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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lord Alistair's Rebellion, by Allen
-Upward
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: Lord Alistair's Rebellion
-
-Author: Allen Upward
-
-Release Date: October 26, 2021 [eBook #66617]
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed
-             Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-             produced from images generously made available by Cornell
-             University Digital Collections)
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORD ALISTAIR'S
-REBELLION ***
-
-
-
-
-
-LORD ALISTAIR’S REBELLION
-
-
-
-
-  LORD ALISTAIR’S
-  REBELLION
-
-  BY
-  ALLEN UPWARD
-
-  In the Pot it is called Scum
-  In the Sea it is called Foam:
-  In the Sky it is called Light.
-
-  [Illustration]
-
-  MITCHELL KENNERLEY
-  NEW YORK      MCMX
-
-
-
-
-  _Copyright 1910 by
-  Mitchell Kennerley_
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-
-
-  CHAPTER                              PAGE
-
-      I WESTMINSTER BRIDGE                9
-
-     II BIOGRAPHICAL                     23
-
-    III THE PRODIGAL SON                 45
-
-     IV A FAMILY COUNCIL                 58
-
-      V BEERS COOPERAGE                  70
-
-     VI THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN          94
-
-    VII THE DECADENTS                   109
-
-   VIII A LEGITIMIST DEMONSTRATION      132
-
-     IX MOLLY FINUCANE AT HOME          158
-
-      X A SCIENTIFIC OPINION            175
-
-     XI THE PRETENDER                   197
-
-    XII THE POWERS THAT BE              217
-
-   XIII ROYAL PATRONAGE                 237
-
-    XIV VIRTUE TRIUMPHANT               253
-
-     XV MAGIC CASEMENTS                 264
-
-    XVI NEW LAMPS FOR OLD               274
-
-   XVII A SPOKE IN THE WHEEL            290
-
-  XVIII THE LAST WORD OF SCIENCE        304
-
-    XIX POET’S CORNER                   316
-
-     XX LADY ALISTAIR                   328
-
-    XXI THE HOUSE OF CATILINE           346
-
-   XXII HIGH TREASON                    361
-
-  XXIII A PERSONAL EXPLANATION          374
-
-        AFTERWARDS                      393
-
-
-
-
-LORD ALISTAIR’S REBELLION
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I
-
-WESTMINSTER BRIDGE
-
-
-NIGHT clad the imperial city in a black robe stitched with fire.
-
-The misty river rolled in from the sea through its illuminated bridges
-with the subdued swish of some great snake writhing its way through
-hoops of gold.
-
-Out in the fog-haunted region between the bridges the movement of the
-red and green-eyed steam-tugs, clutching invisible barges and dragging
-them away into the darkness, seemed like a shadow-show in which
-grotesque demons were hunting the souls of men.
-
-The two banks of the river offered a contrast full of significance.
-
-Along the left bank white lamps that slit the dusk with the hard,
-bright glare of diamonds were strung like beads at measured spaces
-apart. A broad, smooth-paven road rattled with the wheels of traffic,
-and the long bend of the river revealed a sweep of stately buildings
-representing the power and splendour of a great civilization.
-
-Education, law, science, government, police, had their homes side by
-side along that mighty façade, which thus became an entablature on
-which the characters of civilization were legibly impressed. Beside
-the ancient universities of the law stood the headquarters of the vast
-machinery for the teaching of the populace--that is to say, for the
-taming of successive generations of barbarians. The power of wealth was
-expressed in luxurious hotels and club-houses, in the mansion of the
-noble and the estate-office of the millionaire. The revenues of empire
-flowed in and out through the gates of one majestic pile; from another
-the guardians of the social order waged war against the restless
-ranks of crime. Last in place towered the huge palace of the imperial
-Legislature, supreme over all.
-
-Across the river the low mass of the southern shore lay in obscurity.
-All that could be distinguished over there was a dark roof-line broken
-by a few tall, smokeless chimneys, rising above the water like the
-walls and towers of a beleaguered city encompassed by its moat. The
-solitary illumination on that side of the river was afforded by a high
-square building which broke the gloom from instant to instant with huge
-letters of yellow fire, spelling out uncouth, barbaric syllables in
-what might have been the jargon of some subterranean race of men. Seen
-across the river mist the tower flared out like those burning mosques
-beheld from afar by the voyager in the Underworld as he drew near to
-the city of Dis.
-
-All night the square, ugly minaret continued to flash its monstrous
-hieroglyphs upon the darkness, as though the dwellers on the southern
-shore were signalling a message from their camp. And from time to
-time, when the rattle of the wheels on the hither side stayed for a
-moment, there was borne across the water the low, sullen hum as of a
-vast multitude swarming in the narrow streets and stunted houses of the
-hidden region beyond.
-
-Thus the two banks of the river faced each other with something of a
-mutual threat.
-
-On one side of the gulf, that low, sombre roof-line with its fitful
-torch-fires; on the other side, the broad illuminated rampart of
-civilization, crowned by its imperial keep.
-
-A light more brilliant than the rest streamed from the summit of the
-ponderous clock-tower that guards the foot of Westminster Bridge.
-
-This was the answering signal of the northern shore to that sullen camp
-across the river. It burned there to proclaim that the sovereign power
-of empire was at work beneath, judging over five hundred millions of
-men, and two and a half continents. All the forces of the mightiest
-society the world has yet beheld were focused here in the High Court of
-Parliament, the Board of the Anglo-Roman Raj.
-
-Here the decrees were shaped in obedience to which invincible fleets
-crossed the ocean; armies were transported from one hemisphere to the
-conquest of another; kings were dethroned in Africa and other kings
-were crowned in Asia; warlike republics were extinguished under the
-Southern Pole, and tottering dynasties propped up in the shadow of the
-Himalayas; whole races of men, speaking strange tongues, and reckoning
-time by other constellations, had their laws and manners and religions
-changed for them; immemorial savagery was thrust into the forcing-house
-of civilization, and immemorial civilizations were rooted up; from
-this centre the hardy freemen of the Baltic North spread the ancient
-Mediterranean culture and Semitic folklore wherever the Raj extended
-round the globe.
-
-Here throbbed the great piston-rod which drove the myriad wheels
-of government and slowly stamped deeper age after age the same
-Roman-Semitic imprint upon the subjugated populace at home.
-
-Night after night, as the dwellers on the southern shore gazed across
-at the majestic citadel of the Raj, they saw that beacon burning,
-the symbol of the unresting watchfulness of their rulers against the
-assaults of foes within and without. That steady flame shone out
-defiance alike to the foreign invader and the traitor within the gates;
-to the rebels who scoured the African veldt, and the more dangerous
-rebels who skulked through the streets and alleys of the imperial
-capital. On all alike, on the encroaching Tsar as on the plotting
-Maharajah, on far-off savages and on felons crouching at the gates,
-the Genius of the Raj was seen to keep its never-closing eye.
-
-More than a mile away, round the curving bank of the river, where the
-warehouses of Mammon clustered thickly round the temple of Jehovah,
-there rose another Symbol, invisible in the night, soaring high above
-the intervening territory of squalor.
-
-This Symbol was intended to represent a Roman gibbet, the gibbet on
-which a Redeemer had been put to death two thousand years ago, in a
-remote corner of that ancient Mediterranean realm of which this modern
-civilization was heir.
-
-In the night these two Symbols confronted each other, the Flame and
-the Cross, as though they were the warring ensigns of Ahura-Mazda, the
-Spirit of Light, and Anru-Mainya, the Spirit of Darkness.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-On the midmost arch of Westminster Bridge a young man stood alone,
-leaning over the parapet, and sounding with his eyes the black depth of
-the water below.
