth-band ties
me fast to my family.”
“Good morning, mother. You have failed me for the first time in your
life.”
“If the money had been for you, Edward, or yours----”
“It is--good-by.”
She called him back peremptorily, and he returned and stood at the open
door.
“Why don’t you ask Ethel?”
“I did not think I had the right, mother.”
“More right to ask her than I. See what she says. She’s Rawdon, every
inch of her.”
“Perhaps I may. Of course, I can sell securities, but it would be at a
sacrifice a great sacrifice at present.”
“Ethel has the cash; and, as I said, she is Rawdon--I’m not.”
“I wish my father were alive.”
“He wouldn’t move me--you needn’t think that. What I have said to you I
would have said to him. Speak to Ethel. I’ll be bound she’ll listen if
Rawdon calls her.”
“I don’t like to speak to Ethel.”
“It isn’t what you like to do, it’s what you find you’ll have to do,
that carries the day; and a good thing, too, considering.”
“Good morning, again. You are not quite yourself, I think.”
“Well, I didn’t sleep last night, so there’s no wonder if I’m a bit
cross this morning. But if I lose my temper, I keep my understanding.”
She was really cross by this time. Her son had put her in a position she
did not like to assume. No love for Rawdon Court was in her heart. She
would rather have advanced the money to buy an American estate. She
had been little pleased at Fred’s mortgage on the old place, but to
the American Rawdons she felt it would prove a white elephant; and
the appeal to Ethel was advised because she thought it would amount to
nothing. In the first place, the Judge had the strictest idea of the
sacredness of the charge committed to him as guardian of his daughter’s
fortune. In the second, Ethel inherited from her Yorkshire ancestry an
intense sense of the value and obligations of money. She was an ardent
American, and not likely to spend it on an old English manor; and,
furthermore, Madam’s penetration had discovered a growing dislike in her
granddaughter for Fred Mostyn.
“She’d never abide him for a lifelong neighbor,” the old lady decided.
“It is the Rawdon pride in her. The Rawdon men have condescended to go
to Mostyn for wives many and many a time, but never once have the Mostyn
men married a Rawdon girl--proud, set-up women, as far as I remember;
and Ethel has a way with her just like them. Fred is good enough and
nice enough for any girl, and I wonder what is the matter with him!
It is a week and more since he was here, and then he wasn’t a bit like
himself.”
At this moment the bell rang and she heard Fred’s voice inquiring “if
Madam was at home.” Instantly she divined the motive of his call. The
young man had come to the conclusion the Judge would try to influence
his mother, and before meeting him in the afternoon he wished to have
some idea of the trend matters were likely to take. His policy--cunning,
Madam called it--did not please her. She immediately assured herself
that “she wouldn’t go against her own flesh and blood for anyone,” and
his wan face and general air of wretchedness further antagonized her.
She asked him fretfully “what he had been doing to himself, for,” she
added, “it’s mainly what we do to ourselves that makes us sick. Was it
that everlasting wedding of the Denning girl?”
He flushed angrily, but answered with much of the same desire to annoy,
“I suppose it was. I felt it very much. Dora was the loveliest girl in
the city. There are none left like her.”
“It will be a good thing for New York if that is the case. I’m not one
that wants the city to myself, but I can spare Dora STANHOPE, and feel
the better for it.”
“The most beautiful of God’s creatures!”
“You’ve surely lost your sight or your judgment, Fred. She is just a
dusky-skinned girl, with big, brown eyes. You can pick her sort up by
the thousand in any large city. And a wandering-hearted, giddy creature,
too, that will spread as she goes, no doubt. I’m sorry for Basil
Stanhope, he didn’t deserve such a fate.”
“Indeed, he did not! It is beyond measure too good for him.”
“I’ve always heard that affliction is the surest way to heaven. Dora
will lead him that road, and it will be more sure than pleasant. Poor
fellow! He’ll soon be as ready to curse his wedding-day as Job was to
curse his birthday. A costly wife she will be to keep, and misery in the
keeping of her. But if you came to talk to me about Dora STANHOPE, I’ll
cease talking, for I don’t find it any great entertainment.”
“I came to talk to you about Squire Rawdon.”
“What about the Squire? Keep it in your mind that he and I were
sweethearts when we were children. I haven’t forgotten that fact.”
“You know Rawdon Court is mortgaged to me?”
“I’ve heard you say so--more than once.”
“I intend to foreclose the mortgage in September. I find that I can
get twice yes, three times--the interest for my money in American
securities.”
“How do you know they are securities?”
“Bryce Denning has put me up to several good things.”
“Well, if you think good things can come that road, you are a bigger
fool than I ever thought you.”
“Fool! Madam, I allow no one to call me a fool, especially without
reason.”
“Reason, indeed! What reason was there in your dillydallying after Dora
Denning when she was engaged, and then making yourself like a ghost for
her after she is married? As for the good things Bryce Denning offers
you in exchange for a grand English manor, take them, and then if I
called you not fool before, I will call you fool in your teeth twice
over, and much too good for you! Aye, I could call you a worse name when
I think of the old Squire--he’s two years older than I am--being turned
out of his lifelong home. Where is he to go to?”
“If I buy the place, for of course it will have to be sold, he is
welcome to remain at Rawdon Court.”
“And he would deserve to do it if he were that low-minded; but if I know
Squire Percival, he will go to the poor-house first. Fred, you would
surely scorn such a dirty thing as selling the old man out of house and
home?”
“I want my money, or else I want Rawdon Manor.”
“And I have no objections either to your wanting it or having it, but,
for goodness’ sake, wait until death gives you a decent warrant for
buying it.”
“I am afraid to delay. The Squire has been very cool with me lately, and
my agent tells me the Tyrrel-Rawdons have been visiting him, also that
he has asked a great many questions about the Judge and Ethel. He is
evidently trying to prevent me getting possession, and I know that old
Nicholas Rawdon would give his eyelids to own Rawdon Court. As to the
Judge----”
“My son wants none of it. You can make your mind easy on that score.”
“I think I behaved very decently, though, of course, no one gives me
credit for it; for as soon as I saw I must foreclose in order to get my
own I thought at once of Ethel. It seemed to me that if we could love
each other the money claims of Mostyn and the inherited claims of Rawdon
would both be satisfied. Unfortunately, I found that I could not love
Ethel as a wife should be loved.”
“And I can tell you, Fred, that Ethel never could have loved you as a
husband should be loved. She was a good deal disappointed in you from
the very first.”
“I thought I made a favorable impression on her.”
“In a way. She said you played the piano nicely; but Ethel is all for
handsome men, tall, erect six-footers, with a little swing and swagger
to them. She thought you small and finicky. But Ethel’s rich enough to
have her fancy, I hope.”
“It is little matter now what she thought. I can’t please every one.”
“No, it’s rather harder to do that than most people think it is. I
would please my conscience first of all, Fred. That’s the point worth
mentioning. And I shall just remind you of one thing more: your money
all in a lump on Rawdon Manor is safe. It is in one place, and in such
shape as it can’t run away nor be smuggled away by any man’s trickery.
Now, then, turn your eighty thousand pounds into dollars, and divide
them among a score of securities, and you’ll soon find out that a
fortune may be easily squandered when it is in a great many hands, and
that what looks satisfactory enough when reckoned up on paper doesn’t
often realize in hard money to the same tune. I’ve said all now I am
going to say.”
“Thank you for the advice given me. I will take it as far as I can. This
afternoon the Judge has promised to talk over the business with me.”
“The Judge never saw Rawdon Court, and he cares nothing about it, but he
can give you counsel about the ‘good things’ Bryce Denning offers you.
And you may safely listen to it, for, right or wrong, I see plainly it
is your own advice you will take in the long run.”