-
-His whole air and appearance were out of harmony with the spot where he
-found himself, and suggested that he must have strayed there from some
-gayer quarter of the town. An opera hat was thrust back on his head,
-and a silk-lined overcoat, thrown open in front, allowed his waistcoat,
-of white satin, to become soiled by contact with the grime of the
-bridge. He held a cane of rich and fanciful design in one hand; the
-other hand, resting loosely on the ironwork of the balustrade, showed
-more than one curious and valuable ring.
-
-He leaned on the bridge dully, his head drooping as though he were
-tired. Although his face was that of a man not yet thirty years of
-age, it bore marks which showed that he had lived too eagerly, without
-heed to life’s immitigable laws. Already the forehead was crossed with
-faint lines, though there was no thinning of the black hair that curled
-above. The beauty of the face was marred by the flush of intemperance,
-and the sensuous underlip contradicted the refinement of the sensitive
-nostrils. The dark, restless eyes and delicate chin completed the
-impression of passion and weakness which was left by the whole face.
-
-On the pavement of St. James’s such a figure would have seemed at home.
-Seen where it was, like a tropical bird blown ashore on some bleaker
-landscape, it provoked the curiosity of the passers-by.
-
-Some of them took offence at the unusual sight. A group of roughs
-returning from some haunt of vice on the north side to their dens
-across the river eyed the well-dressed loiterer with envious contempt,
-and tried to hustle him as they went by. Their leader, a hulking
-Irishman, encouraged them in a coarse speech, which still breathed
-faintly of the sea-scented glens of Connemara.
-
-Something in the voice or in the words startled the lounger. He turned
-his head quickly, and gave the ruffian a questioning look, under
-which he slunk to one side, and passed on with his friends. In the
-dark streets where their homes lay they might not have been abashed
-so easily. But their courage for violence ebbed on the well-lighted
-bridge. Few crimes are committed at high noon.
-
-A policeman sauntering on to the bridge shortly afterwards caught sight
-of the stranger, and seemed to become interested in his doings. Instead
-of pursuing his way when he had reached the farther end of the bridge,
-the officer halted, and stood about on the pavement by St. Thomas’s
-Hospital, keeping his eyes fixed on the figure that overhung the
-balustrade so persistently.
-
-Two shop-boys coming along in their turn had their sense of humour
-tickled by the young man’s forlorn attitude. One of them gave vent to a
-ribald jest.
-
-“Look,” he said aloud to his comrade, “there’s Jesus Christ.”
-
-So closely wrapped in his own thoughts was the lounger that it was
-many seconds after they had been uttered before the words succeeded
-in penetrating to his consciousness. The last sound of the youths’
-trampling feet had died away at the end of the bridge before he woke up
-sufficiently to ask himself with a resentful air: “What made him say
-that?”
-
-He found himself unable to dismiss the jeer from his mind, in which it
-went on echoing with such tormenting insistence that at last he stood
-up and shook himself, unconsciously making a physical effort to change
-the pattern in the brain’s kaleidoscope.
-
-But the suggestion which so irritated him was not to be got rid of
-in that fashion. It chimed in too well with the whole tenor of his
-meditation since he had found his way on to the bridge. The half-formed
-questions which had been baffling his attempts to give them definite
-shape now all at once began to come together and settle down into one
-question, precipitated, as it were, by that profane mockery.
-
-“Why,” he reflected, with a growing sense of anger at the
-comparison--“why did he call me that?”
-
-It was not because he attributed any serious intention to the jester
-that he argued thus with himself. He was in that mood when everything
-around us appears mysterious and fraught with some revelation to which
-we only need a key. The words of the shop-boy became for him a hint
-from the night itself, like the cryptic utterances of the characters in
-a play of Maeterlinck’s.
-
-“What likeness is there between Christ and me?” he went on, putting the
-problem before himself more distinctly.
-
-What likeness, indeed, between this spoilt child of civilization, to
-whom the world seemed to have given of its best, for whom Christianity
-could be no more than a legend, and that buffeted Redeemer hanging on
-his gibbet in the Syrian sun of two thousand years ago?
-
-And yet an insult cannot rankle unless it is barbed with truth. From
-the inner cells of memory, where they had been stored up in past
-days by a religious mother, certain words and phrases were already
-coming forth, as though moved by some subtle affinity, to answer that
-uncomfortable question.
-
-_Despised and rejected of men_--they ran something like that. And
-again: _Stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted_. There were other
-words which should have followed, surely, but he tried in vain to draw
-them forth.
-
-_Despised and rejected of men._ The flush darkened on the young man’s
-cheek as he flung back his head with a rebellious and angry glance at
-the river’s northern bank, where the shining walls and towers of the
-city of Ormuzd seemed to overhang the gulf--the glance which an exile
-gives at the city which has driven him forth.
-
-He had fled to the spot, stunned by one of those buffets which life is
-ever waiting to deal to those who have not learnt their lesson aright.
-And his ears still smarted with the scream of the newsboys who were
-proclaiming in every street that Lord Alistair Stuart had failed.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-In London men like Alistair Stuart fail every day, and go under,
-leaving scarcely a ripple on the smooth surface of a society which
-hastens to forget all disagreeable things. But Lord Alistair’s
-catastrophe had been able to eclipse for one night the comedy of
-politics and the tragedy of war. For he happened to be one of the few
-in whom the world is interested, and when the world is interested
-in a man it will not suffer him to go down to sheol in peace. Its
-hisses are the reaction of its cheers, and those who court its notice
-put their lives to the hazard, like Esther when she went to touch the
-sceptre of Ahasuerus.
-
-The world knew Alistair Stuart in two characters--as the brother and
-heir-presumptive of the Duke of Trent and Colonsay, and as the lover of
-Molly Finucane.
-
-To the outer world, for which newspapers are written and formal
-histories compiled, he was the brother of one of its most important
-citizens. The Duke of Trent was distinguished not only by his rank,
-but by his service to the State. By an ironical coincidence the same
-_Gazette_ which revealed the fact that Lord Alistair Stuart had
-filed his petition also contained the notification that his brother
-had kissed hands as Secretary of State. It was impossible that the
-moralists of the pulpit and the press should overlook the striking
-example of the idle and industrious apprentice, and the younger
-brother’s disgrace was deepened by the elder’s triumph.
-
-In that inner world whose newspapers are the boudoirs and the
-smoking-rooms, and which goes for its history to memoirs and chronicles
-of the back-stairs, the name of Alistair Stuart had gained celebrity in
-connection with a personage of whom the pulpit might not know, and the
-press might not tell.
-
-Molly Finucane had achieved one of those reputations which have given
-certain women a place in history. In the ancient world she might have
-had princes to fight for her, and poets to sing her praise. In the
-modern world she was a figure of evil, regarded with a feeling like
-that which inspired the legends of the succubi. An element of mystery
-attached to her extraordinary career. It was said that she could
-neither dance nor sing, that she was astonishingly ignorant, and that
-her speech and ways smelt of the gutter. Even beauty was denied her.
-The men whom she had ruined themselves could not explain the secret of
-her power over them; she overcame her victims like a malarial fever.
-Some men could meet her day after day without succumbing; others lost
-themselves from the first; others again began by despising her as an
-ugly little street-girl, and ended by giving her their wives’ jewels.
-
-How many had perished in the maelstrom of desire which she created
-none could say. But there was a ghastly story of the young Earl of
-St. Luc, who had put an end to his life at the age of twenty because
-his trustees refused him the means to set up an establishment for
-Molly Finucane. An ineffaceable impression had been made by the two
-contrasted pictures of the desolate mother weeping over her boy’s
-dead body, as it was dragged all stained and dripping from the moat
-surrounding the ancient keep of the St. Lucs, and of the wide-mouthed,
-stupid Irish girl, planted in a reek of tobacco smoke on a table
-crowded by tipsy youths, repeating to them in her cracked, shameless
-voice the latest and most brutally coarse refrain of the street.
-
-It was a year, perhaps two years, since the tongue of scandal had first
-singled out the name of Alistair Stuart from among the rest of those
-who singed their wings in this fatal flame. Gradually it became known
-that Molly Finucane had given him a devotion which no other man had
-ever been able to buy with gold or blood or tears. For his sake she
-had refused at the last moment to take possession of the miniature
-palace furnished for her by the great Brazilian broker, Mendes; who had
-simply shrugged his shoulders and ordered the house to be kept vacant
-and ready for her. Stuart and she had gone to live together in a faded
-corner of Chelsea, in a house surrounded by elms with black trunks and
-yellow leaves.
-
-The house in Chelsea loomed large in the mind of the new generation.
-It was regarded as a citadel of sin, as the headquarters of a cult
-which gloried in its moral degeneracy. Alistair Stuart assumed the
-character of a high-priest among the pagans, as they chose to call
-themselves--poets whose verses echoed still more faintly the faint
-autumnal sighs of Verlaine; wits whose epigrams were brilliant with the
-phosphorescence of corruption; men in whom genius was a vice, and vice
-an affectation. Hatred of the middle classes was the watchword of this
-sect, which was recruited from penniless younger sons, from university
-failures, from a whole class for whom the Protestant Church has no
-refuge, but who in Catholic countries end often in the monastery. They
-waged war on the Victorian Age, on its religion, on its art, on its
-commercialism, but, above all, on its Puritanism.
-
-In the eyes of this brotherhood of the unfit bankruptcy was rather
-meritorious than disgraceful, and the fifty thousand pounds which
-Stuart had spent without possessing represented so much spoil taken
-from the Philistines. Stuart’s own first proceeding after he had
-signed the warrant for his civil degradation had been to send forth
-invitations for a supper to celebrate the event.
-
-His bankruptcy had been in one sense voluntary. Although he had cut
-himself off from intercourse with his family when he took the house in
-Chelsea, he knew that Trent would have helped him to make terms with
-his creditors. But he knew also that Trent would have required him to
-give up Molly Finucane. He had filed his petition with a light heart,
-in the belief that the disgrace would fall more heavily on his brother
-than on himself.
-
-For the éclat resulting from his act he had been prepared, but not for
-the effect of the éclat on his own mind.
-
-He had been on his way to a club in Piccadilly overlooking the Green
-Park, which served as a meeting-ground for those members of the cult
-who kept on terms with respectability. Almost on the club steps he was
-arrested by the sight of his name in large letters on a news-bill,
-bringing the sharp reminder that he had forfeited his right of entry.
-
-It was a shock to him to find that his exploit had suddenly lost its
-charm. He bought a paper as he walked on, and read of his brother’s
-promotion to the Cabinet. The unforeseen coincidence intensified his
-discomfiture. This brother of his, whom he had always looked on as
-a dullard and a prig, whom he had so often sneered at among his own
-friends, was standing there crowned in front of the footlights, while
-he, Alistair, was being hissed off the stage. In a flash he saw the
-ruin he had made of his life, and was dismayed.
-
-And as he wandered miserably through the streets the question that
-had risen and struggled for expression in his mind was--Why? Why had
-his brother so far surpassed him in the race? Why were the honours
-and rewards of life bestowed on some and not on others? Why had he,
-Alistair, steered his bark upon the rocks?
-
-Standing there between that visible theatre of his brother’s triumph,
-on the north side of the river, and the unknown hooligan realm upon the
-south, with which there stole upon him a daunting sense of affinity, he
-pondered the question; and while he pondered it, the feeling grew upon
-him that it would not be answered by itself, that it was a part of a
-more tremendous issue, that the meaning of life was involved in it, and
-the eternal mystery of the world.
-
-Alistair looked back for some clue to the tangled skein of his career;
-and by-and-by the vista of the past took on distinctness, like one of
-those marvellous canvases of Rembrandt from whose dingy surface there
-gradually peeps out a whole magical landscape charged with light.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II
-
-BIOGRAPHICAL
-
-
-THE lustre of the rain was over the grey lochs and green Hebrides.
-
-The broad sound that stretched between the Island of Oig and the
-mainland was crinkled in furrows, on whose torn edges the foam-spit
-flickered like driving snowflakes. Whenever the indigo folds of the
-rolling rain parted for a minute the white beaches of Kesteven gleamed
-out like a picked bone. Away to the southward, where the fishing-boats
-were slowly reaching round the Mull of Oig, their taut sails glistened
-like new-washed tiles in the sunshine; then, as they twisted about
-and came up into the wind, the light emptied out of their sails like
-water being spilt, and each boat in turn became a murky phantom gliding
-forward along leaden grooves.
-
-When the rain-wreaths closed round again, the mainland was blotted out
-with its hills and pine-forests, and the fishing-boats were no longer
-anything but blurred hints of things behind a screen. The mist wrapped
-the Island of Oig round with a great stillness, as though it had been
-removed a thousand miles off into the midst of the sea.
-
-When at last the heavy cloud phalanxes broke and drifted overhead, and
-the lochs and isles lay in clear day, something new had crossed into
-the magic ring of the horizon.
-
-Down in the south-east, in the far-off corner of the landscape, where
-the pale rose-purple of the hills melted into the dark slate-purple
-of the waves, a low black smudge had come like a flake of soot on a
-glorious stained-glass window. Seen at first as a mere speck on the
-picture, it swiftly spread and grew till it became a great dingy smear
-trailing across the heavens. And there was something about this new
-presence in the landscape which made it seem strange and hostile to
-the rest. It was as though a harsh, unexpected note had been struck in
-the middle of a symphony. All the other things there--the clouds and
-the sunlight, the hills and the sea--seemed to have grown used to one
-another during the ages, and to keep up a stately accord together; but
-this smoke giant forced himself in amongst them, like an upstart that
-had not learnt their ways--an ugly gnome of the underworld breaking
-into the haunts of the fairies and the nixies.
-
-Beneath the inky banner a small black steamer lifted its hull above the
-wave-line and came on obstinately, beating defiance with its paddles to
-the mother elements. The fishing-boats that for thousands of years had
-put in and out from the little haven of Oig had never done aught but
-coax the elemental forces in order to turn them to service. For them
-the winds and the tides had been instruments on which they searched,
-as it were, for the right chords. But this masterful intruder snapped
-the strings in careless discord; compared with the others, it seemed
-to be a burglar breaking the locks of Nature with a crowbar instead of
-opening them with a key.
-
-Fussing and fretting as it came, the steamboat struck right through
-the fleet of fishing-boats, and hurried on. It churned its way noisily
-into the harbour, driving small rowing-boats to right and left like
-frightened birds, and took up its berth against the pier with the air
-of an invading column taking up its quarters in a surrendered town. At
-the same time everything seemed to wake up to meet it: the old men who
-leant all day against the harbour wall started out of their dreams to
-handle the ropes flung to them from the steamer’s deck; the harbour
-master and the factor of the company hastened along the quay, and all
-the folk of the little town issued from their houses and swarmed down
-to the water’s edge. The whole Island of Oig roused itself from its six
-days’ peace, and began to bustle for its life.