Mostyn laughed pleasantly and went back to his hotel to think over the
facts gleaned from his conversation with Madam. In the first place,
he understood that any overt act against Squire Rawdon would be deeply
resented by his American relatives. But then he reminded himself that
his own relationship with them was merely sentiment. He had now nothing
to hope for in the way of money. Madam’s apparently spontaneous and
truthful assertion, that the Judge cared nothing for Rawdon Court, was,
however, very satisfactory to him. He had been foolish enough to think
that the thing he desired so passionately was of equal value in
the estimation of others. He saw now that he was wrong, and he then
remembered that he had never found Judge Rawdon to evince either
interest or curiosity about the family home.
If he had been a keen observer, the Judge’s face when he called might
have given his comfortable feelings some pause. It was contracted,
subtle, intricate, but he came forward with a congratulation on Mostyn’s
improved appearance. “A few weeks at the seaside would do you good,” he
added, and Mostyn answered, “I think of going to Newport for a month.”
“And then?”
“I want your opinion about that. McLean advises me to see the
country--to go to Chicago, St. Louis, Denver, cross the Rockies, and on
to California. It seems as if that would be a grand summer programme.
But my lawyer writes me that the man in charge at Mostyn is cutting too
much timber and is generally too extravagant. Then there is the question
of Rawdon Court. My finances will not let me carry the mortgage on it
longer, unless I buy the place.”
“Are you thinking of that as probable?”
“Yes. It will have to be sold. And Mostyn seems to be the natural owner
after Rawdon. The Mostyns have married Rawdons so frequently that we are
almost like one family, and Rawdon Court lies, as it were, at Mostyn’s
gate. The Squire is now old, and too easily persuaded for his own
welfare, and I hear the Tyrrel-Rawdons have been visiting him. Such a
thing would have been incredible a few years ago.”
“Who are the Tyrrel-Rawdons? I have no acquaintance with them.”
“They are the descendants of that Tyrrel-Rawdon who a century ago
married a handsome girl who was only an innkeeper’s daughter. He was of
course disowned and disinherited, and his children sank to the lowest
social grade. Then when power-loom weaving was introduced they went to
the mills, and one of them was clever and saved money and built a little
mill of his own, and his son built a much larger one, and made a great
deal of money, and became Mayor of Leeds. The next generation saw the
Tyrrel-Rawdons the largest loom-lords in Yorkshire. One of the youngest
generation was my opponent in the last election and beat me--a Radical
fellow beats the Conservative candidate always where weavers and
spinners hold the vote but I thought it my duty to uphold the Mostyn
banner. You know the Mostyns have always been Tories and Conservatives.”
“Excuse me, but I am afraid I am ignorant concerning Mostyn politics. I
take little interest in the English parties.”
“Naturally. Well, I hope you will take an interest in my affairs and
give me your advice about the sale of Rawdon Court.”
“I think my advice would be useless. In the first place, I never saw the
Court. My father had an old picture of it, which has somehow disappeared
since his death, but I cannot say that even this picture interested me
at all. You know I am an American, born on the soil, and very proud
of it. Then, as you are acquainted with all the ins and outs of the
difficulties and embarrassments, and I know nothing at all about them,
you would hardly be foolish enough to take my opinion against your own.
I suppose the Squire is in favor of your buying the Court?”
“I never named the subject to him. I thought perhaps he might have
written to you on the matter. You are the last male of the house in that
line.”
“He has never written to me about the Court. Then, I am not the last
male. From what you say, I think the Tyrrel-Rawdons could easily supply
an heir to Rawdon.”
“That is the thing to be avoided. It would be a great offense to the
county families.”
“Why should they be considered? A Rawdon is always a Rawdon.”
“But a cotton spinner, sir! A mere mill-owner!”
“Well, I do not feel with you and the other county people in that
respect. I think a cotton spinner, giving bread to a thousand families,
is a vastly more respectable and important man than a fox-hunting, idle
landlord. A mill-owning Rawdon might do a deal of good in the sleepy old
village of Monk-Rawdon.”
“Your sentiments are American, not English, sir.”
“As I told you, we look at things from very different standpoints.”
“Do you feel inclined to lift the mortgage yourself, Judge?”
“I have not the power, even if I had the inclination to do so. My
money is well invested, and I could not, at this time, turn bonds and
securities into cash without making a sacrifice not to be contemplated.
I confess, however, that if the Court has to be sold, I should like the
Tyrrel-Rawdons to buy it. I dare say the picture of the offending youth
is still in the gallery, and I have heard my mother say that what is
another’s always yearns for its lord. Driven from his heritage for
Love’s sake, it would be at least interesting if Gold gave back to his
children what Love lost them.”
“That is pure sentiment. Surely it would be more natural that the
Mostyns should succeed the Rawdons. We have, as it were, bought the
right with at least a dozen intermarriages.”
“That also is pure sentiment. Gold at last will carry the succession.”
“But not your gold, I infer?”
“Not my gold; certainly not.”
“Thank you for your decisive words They make my course clear.”
“That is well. As to your summer movements, I am equally unable to
give you advice. I think you need the sea for a month, and after that
McLean’s scheme is good. And a return to Mostyn to look after your
affairs is equally good. If I were you, I should follow my inclinations.
If you put your heart into anything, it is well done and enjoyed; if
you do a thing because you think you ought to do it, failure and
disappointment are often the results. So do as you want to do; it is the
only advice I can offer you.”
“Thank you, sir. It is very acceptable. I may leave for Newport
to-morrow. I shall call on the ladies in the morning.”
“I will tell them, but it is just possible that they, too, go to the
country to-morrow, to look after a little cottage on the Hudson we
occupy in the summer. Good-by, and I hope you will soon recover your
usual health.”
Then the Judge lifted his hat, and with a courteous movement left the
room. His face had the same suave urbanity of expression, but he could
hardly restrain the passion in his heart. Placid as he looked when he
entered his house, he threw off all pretenses as soon as he reached his
room. The Yorkshire spirit which Ethel had declared found him out once
in three hundred and sixty-four days and twenty-three hours was then in
full pos-session. The American Judge had disappeared. He looked as like
his ancestors as anything outside of a painted picture could do. His
flushed face, his flashing eyes, his passionate exclamations, the stamp
of his foot, the blow of his hand, the threatening attitude of his
whole figure was but a replica of his great-grandfather, Anthony Rawdon,
giving Radicals at the hustings or careless keepers at the kennels “a
bit of his mind.”
“‘Mostyn, seems to be the natural owner of Rawdon! Rawdon Court lies
at Mostyn’s gate! Natural that the Mostyns should succeed the Rawdons!
Bought the right by a dozen intermarriages!’ Confound the impudent
rascal! Does he think I will see Squire Rawdon rogued out of his home?
Not if I can help it! Not if Ethel can help it! Not if heaven and
earth can help it! He’s a downright rascal! A cool, unruffled, impudent
rascal!” And these ejaculations were followed by a bitter, biting,
blasting hailstorm of such epithets as could only be written with one
letter and a dash.
But the passion of imprecation cooled and satisfied his anger in this
its first impetuous outbreak, and he sat down, clasped the arms of his
chair, and gave himself a peremptory order of control. In a short time
he rose, bathed his head and face in cold water, and began to dress for
dinner. And as he stood before the glass he smiled at the restored color
and calm of his countenance.
“You are a prudent lawyer,” he said sarcastically. “How many actionable
words have you just uttered! If the devil and Fred Mostyn have been
listening, they can, as mother says, ‘get the law on you’; but I think
Ethel and I and the law will be a match even for the devil and Fred
Mostyn.” Then, as he slowly went downstairs, he repeated to himself,
“Mostyn seems to be the natural owner of Rawdon. No, sir, neither
natural nor legal owner. Rawdon Court lies at Mostyn gate. Not yet.
Mostyn lies at Rawdon gate. Natural that the Mostyns should succeed the
Rawdons. Power of God! Neither in this generation nor the next.”
And at the same moment Mostyn, having thought over his interview with
Judge Rawdon, walked thoughtfully to a window and muttered to himself:
“Whatever was the matter with the old man? Polite as a courtier, but
something was wrong. The room felt as if there was an iceberg in it, and
he kept his right hand in his pocket. I be-lieve he was afraid I
would shake hands with him--it is Ethel, I suppose. Naturally he is
disappointed. Wanted her at Rawdon. Well, it is a pity, but I really
cannot! Oh, Dora! Dora! My heart, my hungry and thirsty heart calls you!
Burning with love, dying with longing, I am waiting for you!”
The dinner passed pleasantly enough, but both Ethel and Ruth noticed the
Judge was under strong but well-controlled feeling. While servants were
present it passed for high spirits, but as soon as the three were alone
in the library, the excitement took at once a serious aspect.
“My dears,” he said, standing up and facing them, “I have had a very
painful interview with Fred Mostyn. He holds a mortgage over Rawdon
Court, and is going to press it in September--that is, he proposes to
sell the place in order to obtain his money--and the poor Squire!” He
ceased speaking, walked across the room and back again, and appeared
greatly disturbed.
“What of the Squire?” asked Ruth.
“God knows, Ruth. He has no other home.”
“Why is this thing to be done? Is there no way to prevent it?”
“Mostyn wants the money, he says, to invest in American securities. He
does not. He wants to force a sale, so that he may buy the place for the
mortgage, and then either keep it for his pride, or more likely resell
it to the Tyrrel-Rawdons for double the money.” Then with gradually
increasing passion he repeated in a low, intense voice the remarks which
Mostyn had made, and which had so infuriated the Judge. Before he
had finished speaking the two women had caught his temper and spirit.
Ethel’s face was white with anger, her eyes flashing, her whole attitude
full of fight. Ruth was troubled and sorrowful, and she looked anxiously
at the Judge for some solution of the condition. It was Ethel who voiced
the anxiety. “Father,” she asked, “what is to be done? What can you do?”
“Nothing, I am sorry to say, Ethel. My money is absolutely tied up--for
this year, at any rate. I cannot touch it without wronging others as
well as myself, nor yet without the most ruinous sacrifice.”
“If I could do anything, I would not care at what sacrifice.”
“You can do all that is necessary, Ethel, and you are the only person
who can. You have at least eight hundred thousand dollars in cash and
negotiable securities. Your mother’s fortune is all yours, with its
legitimate accruements, and it was left at your own disposal after your
twenty-first birthday. It has been at your own disposal WITH MY CONSENT
since your nineteenth birthday.”
“Then, father, we need not trouble about the Squire. I wish with all
my heart to make his home sure to him as long as he lives. You are a
lawyer, you know what ought to be done.”
“Good girl! I knew what you would say and do, or I should not have told
you the trouble there was at Rawdon. Now, I propose we all make a
visit to Rawdon Court, see the Squire and the property, and while there
perfect such arrangements as seem kindest and wisest. Ruth, how soon can
we be ready to sail?”
“Father, do you really mean that we are to go to England?”
“It is the only thing to do. I must see that all is as Mostyn says. I
must not let you throw your money away.”
“That is only prudent,” said Ruth, “and we can be ready for the first
steamer if you wish it.”
“I am delighted, father. I long to see England; more than all, I long to
see Rawdon. I did not know until this moment how much I loved it.”
“Well, then, I will have all ready for us to sail next Saturday. Say
nothing about it to Mostyn. He will call to-morrow morning to bid you
good-by before leaving for Newport with McLean. Try and be out.”
“I shall certainly be out,” said Ethel. “I do not wish ever to see his
face again, and I must see grandmother and tell her what we are going to
do.”
“I dare say she guesses already. She advised me to ask you about the
mortgage. She knew what you would say.”
“Father, who are the Tyrrel-Rawdons?”
Then the Judge told the story of the young Tyrrel-Rawdon, who a century
ago had lost his world for Love, and Ethel said “she liked him better
than any Rawdon she had ever heard of.”
“Except your father, Ethel.”
“Except my father; my dear, good father. And I am glad that Love did not
always make them poor. They must now be rich, if they want to buy the
Court.”
“They are rich manufacturers. Mostyn is much annoyed that the Squire
has begun to notice them. He says one of the grandsons of the
Tyrrel-Rawdons, disinherited for love’s sake, came to America some time
in the forties. I asked your grandmother if this story was true. She
said it is quite true; that my father was his friend in the matter,
and that it was his reports about America which made them decide to try
their fortune in New York.”
“Does she know what became of him?”
“No. In his last letter to them he said he had just joined a party
going to the gold fields of California. That was in 1850. He never
wrote again. It is likely he perished on the terrible journey across the
plains. Many thousands did.”
“When I am in England I intend to call upon these Tyrrel-Rawdons. I
think I shall like them. My heart goes out to them. I am proud of this
bit of romance in the family.”
“Oh, there is plenty of romance behind you, Ethel. When you see the old
Squire standing at the entrance to the Manor House, you may see the hags
of Cressy and Agincourt, of Marston and Worcester behind him. And the
Rawdon women have frequently been daughters of Destiny. Many of them
have lived romances that would be incredible if written down. Oh, Ethel,
dear, we cannot, we cannot for our lives, let the old home fall into the
hands of strangers. At any rate, if on inspection we think it wrong to
interfere, I can at least try and get the children of the disinherited
Tyrrel back to their home. Shall we leave it at this point for the
present?”
This decision was agreeable to all, and then the few preparations
necessary for the journey were talked over, and in this happy discussion
the evening passed rapidly. The dream of Ethel’s life had been
this visit to the home of her family, and to go as its savior was a
consummation of the pleasure that filled her with loving pride. She
could not sleep for her waking dreams. She made all sorts of resolutions
about the despised Tyrrel-Rawdons. She intended to show the proud,
indolent world of the English land-aristocracy that Americans, just as
well born as themselves, respected business energy and enterprise; and
she had other plans and propositions just as interesting and as full of
youth’s impossible enthusiasm.
In the morning she went to talk the subject over with her grandmother.
The old lady received the news with affected indifference. She said,
“It mattered nothing to her who sat in Rawdon’s seat; but she would not
hear Mostyn blamed for seeking his right. Money and sentiment are no
kin,” she added, “and Fred has no sentiment about Rawdon. Why should he?
Only last summer Rawdon kept him out of Parliament, and made him spend a
lot of money beside. He’s right to get even with the family if he can.”
“But the old Squire! He is now----”
“I know; he’s older than I am. But Squire Percival has had his day,
and Fred would not do anything out of the way to him--he could not; the
county would make both Mostyn and Rawdon very uncomfortable places to
live in, if he did.”
“If you turn a man out of his home when he is eighty years old, I
think that is ‘out of the way.’ And Mr. Mostyn is not to be trusted. I
wouldn’t trust him as far as I could see him.”
“Highty-tighty! He has not asked you to trust him. You lost your chance
there, miss.”
“Grandmother, I am astonished at you!”
“Well, it was a mean thing to say, Ethel; but I like Fred, and I see the
rest of my family are against him. It’s natural for Yorkshire to help
the weakest side. But there, Fred can do his own fighting, I’ll warrant.
He’s not an ordinary man.”
“I’m sorry to say he isn’t, grandmother. If he were he would speak
without a drawl, and get rid of his monocle, and not pay such minute
attention to his coats and vests and walking sticks.”
Then Ethel proceeded to explain her resolves with regard to the
Tyrrel-Rawdons. “I shall pay them the greatest attention,” she said.
“It was a noble thing in young Tyrrel-Rawdon to give up everything for
honorable love, and I think everyone ought to have stood by him.”
“That wouldn’t have done at all. If Tyrrel had been petted as you think
he ought to have been, every respectable young man and woman in the
county would have married where their fancy led them; and the fancies of
young people mostly lead them to the road it is ruin to take.”
“From what Fred Mostyn says, Tyrrel’s descendants seem to have taken a
very respectable road.”
“I’ve nothing to say for or against them. It’s years and years since I
laid eyes on any of the family. Your grandfather helped one of the young
men to come to America, and I remember his mother getting into a passion
about it. She was a fat woman in a Paisley shawl and a love-bird on her
bonnet. I saw his sister often. She weighed about twelve stone, and had
red hair and red cheeks and bare red elbows. She was called a ‘strapping
lass.’ That is quite a complimentary term in the West Riding.”