-
-Having taken fast hold of the pier with its rope tentacles, the
-masterful black monster rapped out a wooden gangway, down which there
-walked quickly a passenger who looked as much estranged from the
-surroundings as the floating machine which had transported him from the
-mainland.
-
-The strangeness was not so much in his black clothes as in his gait and
-bearing. He walked jerkily, with short, quick steps, casting glances
-to right and left through his spectacles, as though he were moving
-through a crowd, on the lookout for hindrances. His feet struck the
-ground in the helpless, violent fashion of one who wore boots and used
-his feet merely as the ferrules of his legs on the pavement, instead of
-as claws to grasp the ground with. The muscles of his neck had suffered
-a similar atrophy; a long course of high collars and top-heavy hats had
-drilled his head into a fixed pose, and it moved on the socket of the
-neck stiffly and jerkily within certain narrow limits. That his eyes
-had also become cramped by gazing at books instead of fields and clouds
-was shown plainly enough, for this man of the town wore glasses. He had
-only to open his mouth to speak, and you saw that his very teeth were
-no longer Nature’s handiwork.
-
-The townsman’s speech was as outlandish in the Island of Oig as were
-his dress and gait. He stopped half-way down the pier, before a group
-of boys, who had left their play to come and see the steamer, and put a
-question in English.
-
-“Can one of you boys direct me to the house of Mr. Duncan Gilderoy?”
-
-Now, nearly everyone on the Island of Oig bore the name of Gilderoy;
-and this was all the more noteworthy because Gilderoy was not their
-real name, but one which the whole clan to which the islanders belonged
-had taken to hide their own, in order to escape the enmity of other
-and more powerful clans on the mainland, which had sworn to wipe them
-out. This wholesale exchange had taken place more than three hundred
-years before, and only a few of the very old islanders, living in the
-most out-of-the-way corners of the isle, any longer remembered what
-their real name was; and they were not believed by the rest, because
-the story sounded so strange beside the sober narratives of events told
-in the books written by people in Edinburgh, and called the “History of
-Scotland.” Therefore, though the _Pax Britannica_ was now established
-in Oig, the inhabitants still clung to their cloak-name, so that all
-of them but those whose families had come into the island since the
-sixteenth century called themselves Gilderoy. And of these Gilderoys
-every third man had been baptized Duncan, because Duncan was the lucky
-name of the island, and it was well known that if you were baptized
-by that name you could not be drowned, unless the nixies made a
-mistake;--though even that was not known to the present generation, who
-had been brought up on the Edinburgh books, and who therefore thought
-they had their children baptized Duncan because it was the custom.
-
-So when the outlander put his question the boys stood dumb at first,
-staring at him and wondering at his stupidity. The invader on his part
-wondered at theirs.
-
-“Don’t you speak English?” he demanded crossly, as though ignorance of
-that tongue were wrong in itself, a sign of natural depravity which
-even the benighted heathen must know in their hearts they ought to be
-ashamed of.
-
-The boys seemed to feel the force of the rebuke. They turned their eyes
-to one who stood in the forefront of the little group, as if calling on
-him to defend them. The leader answered instantly:
-
-“What Duncan Gilderoy is that?”
-
-He spoke the outlander’s tongue as easily as the outlander himself,
-though each of them sounded his words in a way that seemed a little
-strange in the other’s ears. The man from the mainland crowded his
-words in that habit of hurried speech which towns beget. The boy
-intoned his words with a slight shrillness caught from the winds and
-waves that battle round the Hebrides. The boy had already learnt from
-the stranger’s speech that he was an Englishman; the Englishman thought
-he learnt from the boy’s that he was not a Scotchman. To the Englishman
-a Scotchman was a person who spoke the dialect of old Northumbria. He
-had expected to find the islanders of Oig speaking either Gaelic or the
-speech of Burns.
-
-“Are you English?” he exclaimed.
-
-The boy flushed darkly.
-
-“No,” he said, and held his tongue.
-
-This time the invader looked at him closer. He was a handsome boy of
-eleven or twelve years of age, tall, and rather slender, and although
-he wore old, worn clothes, he did not look in the least humble or
-ashamed of them, a thing which struck the Londoner’s mind as reckless
-and a little bad. Below his kilt of dark green tartan, variegated with
-stripes of black and white, the boy’s legs and feet were bare, like
-those of his companions. Above the kilt he had on a shabby jacket of
-black velvet with tarnished silver buttons, and a round bonnet set on
-the back of his black curls made a frame for his face.
-
-The man repeated his first question in another form.
-
-“Do you know Mr. Duncan Gilderoy?”
-
-“Do you mean Duncan Gilderoy of the Old House? Or is it the minister?”
-asked the boy.
-
-“No, it’s not the minister. He is a farmer, and they told me his house
-was just outside the town.”
-
-He said “town,” because he had heard it called that on the steamer. But
-his London eye called it “village.” Two rows of squat houses struggling
-up from the harbour’s edge to a small kirk just under the ridge of the
-hill--that was all he could see.
-
-“Then that is Duncan Gilderoy of the Old House,” put in another of the
-boys.
-
-The man turned to him.
-
-“Has he a young gentleman living with him, named Stuart?” he asked.
-
-All eyes were turned to the boy who had been the first to speak. This
-boy gave a distrustful, searching glance at the stranger.
-
-“If that is the Duncan Gilderoy you want, I can take you to him,” he
-said, rather unwillingly.
-
-“Come on, then.”
-
-The other boys fell back, staring hard, as their comrade walked
-off beside the man in the English clothes. The man carried a small
-travelling-bag in one hand, and before they had gone many yards he
-offered it to his guide.
-
-“Would you like to earn a sixpence?” he said pleasantly.
-
-The boy flushed again and frowned angrily. Then he stopped dead, and,
-turning round, shouted back to the group they had just left:
-
-“Here, Jock, carry his bag, and he’ll give you sixpence.”
-
-Jock proved to be the boy who had guessed which Duncan Gilderoy the
-stranger wanted. He darted from the rest, and ran up to seize the bag,
-and then, having taken possession of it, fell in on the other side of
-its owner.
-
-The Londoner felt he had made a mistake of some kind. The boy who had
-refused an offer of sixpence commanded his respect. Gazing at him
-again, it began to dawn upon him that this bare-footed young Highlander
-carried himself with dignity, and that he held up his head in a way
-that is not taught in Board-schools. The next moment the boy, aware
-that he was being studied, lowered his head with a defensive instinct,
-and glanced at the man out of the corner of his dark eyes. The glance
-was at once sly and naïve, like that of some bright, wicked bird.
-
-“And what is your name, my boy?” the Englishman asked, with a touch of
-middle-class patronage. He could not quite get the bare feet out of his
-mind.
-
-“I am Alistair Stuart.”
-
-The stranger uttered a sound of surprise.
-
-“The Stuart who lives with Mr. Duncan Gilderoy?”
-
-“Yes.” The answer came unwillingly again.
-
-“Then you are the boy I have come here for.”
-
-“I knew that,” said Stuart. And a slightly cunning look came into his
-eyes.
-
-The man was baffled. He could not quite make up his mind whether the
-boy had been playing a practical joke on him from the first, or had
-been merely too dull to explain himself. Londoner-like, he leant a
-little towards the second supposition, for he was managing clerk to a
-firm of solicitors in Theobald’s Road, and firmly believed that human
-nature contained no depths which he had not sounded to their very
-bottom. He believed that all men were animated by one supreme motive,
-the making of money, that they were distracted and impeded in their
-progress towards the goal by the counter-attractions of woman and wine,
-and that he was the wisest who best withstood these allurements, and
-kept his gaze steadily fixed on that yellow bull’s-eye of endeavour. He
-regarded the law as the rules of the game, and knew to a hair exactly
-how far it was possible to go without breaking them. There was only one
-irrational element in the man’s life: he was a Wesleyan, and holding it
-for certain that the doctrine of that sect amounted to an immediate
-communication to himself from his Maker, of whom he was a good deal
-afraid, he paid in reluctantly but largely to the Church funds, which
-he regarded as a species of blackmail levied by God on business men.