“Please, grandmother, I don’t want to hear any more. In two weeks
I shall be able to judge for myself. Since then there have been
two generations, and if a member of the present one is fit for
Parliament----”
“That’s nothing. We needn’t look for anything specially refined in
Parliament in these days. There’s another thing. These Tyrrel-Rawdons
are chapel people. The rector of Rawdon church would not marry Tyrrel to
his low-born love, and so they went to the Methodist preacher, and after
that to the Methodist chapel. That put them down, more than you can
imagine here in America.”
“It was a shame! Methodists are most respectable people.”
“I’m saying nothing contrary.”
“The President is a Methodist.”
“I never asked what he was. I am a Church of England woman, you know
that. Born and bred in the Church, baptized, confirmed, and married in
the Church, and I was always taught it was the only proper Church for
gentlemen and gentlewomen to be saved in. However, English Methodists
often go back to the Church when they get rich.”
“Church or chapel makes no difference to me, grandmother. If people are
only good.”
“To be sure; but you won’t be long in England until you’ll find out that
some things make a great deal of difference. Do you know your father was
here this morning? He wanted me to go with you--a likely, thing.”
“But, grandmother, do come. We will take such good care of you, and----”
“I know, but I’d rather keep my old memories of Yorkshire than get
new-fashioned ones. All is changed. I can tell that by what Fred
says. My three great friends are dead. They have left children and
grandchildren, of course, but I don’t want to make new acquaintances at
my age, unless I have the picking of them. No, I shall get Miss Hillis
to go with me to my little cabin on the Jersey coast. We’ll take our
knitting and the fresh novels, and I’ll warrant we’ll see as much of
the new men and women in them as will more than satisfy us. But you must
write me long letters, and tell me everything about the Squire and the
way he keeps house, and I don’t care if you fill up the paper with the
Tyrrel-Rawdons.”
“I will write you often, Granny, and tell you everything.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if you come across Dora Stanhope, but I wouldn’t ask
her to Rawdon. She’ll mix some cup of bother if you do.”
“I know.”
In such loving and intimate conversation the hours sped quickly, and
Ethel could not bear to cut short her visit. It was nearly five when
she left Gramercy Park, but the day being lovely, and the avenue full of
carriages and pedestrians, she took the drive at its enforced tardiness
without disapproval. Almost on entering the avenue from Madison Square
there was a crush, and her carriage came to a standstill. She was then
opposite the store of a famous English saddler, and near her was an open
carriage occupied by a middle-aged gentleman in military uniform. He
appeared to be waiting for someone, and in a moment or two a young man
came out of the saddlery store, and with a pleasant laugh entered the
carriage. It was the Apollo of her dreams, the singer of the Holland
House pavement. She could not doubt it. His face, his figure, his walk,
and the pleasant smile with which he spoke to his companion were all
positive characteristics. She had forgotten none of them. His dress was
altered to suit the season, but that was an improvement; for divested of
his heavy coat, and clothed only in a stylish afternoon suit, his tall,
fine figure showed to great advantage; and Ethel told herself that he
was even handsomer than she had supposed him to be.
Almost as soon as he entered his carriage there was a movement, and
she hoped her driver might advance sufficiently to make recognition
possible, but some feeling, she knew not what, prevented her giving
any order leading to this result. Perhaps she had an instinctive
presentiment that it was best to leave all to Destiny. Toward the upper
part of the avenue the carriage of her eager observation came to a stand
before a warehouse of antique furniture and bric-a-brac, and, as it did
so, a beautiful woman ran down the steps, and Apollo, for so Ethel had
men-tally called him, went hurriedly to meet her. Finally her coachman
passed the party, and there was a momentary recognition. He was bending
forward, listening to something the lady was saying, when the vehicles
almost touched each other. He flashed a glance at them, and met the
flash of Ethel’s eyes full of interest and curiosity.
It was over in a moment, but in that moment Ethel saw his astonishment
and delight, and felt her own eager questioning answered. Then she was
joyous and full of hope, for “these two silent meetings are promises,”
she said to Ruth. “I feel sure I shall see him again, and then we shall
speak to each other.”
“I hope you are not allowing yourself to feel too much interest in this
man, Ethel; he is very likely married.”
“Oh, no! I am sure he is not, Ruth.”
“How can you be sure? You know nothing about him.”
“I cannot tell HOW I know, nor WHY I know, but I believe what I feel;
and he is as much interested in me as I am in him. I confess that is a
great deal.”
“You may never see him again.”
“I shall expect to see him next winter, he evidently lives in New York.”
“The lady you saw may be his wife. Don’t be interested in any man on
unknown ground, Ethel. It is not prudent--it is not right.”
“Time will show. He will very likely be looking for me this summer at
Newport and elsewhere. He will be glad to see me when I come home. Don’t
worry, Ruth. It is all right.”
“Fred called soon after you went out this morning. He left for Newport
this afternoon. He will be at sea now.”
“And we shall be there in a few days. When I am at the seaside I always
feel a delicious torpor; yet Nelly Baldwin told me she loved an Atlantic
passage because she had such fun on board. You have crossed several
times, Ruth; is it fun or torpor?”
“All mirth at sea soon fades away, Ethel. Passengers are a very dull
class of people, and they know it; they rebel against it, but every hour
it becomes more natural to be dull. Very soon all mentally accommodate
themselves to being bored, dreamy and dreary. Then, as soon as it is
dark, comes that old mysterious, hungering sound of the sea; and I for
one listen till I can bear it no longer, and so steal away to bed with a
pain in my heart.”
“I think I shall like the ocean. There are games, and books, and
company, and dinners, and other things.”
“Certainly, and you can think yourself happy, until gradually a
contented cretinism steals over you, body and mind.”
“No, no!” said Ethel enthusiastically. “I shall do according to
Swinburne--
“‘Have therefore in my heart, and in my mouth,
The sound of song that mingles North and South;
And in my Soul the sense of all the Sea!’”
And Ruth laughed at her dramatic attitude, and answered: “The soul of
all the sea is a contented cretinism, Ethel. But in ten days we may be
in Yorkshire. And then, my dear, you may meet your Prince--some fine
Yorkshire gentleman.”
“I have strictly and positively promised myself that my Prince shall be
a fine American gentleman.”
“My dear Ethel, it is very seldom
“‘the time, and the place,
And the Loved One, come together.’”
“I live in the land of good hope, Ruth, and my hopes will be realized.”
“We shall see.”
PART THIRD -- “I WENT DOWN INTO THE GARDEN TO SEE IF THE POMEGRANATES
BUDDED.”
--Song of Solomon, VI. 11.
CHAPTER VII
IT was a lovely afternoon on the last day of May. The sea and all the
toil and travail belonging to it was overpass, and Judge Rawdon, Ruth
and Ethel were driving in lazy, blissful contentment through one of
the lovely roads of the West Riding. On either hand the beautifully
cut hedges were white and sweet, and a caress of scent--the soul of
the hawthorne flower enfolded them. Robins were singing on the topmost
sprays, and the linnet’s sweet babbling was heard from the happy nests
in its secret places; while from some unseen steeple the joyful sound
of chiming bells made music between heaven and earth fit for bands of
traveling angels.
They had dined at a wayside inn on jugged hare, roast beef, and
Yorkshire pudding, clotted cream and haver (oaten) bread, and the
careless stillness of physical well-being and of minds at ease needed no
speech, but the mutual smiling nod of intimate sympathy. For the sense
of joy and beauty which makes us eloquent is far inferior to that sense
which makes us silent.
This exquisite pause in life was suddenly ended by an exclamation from
the Judge. They were at the great iron gates of Rawdon Park, and
soon were slowly traversing its woody solitudes. The soft light, the
unspeakable green of the turf, the voice of ancient days murmuring in
the great oak trees, the deer asleep among the ferns, the stillness
of the summer afternoon filling the air with drowsy peace this was the
atmosphere into which they entered. Their road through this grand park
of three hundred acres was a wide, straight avenue shaded with beech
trees. The green turf on either hand was starred with primroses. In the
deep undergrowth, ferns waved and fanned each other, and the scent of
hidden violets saluted as they passed. Drowsily, as if half asleep,
the blackbirds whistled their couplets, and in the thickest hedges the
little brown thrushes sang softly to their brooding mates. For half an
hour they kept this heavenly path, and then a sudden turn brought them
their first sight of the old home.
It was a stately, irregular building of red brick, sandaled and veiled
in ivy. The numerous windows were all latticed, the chimneys in
picturesque stacks, the sloping roof made of flags of sandstone. It
stood in the center of a large garden, at the bottom of which ran a
babbling little river--a cheerful tongue of life in the sweet, silent
place. They crossed it by a pretty bridge, and in a few minutes stood
at the great door of the mansion. It was wide open, and the Squire, with
outstretched hands, rose to meet them. While yet upon the threshold he
kissed both Ethel and Ruth, and, clasping the Judge’s hand, gazed at him
with such a piercing, kindly look that the eyes of both men filled with
tears.
He led them into the hall, and standing there he seemed almost a part of
it. In his youth he had been a son of Anak, and his great size had been
matched by his great strength. His stature was still large, his face
broad and massive, and an abundance of snow-white hair emphasized the
dignity of a countenance which age had made nobler. The generations of
eight hundred years were crystallized in this benignant old man, looking
with such eager interest into the faces of his strange kindred from a
far-off land.
In the evening they sat together in the old hall talking of the Rawdons.
“There is great family of us, living and dead,” said the Squire, “and I
count them all my friends. Bare is the back that has no kin behind it.
That is not our case. Eight hundred years ago there was a Rawdon in
Rawdon, and one has never been wanting since. Saxon, Danish, Norman, and
Stuart kings have been and gone their way, and we remain; and I can tell
you every Rawdon born since the House of Hanover came to England. We
have had our share in all England’s strife and glory, for if there was
ever a fight going on anywhere Rawdon was never far off. Yes, we can
string the centuries together in the battle flags we have won. See
there!” he cried, pointing to two standards interwoven above the central
chimney-piece; “one was taken from the Paynim in the first Crusade, and
the other my grandson took in Africa. It seems but yesterday, and Queen
Victoria gave him the Cross for it. Poor lad, he had it on when he died.
It went to the grave with him. I wouldn’t have it touched. I fancy the
Rawdons would know it. No one dare say they don’t. I think they meddle a
good deal more with this life than we count on.”
The days that followed were days in The House Wonderful. It held the
treasure-trove of centuries; all its rooms were full of secrets.
Even the common sitting-room had an antique homeliness that provoked
questions as to the dates of its furniture and the whereabouts of its
wall cupboards and hidden recesses. Its china had the marks of forgotten
makers, its silver was puzzling with half-obliterated names and dates,
its sideboard of oak was black with age and full of table accessories,
the very names of which were forgotten. For this house had not been
built in the ordinary sense, it had grown through centuries; grown out
of desire and necessity, just as a tree grows, and was therefore fit
and beautiful. And it was no wonder that about every room floated
the perfume of ancient things and the peculiar family aura that had
saturated all the inanimate objects around them.
In a few days, life settled itself to orderly occupations. The Squire
was a late riser; the Judge and his family breakfasted very early. Then
the two women had a ride in the park, or wandered in the garden, or sat
reading, or sewing, or writing in some of the sweet, fair rooms. Many
visitors soon appeared, and there were calls to return and courtesies to
accept. Among these visitors the Tyrrel-Rawdons were the earliest. The
representatives of that family were Nicholas Rawdon and his wife Lydia.
Nicholas Rawdon was a large, stout man, very arrogant, very complete,
very alert for this world, and not caring much about the other. He was
not pleased at Judge Rawdon’s visit, but thought it best to be
cousinly until his cousin interfered with his plans--“rights” he called
them--“and then!” and his “THEN” implied a great deal, for Nicholas
Rawdon was a man incapable of conceiving the idea of loving an enemy.
His wife was a pleasant, garrulous woman, who interested Ethel very
much. Her family was her chief topic of conversation. She had two
daughters, one of whom had married a baronet, “a man with money and easy
to manage”; and the other, “a rich cotton lord in Manchester.”
“They haven’t done badly,” she said confidentially, “and it’s a great
thing to get girls off your hands early. Adelaide and Martha were well
educated and suitable, but,” she added with a glow of pride, “you should
see my John Thomas. He’s manager of the mill, and he loves the mill, and
he knows every pound of warp or weft that comes in or goes out of the
mill; and what his father would do without him, I’m sure I don’t know.
And he is a member of Parliament, too--Radical ticket. Won over Mostyn.
Wiped Mostyn out pretty well. That was a thing to do, wasn’t it?”
“I suppose Mr. Mostyn was the Conservative candidate?”
“You may be sure of that. But my John Thomas doesn’t blame him for
it--the gentry have to be Conservatives. John Thomas said little against
his politics; he just set the crowd laughing at his ways--his dandified
ways. And he tried to wear one eyeglass, and let it fall, and fall, and
then told the men ‘he couldn’t manage half a pair of spectacles; but he
could manage their interests and fight for their rights,’ and such like
talk. And he walked like Mostyn, and he talked like Mostyn, and spread
out his legs, and twirled his walking stick like Mostyn, and asked them
‘if they would wish him to go to Parliament in that kind of a shape, as
he’d try and do it if they wanted a tailor-made man’; and they laughed
him down, and then he spoke reasonable to them. John Thomas knows what
Yorkshire weavers want, and he just prom-ised them everything they had
set their hearts on; and so they sent him to Parliament, and Mostyn went
to America, where, perhaps, they’ll teach him that a man’s life is worth
a bit more than a bird or a rabbit. Mostyn is all for preserving game,
and his father was a mean creature. When one thinks of his father, one
has to excuse the young man a little bit.”
“I saw a good deal of Mr. Mostyn in New York,” said Ethel. “He used to
speak highly of his father.”
“I’ll warrant he did; and he ought to keep at it, for he’s the only one
in this world that will use his tongue for that end. Old Samuel Mostyn
never learned to live godly or even manly, but after his death he ceased
to do evil, and that, I’ve no doubt, often feels like a blessing to them
that had to live anyway near to him. But my John Thomas!”
“Oh,” cried Ethel, laughing, “you must not tell me so much about John
Thomas; he might not like it.”
“John Thomas can look all he does and all he says straight in the face.
You may talk of him all day, and find nothing to say that a good girl
like you might not listen to. I should have brought him with us, but
he’s away now taking a bit of a holiday. I’m sure he needs it.”
“Where is he taking his holiday?”
“Why, he went with a cousin to show him the sights of London; but
somehow they got through London sights very quick, and thought they
might as well put Paris in. I wish they hadn’t. I don’t trust foreigners
and foreign ways, and they don’t have the same kind of money as ours;
but Nicholas says I needn’t worry; he is sure that our John Thomas, if
change is to make, will make it to suit himself.”
“How soon will he be home?”
“I might say to-day or any other early day. He’s been idling for a month
now, and his father says ‘the very looms are calling out for him.’ I’ll
bring him to see you just as soon as he comes home, looms or no looms,
and he’ll be fain to come. No one appreciates a pretty girl more than
John Thomas does.”
So the days passed sweetly and swiftly onward, and there was no trouble
in them. Such business as was to be done went on behind the closed
doors of the Squire’s office, and with no one present but himself, Judge
Rawdon, and the attorneys attached to the Rawdon and Mostyn estates. And
as there were no entanglements and no possible reason for disputing,
a settlement was quickly arrived at. Then, as Mostyn’s return was
uncertain, an attorney’s messenger, properly accredited, was sent to
America to procure his signatures. Allowing for unforeseen delays, the
perfected papers of release might certainly be on hand by the fifteenth
of July, and it was proposed on the first of August to give a dinner
and dance in return for the numerous courtesies the American Rawdons had
received.