-
-The three walked up through the narrow street together. The street was
-paved with cobble-stones, and ascended in layers or great steps, with
-one or more houses to a step. The houses themselves would have been
-called hovels in London, and looking at them, the law-clerk considered
-that he was walking through a slum. He wondered almost mournfully how
-human creatures could submit to pass their lives in such miserable
-conditions. The sight of the bare-footed lads and lasses with their
-red cheeks and shapely legs woke actual pity in his breast; for he was
-naturally kind, and his kindness could only find expression in the
-benevolent wish to take control of all these lives which he understood
-so little, and shape them into the image of his own.
-
-Stuart had been looking forward to the coming of this man ever since
-he could remember. He had always known that Duncan Gilderoy was only
-his foster-father, and that his life would not be lived out on Oig.
-They had told him that his father and mother lived in France, and
-that his father was too ill to have his children with him. He could
-not recollect these legendary parents, who were only known to him by
-portraits which he religiously cherished, and by letters which came
-to him regularly from his mother. His father, from whom he received
-only occasional messages, was the object of a devotion that filled his
-whole heart; his yearning for that unknown father’s love was one of
-those passions of childhood which are never told, and which are never
-forgotten. There was more of awe than love in his thoughts about his
-mother; she was an Englishwoman, and the tenderness that her letters
-expressed was overlaid with pious monitions and references to Bible
-texts. He learned that he had an elder brother, James, who was being
-educated at a school in England under the casual supervision of the
-head of the family, who had never noticed Alistair. At some time or
-other--he was doubtful when--the perception had come that the character
-of his upbringing was at least partly due to lack of money. The islands
-and moorlands, the castles and broad acres that made up the great
-inheritance of Trent and Colonsay were all tributary to certain men of
-law in London and in Edinburgh, whom the clansmen of Oig hated as a
-conquered nation hates the invader encamped upon its soil.
-
-Alistair knew also--for these things were the history and politics of
-Oig--that his father stood next in succession to the dukedom, and that
-his brother’s favour with the reigning Duke was in right of his exalted
-destiny as heir.
-
-Thus the boy, reared in the society of herdsmen and fishers, who were
-to him as kinsmen of a lower rank, had had always before his eyes the
-vision of the great world in which he was one day to play a part.
-Civilization shone for him afar off, as it shines for the native of
-some colonial wilderness, in all the hues of hope and wonder. How often
-had he climbed to the top of the cliff that overlooked the Sound of
-Oig, and laid himself down on the wind-mown grass, looking and longing
-for the first peep of that sooty feather which he had taken for the
-signal of emancipation. No instinct had ever warned him that the little
-noisy packet was a slaveship, the galley of the great Anglo-Roman Raj,
-coming to make him captive, and carry him off to be tamed and trained
-into a citizen of the Raj, to speak its tongue and wear its dress,
-and learn its manners, and its laws, till the innermost pulse of his
-being should be timed to the Anglo-Roman time, and the ancient Pictish
-blood in his veins should forget its source, and run as if through
-Anglo-Roman ducts.
-
-Looking back across his life to this point of departure, it seemed to
-Alistair that he had found the clue of his tangled skein, and that he
-might in time achieve a complete answer to the riddle of his fate. For
-a moment the longing of his heart returned to that green islet in its
-grey sea, and he bitterly regretted that he had not been left to live
-out his life there among the clansmen whom he loved, and by whom he was
-beloved, who esteemed him as a prince among them, and would have still
-esteemed and shielded him had he become the outlaw of the Raj. He was
-an exile--surely it was this, he told himself--he was an outlander
-adrift amongst a race to which he did not belong; which he never could
-understand, and by which he never could be understood.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-The first great misunderstanding with his captors had come when he was
-a boy. There was a Velasquez-looking portrait on the walls of Colonsay
-House of a lad of fifteen, long-legged and slim, with eyes like the
-night--a night haunted by the slumber of wild beasts that the first
-footfall will disturb. The dress of this boy was touched with the
-girlish delicacy that betrays a mother’s darling: the collar was of
-lace, the jacket was of velvet, the straw hat, thrust back from his
-forehead, was costlier than lace or velvet. At night he slept in silk,
-in a tapestried chamber. His days were passed within the stately walls,
-or in roaming through the glorious demesne, of one of the historic
-homes of England, watched over with all the care that love and wealth
-could afford.
-
-He had lived with his mother ever since his father’s death. It was not
-until she had clasped him in her arms that she had told him of his
-loss, and she had never suspected the bitterness of the boy’s grief.
-The father whom he had never known remained a sacred memory still, all
-the more sacred because his mother never talked to him about the dead.
-By this time the old Duke was dead as well, and James had succeeded
-him, so that the days of hardship were over, and the inheritance was
-being nursed back into something like its former splendour.
-
-A fond yearning to regain some of the lost years of their childhood had
-caused their mother to keep both her boys beside her, giving them a
-tutor instead of a school. But she had another motive which she tried
-to believe was paramount--the desire to bring them early into her own
-religious fold.
-
-During four years Alistair had had his mind steeped day after day
-in the emotional atmosphere of primitive Christianity. This was his
-mother’s native air, and she could not have been brought to believe
-that it might be drawn with difficulty and pain by any human creature.
-If the knowledge had been forced upon her that such a training was
-unwholesome for either of her sons, her universe would have become a
-maze without a plan; her God would have been shattered like Dagon.
-
-To both the boys this training came as part of the yoke which age
-imposes on youth. Boyhood is always surrendering its secret convictions
-at the bidding of authority; the process called education is one long
-defeat of the barbarians by the legions. Their mother heard them repeat
-the phrases which she had taught them, and believed in her work.
-
-A cold temper and unimaginative mind enabled the elder boy to take this
-religion in the formal spirit in which it has been taken by a great
-part of mankind for two thousand years. As a theory of the universe
-it received his unquestioning assent; as a life-motive it left him
-practically untouched. He became the unconscious hypocrite whom the
-Gospel was written to make us loathe, and who has governed the Church
-ever since the Gospel was written.
-
-On Alistair his mother’s teaching had another effect. A poet’s
-sensitiveness on the score of words made him shrink at times from
-the familiar language of his mother’s creed. But his temperament
-responded readily to the exciting influence of religious emotion, and
-the cunning which usually accompanies hysteria taught him to use this
-faculty for his own protection. When he had been naughty during the
-day--and Alistair was already marked out as the naughty one of the
-two brothers--it was his mother’s habit to come into his room after
-he had gone to bed, and try to soften him. She knelt beside the bed,
-and talked and prayed with him till the boy melted in a confession of
-wrongdoing, and the two made it up with kisses and tears.
-
-These scenes had endeared Alistair to his mother, whose tenderness for
-her younger son aroused the elder’s secret jealousy. They had been
-ruinous to the boy himself, whom they made an emotional debauchee. He
-spent his sincerity in spasms of repentance which left him worse than
-before. There were yet other consequences: the nervous organization is
-a sensitive instrument, which ignorant fingers do not touch for nothing.
-
-For a year past Alistair had inspired his mother with hopes that he was
-ripening for the change of mind which she called conversion. He had
-become more serious; his gaiety was sometimes dashed with melancholy;
-he wrote verses which she treasured up as evidences of the direction
-his intelligence was taking. The verses were echoes of the poets whom
-she had placed in his hands, and her favourite poets were Miss Havergal
-and Dr. Bonar. He had taken to wandering much by himself in the park;
-sometimes on returning from these rambles he posed her with strange
-questions about the nature of the Deity and the contradictions that
-abound in every positive system of the universe.
-
-The mother drew happy auguries. Like Hannah, she dedicated her son
-to the Lord, and wrote to the Archbishop who was his godfather, to
-interest him in the boy.
-
-All this time one half of life had been carefully hidden from Alistair.
-Of the great mystery of life he knew less than an animal knows.
-For him, as for all his generation, the divine lore which was once
-communicated in solemn temples and amid consecrated groves, which
-is still given the character of a revelation among the worshipping
-millions beneath the Himalayas, lay under the blight of the great
-ascetic frenzy which spread round the Mediterranean zone two thousand
-years ago. The temple had long been a stew, the revelation a vulgar
-jest bandied about on furtive lips; the groves were cut down, the
-torches were blown out, the musical instruments were broken, and the
-rite of initiation had passed from the holy places into the sewers. The
-road of darkness was esteemed the road of safety; and Alistair walked
-upon it in ignorance alike of the law of Heaven and of the taboo of
-man.
-
-The Garden of Eden is like that flying island of Arabian geography
-which descends unawares in front of the adventurer, and tempts him
-to tread its enamelled turf, surrendering his senses to the hymeneal
-music of its birds, and the perfume of its myriad flowers. The earth
-was changed for Alistair by a keeper’s daughter, a girl of his own
-age, with a face fair as an apple-blossom, in whose heart the seed of
-ambition had been early sown by a vain mother’s hand. All through one
-summer-tide they met by stealth among the woods of Trent; while she,
-intoxicated by the young lord’s notice, listened with uncomprehending
-ears to that passionate romance which youth pours out at the first
-touch of love: and for him the sunshine sprinkled all the air with
-orange-blossoms through the green network overhead, the silver
-birch-stems rose like rejoicing fountains in the glimmering shade,
-the hum of insects lapped his enamoured ear like the vague music of a
-shell, the very ground distilled a rapturous scent, and all his pulses
-sang within him as his life swept into the great throb of the universal
-world.
-
-The retribution which followed on discovery tortured him still in
-the remembrance. What such a discovery must have cost a mother like
-his, he could not gauge. He only knew that every sacred feeling in
-his own breast had been outraged, the innermost sanctuary had been
-profaned, the delicate blossoms had been uprooted and trampled in the
-mire. He had a recollection of hideous scenes, of questions that were
-intolerable insults, of a visit from the Archbishop, who came too late
-to mediate, and, finally, of a term of penal servitude passed in an
-institution abroad, from which Alistair returned a Roman Catholic.
-
-In his mother’s eyes this was a moral bankruptcy. Fresh influences were
-brought to bear on the perverted one; the rest of his youth was passed
-in drifting from one guardianship to another, under a perpetual cloud,
-and manhood found him without faith and without a career.
-
-That his mother had loved him throughout Alistair knew well, though
-even he did not know how much she loved him. Perhaps the love between
-them had been strengthened by the tragedy of the past. It seemed to
-Alistair now to have been the old story of the hen that has hatched
-out a duckling from the shell. He thought of his mother with a painful
-mingling of wrath and tenderness, believing her to have been cruel to
-him, and knowing that she had been cruel to herself for his sake. The
-mother whom his instinct taught him to demand was one of those mothers
-of the passionate races, who live only to be the slaves of their sons,
-to hear their confessions, to soothe their remorse, to abet them in
-their worst crimes. His grievance against his own mother was that she
-had not taken him for what he was. The changeling had been tormented
-in the hope of giving it a human soul.
-
-When he came of age he took the problem out of her hands. “You do not
-understand me,” he told her one day; “I must live my own life.”
-
-His brother, Trent, had granted him an allowance of a thousand a year,
-which his tradesmen raised to five thousand. The contents of every shop
-in London were at the command of the brother of the Duke of Trent and
-Colonsay, on condition that the brother of the Duke paid double for
-them. The shopkeepers began by cheating him, as though they foresaw
-that he would end by cheating them.
-
-Stuart hardly knew that he was extravagant. Most of the ways in which
-he spent money were ways in which he heard other men praised for
-spending it. He collected miniatures; he bought old cabinets, which
-were repaired for him by skilful workmen; he published tiny volumes
-with his own poems, in which a strain of southern passion mingled with
-the dreamy melancholy of the northern seas. His pleasures were those
-of a poet, not a man about town. He lent money to those about him, to
-the poets whose names were unknown to the readers of magazines, to the
-painters whose pictures were abhorred by the Royal Academy, to the
-musicians who could not make bright tunes. Such men have no right to
-live; but Stuart fed them at his table, and rejoiced in the incense of
-their praise.
-
-It was the difference between Lord Alistair Stuart and the men who
-surrounded him which had first fascinated Molly Finucane. He had been
-for her a mystery which she was bent on exploring. When after a time
-she found that this intellectual side of her lover’s character was out
-of her reach, she became jealous, and sought to choke it. It was of
-such as she that a certain acquaintance of Stuart’s in those days wrote
-that all men kill the thing they love.
-
-In her own way, and with what truth was left to her, Molly Finucane did
-love Alistair Stuart. That was the part of it which others could not
-be expected to allow for. The life in the house in Chelsea had been
-as regular as that of any married pair. The only visitors received
-were Stuart’s friends. Molly had discarded all her old associates
-as completely as though she had been really married--always with
-the exception of Mendes, whom Alistair sometimes asked to dinner.
-She had practised what in her eyes was economy, playing the novel
-part of housekeeper, enjoying the strange experience of giving
-orders to tradesmen, and calculating the prices of household stuff.
-Unfortunately, she could not shake off at once the habits of reckless
-expense which she had been taught. Her nature had come to crave for
-excitement as an opium-eater’s craves for the drug, and the only
-amusements she knew were costly ones. The play, for Molly, meant a
-brougham, a little dinner at a smart restaurant, a private box, and
-a supper at some Bohemian night-club--in short, the spending of five
-or ten pounds. She went to the theatres and music-halls very often.
-On the nights when she did not go she felt disastrously bored, and
-wished herself dead. Then she had to have flowers every day, and a new
-bracelet or some such trifle every week, or she felt herself neglected.
-She had acquired the fatal idea that the love of men was only to be
-gauged by the money they spent on her. An unbroken stream of these
-offerings was necessary to convince her that Stuart had not tired of
-her.
-
-In reality, it was the attempt to live within his means which destroyed
-Lord Alistair’s credit. As soon as his tradesmen heard of the house
-in Chelsea they began to send in their bills, and as soon as the
-money-lenders heard that he was paying his debts they refused to help
-him. It was the Duke of Trent whom they had trusted to, and now they
-recollected that the Duke’s estates had come to him heavily mortgaged.
-They told Lord Alistair to apply to his brother, and his brother told
-him to leave Molly Finucane. Like the rest of the world, he believed
-that it was the house in Chelsea which had brought his brother down.
-
-Alistair had retorted by filing his petition. It was to be open war at
-last, he told himself. If the head of his house would not heed him,
-neither would he heed the honour of the house.