As this date approached Ruth and Ethel began to think of a visit to
London. They wanted new gowns and many other pretty things, and why not
go to London for them? The journey was but a few hours, and two or three
days’ shopping in Regent Street and Piccadilly would be delightful. “We
will make out a list of all we need this afternoon,” said Ruth, “and
we might as well go to-morrow morning as later,” and at this moment
a servant entered with the mail. Ethel lifted her letter with an
exclamation. “It is from Dora,” she said, and her voice had a tone of
annoyance in it. “Dora is in London, at the Savoy. She wants to see me
very much.”
“I am so sorry. We have been so happy.”
“I don’t think she will interfere much, Ruth.”
“My dears,” said Judge Rawdon, “I have a letter from Fred Mostyn. He is
coming home. He will be in London in a day or two.”
“Why is he coming, father?”
“He says he has a proposal to make about the Manor. I wish he were not
coming. No one wants his proposal.” Then the breakfast-table, which had
been so gay, became silent and depressed, and presently the Judge went
away without exhibiting further interest in the London journey.
“I do wish Dora would let us alone,” said Ruth. “She always brings
disappointment or worry of some kind. And I wonder what is the meaning
of this unexpected London visit. I thought she was in Holland.”
“She said in her last letter that London would be impossible before
August.”
“Is it an appointment--or a coincidence?”
And Ethel, lifting her shoulders sarcastically, as if in hostile
surrender to the inevitable, answered:
“It is a fatality!”
CHAPTER VIII
THREE days afterward Ethel called on Dora Stanhope at the Savoy. She
found her alone, and she had evidently been crying. Indeed, she
frankly admitted the fact, declaring that she had been “so bored and so
homesick, that she relieved she had cried her beauty away.” She glanced
at Ethel’s radiant face and neat fresh toilet with envy, and added, “I
am so glad to see you, Ethel. But I was sure that you would come as soon
as you knew I wanted you.”
“Oh, indeed, Dora, you must not make yourself too sure of such a thing
as that! I really came to London to get some new gowns. I have been
shopping all morning.”
“I thought you had come in answer to my letter. I was expecting you.
That is the reason I did not go out with Basil.”
“Don’t you expect a little too much, Dora? I have a great many interests
and duties----”
“I used to be first.”
“When a girl marries she is supposed to----”
“Please don’t talk nonsense. Basil does not take the place of everyone
and everything else. I think we are often very tired of each other. This
morning, when I was telling him what trouble I had with my maid, Julia,
he actually yawned. He tried to smother the yawn, but he could not, and
of course the honeymoon is over when your bridegroom yawns in your face
while you are telling him your troubles.”
“I should think you would be glad it was over. Of all the words in the
English language ‘honeymoon’ is the most ridiculous and imbecile.”
“I suppose when you get married you will take a honeymoon.”
“I shall have more sense and more selfishness. A girl could hardly
enter a new life through a medium more trying. I am sure it would
need long-tested affections and the sweetest of tempers to make it
endurable.”
“I cannot imagine what you mean.”
“I mean that all traveling just after marriage is a great blunder.
Traveling makes the sunniest disposition hasty and peevish, for women
don’t love changes as men do. Not one in a thousand is seen at her best
while traveling, and the majority are seen at their very worst. Then
there is the discomfort and desolation of European hotels--their
mysterious methods and hours, and the ways of foreigners, which are not
as our ways.”
“Don’t talk of them, Ethel. They are dreadful places, and such queer
people.”
“Add to these troubles ignorance of language and coinage, the utter
weariness of railway travel, the plague of customs, the trunk that
won’t pack, the trains that won’t wait, the tiresome sight-seeing,
the climatic irritability, broiling suns, headache, loneliness,
fretfulness--consequently the pitiful boredom of the new husband.”
“Ethel, what you say is certainly too true. I am weary to death of it
all. I want to be at Newport with mother, who is having a lovely time
there. Of course Basil is very nice to me, and yet there have been
little tiffs and struggles--very gentle ones--for the mastery, which
he is not going to get. To-day he wanted me to go with him and Canon
Shackleton to see something or other about the poor of London. I would
not do it. I am so lonely, Ethel, I want to see some one. I feel fit to
cry all the time. I like Basil best of anyone in the world, but----”
“But in the solitude of a honeymoon among strangers you find out that
the person you like best in the world can bore you as badly as the
person you don’t like at all. Is that so?”
“Exactly. Just fancy if we were among our friends in Newport. I should
have some pleasure in dressing and looking lovely. Why should I dress
here? There is no one to see me.”
“Basil.”
“Of course, but Basil spends all the time in visiting cathedrals and
clergymen. If we go out, it is to see something about the poor, or about
schools and such like. We were not in London two hours until he was off
to Westminster Abbey, and I didn’t care a cent about the old place. He
says I must not ask him to go to theaters, but historical old houses
don’t interest me at all. What does it matter if Cromwell slept in a
certain ancient shabby room? And as for all the palaces I have seen, my
father’s house is a great deal handsomer, and more convenient, and more
comfortable, and I wish I were there. I hate Europe, and England I hate
worst of all.”
“You have not seen England. We are all enraptured with its beauty and
its old houses and pleasant life.”
“You are among friends--at home, as it were. I have heard all about
Rawdon Court. Fred Mostyn told me. He is going to buy it.”
“When?”
“Some time this fall. Then next year he will entertain us, and that will
be a little different to this desolate hotel, I think.”
“How long will you be in London?”
“I cannot say. We are invited to Stanhope Castle, but I don’t want to go
there. We stayed with the Stanhopes a week when we first came over. They
were then in their London house, and I got enough of them.”
“Did you dislike the family?”
“No, I cared nothing about them. They just bored me. They are extremely
religious. We had prayers night and morning, and a prayer before and
after every meal. They read only very good books, and the Honorable
Misses Stanhope sew for the poor old women and teach the poor young
ones. They work harder than anyone I ever knew, and they call it
‘improving the time.’ They thought me a very silly, reckless young
woman, and I think they all prayed for me. One night after they had sung
some very nice songs they asked me to play, and I began with ‘My Little
Brown Rose’--you know they all adore the negro--and little by little I
dropped into the funniest coon songs I knew, and oh how they laughed!
Even the old lord stroked his knees and laughed out loud, while the
young ladies laughed into their handkerchiefs. Lady Stanhope was the
only one who comprehended I was guying them; and she looked at me with
half-shut eyes in a way that would have spoiled some girls’ fun. It only
made me the merrier. So I tried to show them a cake walk, but the old
lord rose then and said ‘I must be tired, and they would excuse me.’
Somehow I could not manage him. Basil was at a workman’s concert, and
when he came home I think there were some advices and remonstrances, but
Basil never told me. I felt as if they were all glad when I went away,
and I don’t wish to go to the Castle--and I won’t go either.”
“But if Basil wishes to go----”
“He can go alone. I rather think Fred Mostyn will be here in a few
days, and he will take me to places that Basil will not--innocent places
enough, Ethel, so you need not look so shocked. Why do you not ask me to
Rawdon Court?”
“Because I am only a guest there. I have no right to ask you.”
“I am sure if you told Squire Rawdon how fond you are of me, and how
lonely I am, he would tell you to send for me.”
“I do not believe he would. He has old-fashioned ideas about newly
married people. He would hardly think it possible that you would be
willing to go anywhere without Basil--yet.”
“He could ask Basil too.”
“If Mr. Mostyn is coming home, he can ask you to Mostyn Hall. It is very
near Rawdon Court.”
“Yes. Fred said as soon as he had possession of the Court he could put
both places into a ring fence. Then he would live at the Court. If he
asks us there next summer I shall be sure to beg an invitation for you
also; so I think you might deserve it by getting me one now. I don’t
want to go to Mostyn yet. Fred says it needs entire refurnishing, and if
we come to the Court next summer, I have promised to give him my advice
and help in making the place pretty and up to date. Have you seen Mostyn
Hall?”
“I have passed it several times. It is a large, gloomy-looking place I
was going to say haunted-looking. It stands in a grove of yew trees.”
“So you are not going to ask me to Rawdon Court?”
“I really cannot, Dora. It is not my house. I am only a guest there.”
“Never mind. Make no more excuses. I see how it is. You always were
jealous of Fred’s liking for me. And of course when he goes down to
Mostyn you would prefer me to be absent.”
“Good-by, Dora! I have a deal of shopping to do, and there is not much
time before the ball, for many things will be to make.”
“The ball! What ball?”
“Only one at Rawdon Court. The neighbors have been exceedingly kind to
us, and the Squire is going to give a dinner and ball on the first of
August.”
“Sit down and tell me about the neighbors--and the ball.”
“I cannot. I promised Ruth to be back at five. Our modiste is to see us
at that hour.”
“So Ruth is with you! Why did she not call on me?”
“Did you think I should come to London alone? And Ruth did not call
because she was too busy.”
“Everyone and everything comes before me now. I used to be first of
all. I wish I were in Newport with dad and mamma; even Bryce would be a
comfort.”
“As I said before, you have Mr. Stanhope.”
“Are you going to send for me to the ball?”
“I cannot promise that, Dora. Good-by.”
Dora did not answer. She buried her face in the soft pillow, and Ethel
closed the door to the sound of her sobs. But they did not cause her to
return or to make any foolish promises. She divined their insincerity
and their motive, and had no mind to take any part in forwarding the
latter.
And Ruth assured her she had acted wisely. “If trouble should ever come
of this friendship,” she said, “Dora would very likely complain that
you had always thrown Mostyn in her way, brought him to her house in New
York, and brought her to him at Rawdon, in England. Marriage is such a
risk, Ethel, but to marry without the courage to adapt oneself. AH!”
“You think that condition unspeakably hard?”
“There are no words for it.”
“Dora was not reticent, I assure you.”
“I am sorry. A wife’s complaints are self-inflicted wounds; scattered
seeds, from which only misery can spring. I hope you will not see her
again at this time.”
“I made no promise to do so.”
“And where all is so uncertain, we had better suppose all is right than
that all is wrong. Even if there was the beginning of wrong, it needs
but an accident to prevent it, and there are so many.”
“Accidents!”
“Yes, for accident is God’s part in affairs. We call it accident; it
would be better to say an interposition.”
“Dora told me Mostyn intended to buy Rawdon Court in September, and he
has even invited the Stanhopes to stay there next summer.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing against it.”
“Very good. Do you think Mostyn is in London now?”
“I should not wonder. I am sure Dora is expecting him.”
In fact, the next morning they met Dora and Basil Stanhope, driving in
Hyde Park with Mostyn, but the smiling greeting which passed between the
parties did not, except in the case of Basil Stanhope, fairly represent
the dominant feeling of anyone. As for Stanhope, his nature was so clear
and truthful that he would hardly have comprehended a smile which was
intended to veil feelings not to be called either quite friendly or
quite pleasant. After this meeting all the joy went out of Ruth and
Ethel’s shopping. They wanted to get back to the Court, and they
attended strictly to business in order to do so.
Mostyn followed them very quickly. He was exceedingly anxious to see
and hear for himself how his affairs regarding Rawdon stood. They were
easily made plain to him, and he saw with a pang of disappointment that
all his hopes of being Squire of Rawdon Manor were over. Every penny he
could righteously claim was paid to him, and on the title deeds of the
ancient place he had no longer the shadow of a claim. The Squire looked
ten years younger as he affectionately laid both hands on the redeemed
parchments, and Mostyn with enforced politeness congratulated him on
their integrity and then made a hurried retreat. Of its own kind this
disappointment was as great as the loss of Dora. He could think of
neither without a sense of immeasurable and disastrous failure. One
petty satisfaction regarding the payment of the mortgage was his only
com-fort. He might now show McLean that it was not want of money that
had made him hitherto shy of “the good investments” offered him. He
had been sure McLean in their last interview had thought so, and had,
indeed, felt the half-veiled contempt with which the rich young man had
expressed his pity for Mostyn’s inability to take advantage at the
right moment of an exceptional chance to play the game of beggaring his
neighbor. Now, he told himself, he would show McLean and his braggart
set that good birth and old family was for once allied with plenty
of money, and he also promised his wounded sensibilities some very
desirable reprisals, every one of which he felt fully competent to take.
It was, after all, a poor compensation, but there was also the gold. He
thanked his father that day for the great thoughtfulness and care with
which he had amassed this sum for him, and he tried to console himself
with the belief that gold answered all purposes, and that the yellow
metal was a better possession than the house and lands which he had
longed for with an inherited and insensate craving.
Two days after this event Ethel, at her father’s direction, signed a
number of papers, and when that duty was completed, the Squire rose
from his chair, kissed her hands and her cheeks, and in a voice full
of tenderness and pride said, “I pay my respects to the future lady of
Rawdon Manor, and I thank God for permitting me to see this hour. Most
welcome, Lady Ethel, to the rights you inherit, and the rights you have
bought.” It was a moment hardly likely to be duplicated in any life, and
Ethel escaped from its tense emotions as soon as possible. She could not
speak, her heart was too full of joy and wonder. There are souls that
say little and love much. How blessed are they!
On the following morning the invitations were sent for the dinner
and dance, but the time was put forward to the eighth of August. In
everyone’s heart there was a hope that before that day Mostyn would have
left Rawdon, but the hope was barely mentioned. In the meantime he came
and went between Mostyn and Rawdon as he desired, and was received with
that modern politeness which considers it best to ignore offenses that
our grandfathers and grandmothers would have held for strict account and
punishment.
It was evident that he had frequent letters from Dora. He knew all her
movements, and spoke several times of opening Mostyn Hall and inviting
the Stanhopes to stay with him until their return to America. But as
this suggestion did not bring from any member of the Rawdon family the
invitation hoped for, it was not acted upon. He told himself the
expense would be great, and the Hall, in spite of all he could do in the
interim, would look poor and shabby compared with Rawdon Court; so he
put aside the proposal on the ground that he could not persuade his
aunt to do the entertaining necessary. And for all the irritation and
humiliations centering round his loss of Rawdon and his inabilities with
regard to Dora he blamed Ethel. He was sure if he had been more lovable
and encouraging he could have married her, and thus finally reached
Rawdon Court; and then, with all the unreason imaginable, nursed a
hearty dislike to her because she would not understand his desires, and
provide means for their satisfaction. The bright, joyous girl with her
loving heart, her abounding vitality, and constant cheerfulness, made
him angry. In none of her excellencies he had any share, consequently he
hated her.
He would have quickly returned to London, but Dora and her husband were
staying with the Stanhopes, and her letters from Stanhope Castle were
lachrymose complaints of the utter weariness and dreariness of
life there the preaching and reading aloud, the regular walking and
driving--all the innocent method of lives which recognized they were
here for some higher purpose than mere physical enjoyment. And it
angered Mostyn that neither Ruth nor Ethel felt any sympathy for Dora’s
ennui, and proposed no means of releasing her from it. He considered
them both disgustingly selfish and ill-natured, and was certain that
all their reluctance at Dora’s presence arose from their jealousy of her
beauty and her enchanting grace.
On the afternoon of the day preceding the intended entertainment Ruth,
Ethel, and the Squire were in the great dining-room superintending its
decoration. They were merrily laughing and chatting, and were not
aware of the arrival of any visitors until Mrs. Nicholas Rawdon’s rosy,
good-natured face appeared at the open door. Everyone welcomed her
gladly, and the Squire offered her a seat.
“Nay, Squire,” she said, “I’m come to ask a favor, and I won’t sit
till I know whether I get it or not; for if I don’t get it, I shall say
good-by as quickly as I can. Our John Thomas came home this morning and
his friend with him, and I want invitations for the young men, both of
them. My great pleasure lies that way--if you’ll give it to me.”
“Most gladly,” answered the Squire, and Ethel immediately went for the
necessary passports. When she returned she found Mrs. Nicholas helping
Ruth and the Squire to arrange the large silver and cut crystal on the
sideboard, and talking at the same time with unabated vivacity.