-
-And now, as he stood on the bridge and gazed at the spectacle of the
-night, it was borne in upon him more fully and more clearly that he was
-not without companions; that his case was not a solitary case, but
-that other houses besides the house of Trent and Colonsay had their
-younger sons and their failures; that other lands besides Oig had given
-their children to be devoured by the minotaur called Civilization; that
-his was only one of those broken lives which underlie the pageantry of
-empire, like the rubble underneath rich palace walls.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-He turned once more to regard the spectacle of the night, and his eye
-swept over the two edifices that confronted each other immediately
-above the bridge, the palace, and the hospital; the chosen of the race
-gathered in the one, its victims in the other, as if civilization were
-an army whose headquarters and whose ambulance stood side by side. His
-eye rested long where the road leading down into the dark purlieus of
-poverty and crime flared and roared like the mouth of sheol; then it
-returned to the northern side, where the roof of a great mansion was
-just visible above the trees.
-
-What he saw there was the form of a grey-haired woman seated alone,
-thinking of her prodigal son, perhaps praying for him, perhaps
-expecting him. He threw one last backward glance towards the city of
-Ahriman, and then, with a shudder, he set his face towards the gates of
-Ormuzd, and walked swiftly off the bridge.
-
-All the time he had been standing there a prayer had been going up to
-Heaven: “Give me back my son, O Lord! Give me back my son!”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III
-
-THE PRODIGAL SON
-
-
-ALISTAIR walked past the lights of Palace Yard, and turned into the
-broad avenue of Parliament Street, bordered by the vast offices of the
-British Empire. When he had gone half-way to Charing Cross, he turned
-aside again, and presently found himself in front of a high and sombre
-house, one of a row whose windows overlooked the river and the bridge.
-It stood back in a bleak garden enclosed in tall iron railings, where
-nothing grew but grass and trees and ivy, all of the same shade of
-soot-encrusted green. This was Colonsay house, a relic of the days when
-the Thames had been a glorious highway between the cities of London and
-Westminster, a highway lined with the dwellings of great nobles, and
-bright with painted barges and fluttering banners.
-
-Now a slight air of decay hung over the old house, and it seemed
-conscious that it had outlived its generation. The tide no longer
-washed the foot of its lawn, and rich brocades and jewelled sword-hilts
-no longer sparkled under its trees. It stood there with its few
-neighbours, isolated among the encroaching buildings of a newer age,
-and waiting its own turn to be devoured.
-
-Stuart hesitated for a moment as he stood outside the door. There had
-been a time when he would have walked through that door as of right.
-But it was long since he had lived under his brother’s roof, and more
-than a year since he had passed this doorway last. During the time that
-he had been living in Chelsea he had shunned all intercourse with his
-family. His mother had written to him more than once, but her letters
-had remained unanswered. The letters were entreaties to him to abandon
-the woman who was dragging him down, and he had not abandoned her.
-
-He raised his hand to the bell, and jerked it roughly. Then he stood
-waiting, half ashamed to encounter the gaze of his brother’s servants,
-and resenting their curiosity in advance.
-
-“Is the Duke in?” he asked of the man who opened the door. He had no
-wish to meet his brother that night.
-
-In the first moment the footman did not recognize his questioner. The
-next his face lit up with an expression of respectful sympathy.
-
-“No, my lord; his Grace is at the House of Lords. But will your
-lordship come in?”
-
-As he threw the door wider the butler, an old family retainer, stepped
-forward. His face wore the same expression as the footman’s, a little
-less subdued, and he ventured on a word of welcome.
-
-“I hope I see your lordship well? Her Grace is upstairs, and I believe
-would be very glad to see your lordship.”
-
-“Very well, Stokes,” said Stuart shortly, giving the footman his hat
-and stick. “I’ll go up.”
-
-The servants fell back with faces of demure congratulation as he passed
-between them to the foot of the staircase. It was evident that they
-viewed this home-coming of the prodigal as the pleasant and appropriate
-ending to a deeply interesting history. Perhaps Lord Alistair’s
-transgressions had aroused in their breasts a secret fellow-feeling
-such as they could never have for their upright, decorous master. The
-conduct which had disgraced Lord Alistair in the eyes of his equals had
-made him a hero in theirs. Disgrace, after all, is a relative term;
-what is ignominy in the schoolroom is often glory in the playground.
-
-Alistair reached the first floor, and took his way to the
-well-remembered little drawing-room, where his mother always sat when
-she was alone. Tapping softly on the panel, he opened the door and went
-in.
-
-It was an old-fashioned room with narrow Georgian windows, and the
-walls were decorated with painted panels, set in elaborate gilt
-scrollwork, with small tail-pieces underneath, in the style of an
-Italian altar-piece. A picture of sportsmen in a coppice was completed
-by a dead pheasant below, and a sea-piece was similarly finished off
-with a group of shells. In contrast with this eighteenth-century
-elegance the furniture was of that ungraceful, stereotyped pattern
-which has not yet been out of date long enough to be esteemed for its
-curiosity. It was the work of an age which valued the useful above the
-beautiful, and preferred the accurate production of machinery to the
-irregular handiwork of the craftsman. It was the age of the political
-economists, when Free Trade was the gospel of humanity, and the world’s
-ideal took shape in a huge bazaar. It was an age in which England ruled
-the world, and the shopkeeper ruled England, and men deemed that the
-millennium could not be far away.
-
-The religion of this age was Evangelical Christianity. The work
-of Wellesley and Whitefield still leavened the national life from
-the cottage to the throne. The Catholic conspiracy had not become
-formidable; the rising tide of knowledge had not yet sapped the
-foundations of the old beliefs. A miscellany of Hebrew literature, half
-savage, half sublime, bound up with the cryptic legends of the Roman
-catacombs, and rendered into English by the intellect of the sixteenth
-century, was accepted as the personal composition of the Creator,
-inspired, infallible, and irrevocable, from the first letter in the
-word _Genesis_ to the last in the word _Amen_. Salvation by faith was
-the watchword of the Churches; the unbeliever was assured that his
-best actions were but additional sins until he had gone through that
-spiritual experience which brought him within the pale of the redeemed.
-
-Yet this strait, remorseless creed educated women who were gracious
-and beautiful in their lives, and of such women Caroline, Duchess
-of Trent, was one. She accepted her creed, as the scientist accepts
-the law of cause and effect, without understanding it, but her logic
-was able to reconcile it with hope and charity, and with a tireless
-devotion to the good of all about her.
-
-They who are willing to sacrifice themselves will never want those who
-are willing to accept the sacrifice. In her girlhood Caroline had been
-a maid of honour in the Court of Queen Victoria, and she had ever since
-been one of that small circle whom the widowed monarch counted as her
-personal friends. The needs of selfish parents had forced her into an
-early marriage with a sickly old man whom she nursed faithfully and
-kindly, but whom she could not love. He died before she was thirty,
-leaving her with enough wealth to attract Lord Alexander Stuart, the
-penniless younger son of a great but impoverished house.
-
-To this man, as handsome as he was worthless, she gave her heart and
-her fortune, in accordance with the common law which mates the best
-with the worst, and he had become the father of her children before she
-made the discovery that he was an irreclaimable drunkard and gambler.
-For their own sakes she consented to part with her children, and she
-passed the next ten years of her life in accompanying the man to whom
-she believed herself bound, from Continental hotel to hotel, keeping up
-a hopeless struggle against the vices which were dragging him down to
-the grave.