“Yes,” she was saying, “the lads would have been here two days ago, but
they stayed in London to see some American lady married. John Thomas’s
friend knew her. She was married at the Ambassador’s house. A fine
affair enough, but it bewilders me this taking up marriage without
priest or book. It’s a new commission. The Church’s warrant, it seems,
is out of date. It may be right’ it may be legal, but I told John Thomas
if he ever got himself married in that kind of a way, he wouldn’t have
father or me for witnesses.”
“I am glad,” said the Squire, “that the young men are home in time for
our dance. The young like such things.”
“To be sure they do. John Thomas wouldn’t give me a moment’s rest till
I came here. I didn’t want to come. I thought John Thomas should come
himself, and I told him plainly that I was ready to do anyone a favor
if I could, but if he wanted me to come because he was afraid to come
himself, I was just as ready to shirk the journey. And he laughed and
said he was not feared for any woman living, but he did want to make his
first appearance in his best clothes--and that was natural, wasn’t it?
So I came for the two lads.” Then she looked at the girls with a smile,
and said in a comfortable kind of way: “You’ll find them very nice
lads, indeed. I can speak for John Thomas, I have taken his measure long
since; and as far as I can judge his friend, Nature went about some full
work when she made a man of him. He’s got a sweet temper, and a strong
mind, and a straight judgment, if I know anything about men--which
Nicholas sometimes makes me think I don’t. But Nicholas isn’t an
ordinary man, he’s what you call ‘an exception.’” Then shaking her head
at Ethel, she continued reprovingly: “You were neither of you in
church Sunday. I know some young women who went to the parish
church--Methodists they are--specially to see your new hats. There’s
some talk about them, I can tell you, and the village milliner is
pestered to copy them. She keeps her eyes open for you. You disappointed
a lot of people. You ought to go to church in the country. It’s the most
respectable thing you can do.”
“We were both very tired,” said Ruth, “and the sun was hot, and we had a
good Sabbath at home. Ethel read the Psalms, Epistle and Gospel for
the day, and the Squire gave us some of the grandest organ music I ever
heard.”
“Well, well! Everyone knows the Squire is a grand player. I don’t
suppose there is another to match him in the whole world, and the old
feeling about church-going is getting slack among the young people. They
serve God now very much at their ease.”
“Is not that better than serving Him on compulsion?” asked Ruth.
“I dare say. I’m no bigot. I was brought up an Independent, and went
to their chapel until I married Nicholas Rawdon. My father was a
broad-thinking man. He never taught me to locate God in any building;
and I’m sure I don’t believe our parish church is His dwelling-place.
If it is, they ought to mend the roof and put a new carpet down and
make things cleaner and more respectable. Well, Squire, you have silver
enough to tempt all the rogues in Yorkshire, and there’s a lot of them.
But now I’ve seen it, I’ll go home with these bits of paper. I shall be
a very important woman to-night. Them two lads won’t know how to fleech
and flatter me enough. I’ll be waited on hand and foot. And Nicholas
will get a bit of a set-down. He was bragging about Miss Ethel bringing
his invitation to his hand and promising to dance with him. I wouldn’t
do it if I were Miss Ethel. She’ll find out, if she does, what it means
to dance with a man that weighs twenty stone, and who has never turned
hand nor foot to anything but money-making for thirty years.”
She went away with a sweep and a rustle of her shimmering silk skirt,
and left behind her such an atmosphere of hearty good-nature as made
the last rush and crowd of preparations easily ordered and quickly
accomplished. Before her arrival there had been some doubt as to the
weather. She brought the shining sun with her, and when he set, he left
them with the promise of a splendid to-morrow--a promise amply redeemed
when the next day dawned. Indeed, the sunshine was so brilliant, the
garden so gay and sweet, the lawn so green and firm, the avenues so
shady and full of wandering songs, that it was resolved to hold the
preliminary reception out of doors. Ethel and Ruth were to receive on
the lawn, and at the open hall door the Squire would wait to welcome his
guests.
Soon after five o’clock there was a brilliant crowd wandering and
resting in the pleasant spaces; and Ethel, wearing a diaphanously white
robe and carrying a rush basket full of white carnations, was moving
among them distributing the flowers. She was thus the center of a
little laughing, bantering group when the Nicholas Rawdon party arrived.
Nicholas remained with the Squire, Mrs. Rawdon and the young men
went toward Ethel. Mrs. Rawdon made a very handsome appearance--“an
aristocratic Britannia in white liberty silk and old lace,” whispered
Ruth, and Ethel looked up quickly, to meet her merry eyes full of some
unexplained triumph. In truth, the proud mother was anticipating a great
pleasure, not only in the presentation of her adored son, but also in
the curiosity and astonishment she felt sure would be evoked by his
friend. So, with the boldness of one who brings happy tidings, she
pressed forward. Ethel saw her approach, and went to meet her. Suddenly
her steps were arrested. An extraordinary thing was going to happen. The
Apollo of her dreams, the singer of the Holland House pavement, was at
Mrs. Rawdon’s side, was talking to her, was evidently a familiar friend.
She was going to meet him, to speak to him at last. She would hear his
name in a few moments; all that she had hoped and believed was coming
true. And the clear, resonant voice of Lydia Rawdon was like music in
her ears as she said, with an air of triumph she could not hide:
“Miss Rawdon, I want you to know my son, Mr. John Thomas Rawdon, and
also John Thomas’s cousin, Mr. Tyrrel Rawdon, of the United States.”
Then Mr. Tyrrel Rawdon looked into Ethel’s face, and in that marvelous
meeting of their eyes, swift as the firing of a gun, their pupils
dilated and flashed with recognition, and the blood rushed crimson
over both faces. She gave the gentlemen flowers, and listened to Mrs.
Rawdon’s chatter, and said in reply she knew not what. A swift and
exquisite excitement had followed her surprise. Feelings she could
not voice were beating at her lips, and yet she knew that without her
conscious will she had expressed her astonishment and pleasure. It
was, indeed, doubtful whether any after speech or explanation would as
clearly satisfy both hearts as did that momentary flash from soul to
soul of mutual remembrance and interest.
“I thought I’d give you a surprise,” said Mrs. Rawdon delightedly. “You
didn’t know the Tyrrel-Rawdons had a branch in America, did you? We are
a bit proud of them, I can tell you that.”
And, indeed, the motherly lady had some reason. John Thomas was a
handsome youth of symmetrical bone and flesh and well-developed muscle.
He had clear, steady, humorous eyes; a manner frank and independent,
not to be put upon; and yet Ethel divined, though she could not have
declared, the “want” in his appearance--that all-overish grace and
elasticity which comes only from the development of the brain and
nervous system. His face was also marred by the seal of commonness which
trade impresses on so many men, the result of the subjection of the
intellect to the will, and of the impossibility of grasping things
except as they relate to self. In this respect the American cousin was
his antipodes. His whole body had a psychical expression--slim,
elastic, alert. Over his bright gray eyes the eyelids drew themselves
horizontally, showing his dexterity and acuteness of mind; indeed, his
whole expression and mien
“Were, as are the eagle’s keen,
All the man was aquiline.”
These personal characteristics taking some minutes to describe were
almost an instantaneous revelation to Ethel, for what the soul sees it
sees in a flash of understanding. But at that time she only answered her
impressions without any inquiry concerning them. She was absorbed by the
personal presence of the men, and all that was lovely and lovable in her
nature responded to their admiration.
As they strolled together through a flowery alley, she made them pass
their hands through the thyme and lavender, and listen to a bird singing
its verses, loud and then soft, in the scented air above them. They
came out where the purple plums and golden apricots were beginning to
brighten a southern wall, and there, moodily walking by himself, they
met Mostyn face to face. An angry flash and movement interpreted his
annoyance, but he immediately recovered himself, and met Ethel and his
late political opponent with polite equanimity. But a decided constraint
fell on the happy party, and Ethel was relieved to hear the first
tones of the great bell swing out fr
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