-
-Her loyalty, and perhaps some relic of her love, survived him, and no
-word of hers had ever betrayed his memory to his sons. In the face of
-the younger she found a resemblance to his father which had insensibly
-gained on her affection, and although she had tried to disguise it from
-them, and from herself, both the boys soon knew that Alistair was their
-mother’s favourite. When the courtesy rank of Duchess was conferred on
-her by royal patent, she did not value the distinction for herself,
-but her mother’s heart felt a secret pride that her handsome, naughty
-Alistair should be given the style of Lord.
-
-The catastrophe which opened her eyes to the meaning of heredity
-rendered her frantic with grief and shame. That likeness between
-Alistair and his father which had fascinated her for so long now became
-a source of terror. The handsome boyish face, with its ruddy cheeks and
-bright eyes and clustering curls, which had gladdened her sight, was
-now a dreadful chart in which she read prophecies of evil to come.
-
-Under the stress of panic she took that step which she had since
-bitterly regretted, which had cost Alistair his religion, and had cost
-her his confidence. Ever since that miserable time mother and son had
-remained apart, gazing at each other wistfully across a chasm which
-neither could bridge.
-
-The life which he had been leading since his manhood seemed to her a
-dangerous, if not an evil one. She saw him moving in a world which was
-wholly strange to her, a world in which her own ideals of conduct were
-ignored or despised. She heard that he had written poems which she was
-advised not to see. Trent told her they were unfit for any decent woman
-to read, and the Archbishop added that they were blasphemous. When she
-ventured on a remonstrance with Alistair he replied by telling her that
-art was above morality, and that a poet must be a law unto himself.
-
-Like all the mothers of her generation, she would fain have shut her
-eyes to one side of her son’s life. But even she could not help but
-hear of such a portent as Molly Finucane. The Archbishop felt it
-his duty to warn her. Trent openly complained that his brother was
-disgracing the family, and threatened to forbid him the house. He might
-have carried out the threat if Alistair had not ceased his visits of
-his own accord.
-
-By this time sorrow had helped her sixty years to make the Duchess an
-old woman. Her figure was still upright, but her hair was silvered. Her
-face, at once sweet and venerable, was marked by a settled sadness. Her
-elder son had been as great a comfort to her as his brother had been a
-trial, and she had learned to value him more and more. Yet not all her
-pride in Trent’s career could soothe her inward grief and yearning over
-the marred life of the son who had gone astray.
-
-Alistair came in softly, and found his mother in tears. At the sound
-of his footstep on the threshold her face flushed, and she rose up,
-breathing fast, and went quickly to meet him, with a great joy shining
-in her eyes.
-
-“My boy!” she cried hysterically. “My boy Alistair!”
-
-They stood there silently for a space, with their arms round one
-another’s necks, and both felt comforted, for these two loved each
-other very tenderly, and they had not met for a long time.
-
-Such moments do not last. The first gush of affection spent, they were
-left face to face, two natures belonging to different worlds.
-
-While Alistair led his mother to a seat he asked anxiously:
-
-“When is Trent likely to be back? I don’t want to see him.”
-
-The Duchess looked troubled.
-
-“He won’t be in till late, I expect. He is introducing a Bill in the
-House to-night, and he told me not to sit up for him. I think there is
-another debate on first, about the Church.”
-
-Alistair heard her listlessly. The doings of the House of Lords sounded
-in his ears just then like the fretting of phantoms on a stage. He had
-struck his foot for the first time against reality. What does anyone
-know of life who has never risen in the morning wondering under what
-roof he shall lay his head at night?
-
-“But you ought to see him,” the mother went on to say. “He is your
-brother--neither of you should ever forget that. You want his help,
-dear, and I am sure he will help you if you will only let him.”
-
-“He should have helped me before,” Alistair returned in a resentful
-tone. “I know Trent; he would not lift a finger to save me from being
-hanged unless he were afraid of what people would say.”
-
-“Don’t be bitter,” the mother pleaded. “Your brother means well by you,
-I am sure.”
-
-“Nonsense, mother; he would be only too glad to get rid of me
-altogether. I have always been a thorn in his side. He looks upon me
-as the black sheep of the family, and always will. Trent would like to
-pack me off to the Klondike for the next ten years, I expect.”
-
-As this was one of the suggestions which had actually fallen from the
-Duke’s lips that day, when the news of his brother’s insolvency had
-been brought to the house, the Duchess found it difficult to answer.
-
-“Klondike would be better for you than the life you have been leading
-here,” she said as gently as she could. “Don’t you think it would be
-better for you to leave London and go abroad for a time out of the
-reach of temptation?”
-
-The young man frowned. He knew very well what was meant by the word
-“temptation.”
-
-“I can’t go without money,” he said shortly.
-
-“I could let you have a little, dear, and James, I know, will let
-you have as much as you want, as long as he knows that it won’t be
-spent”--she hesitated an instant--“in bad ways.”
-
-Alistair scowled.
-
-“What business is it of his how I spend my money?”
-
-His mother raised her hand with a certain quiet dignity.
-
-“It is my business, at all events, to know what kind of life my boy is
-living, and to sorrow when I know that he is living in open sin and
-shame.”
-
-To this speech Alistair made no answer. He could have made none that
-would not have added to his mother’s pain.
-
-“How much do you want?” the Duchess asked presently in a weary tone. It
-was not the first conversation between them that had ended at the same
-point.
-
-The young man started up.
-
-“Look here, mother, I didn’t come here to ask for money; I’m past that
-now. It doesn’t matter to me whether I stay in London or go abroad.
-Trent can decide for himself about that. Anyway, I must go under for
-a time, I suppose, and I don’t much care if I ever come up again. I
-was out on Westminster Bridge just now, wondering whether it wouldn’t
-be the easiest way to drop over, and put an end to it all; and then I
-thought of you, and felt sorry for your sake more than my own; and so I
-made up my mind to come and see you--and here I am.”
-
-The poor lady shook a good deal as she listened to this speech; and,
-remembering her prayer just before Alistair came in, she breathed a
-silent thanksgiving, and the tears came back into her eyes.
-
-“Oh, my poor boy, can’t you see that all this is the result of the life
-you have chosen!” She would have liked to make a more direct reference
-to her religious belief, but feared to do so. She had learnt by this
-time that her son and she had no common ground in that direction.
-“Why--why don’t you leave that wicked woman, and start a new life? She
-is ruining you, body and soul.”
-
-Alistair frowned impatiently.
-
-“I can’t let you say that, mother. It’s not her fault, Heaven knows!
-The poor little thing has tried to do her best for me. She is a great
-deal better than some of your good women, who would draw their skirts
-aside if they passed her in the street.”
-
-He spoke roughly, but not disrespectfully.
-
-The Duchess sighed heavily.
-
-“My unhappy boy, you know nothing about good women. You never meet
-them; you might be a different man if you did. If I could only bring
-you under the influence of some really good, devoted girl, such as I
-know”--a name rose to the Duchess’s lips, but she deemed it wiser not
-to pronounce it at that moment--“who would love you well enough to
-overlook the past, she might redeem you even now.”
-
-Alistair sighed, too, at the picture called up by his mother’s words.
-He thought of poor little neurotic Molly, with her spasms of utter
-wretchedness, her hysterical fits, her occasional drunken outbreaks
-in which all the gutter in her blood came to the surface; he thought
-of her perpetual, feverish craving for excitement, of her secret
-hatred of his intellectual pursuits, of their ill-managed, disorderly
-household, with insolent servants going and coming every month. And
-then he contrasted the portrait with that of some sweet and gracious
-maiden--such a girl as his mother must have been in her youth--who
-would bring peace into his life, whose presence would be soothing as
-the sound of church bells heard at evening across the autumn fields,
-who would guide and rule their home through happy years of wedded
-friendship. Alistair sighed.
-
-His mother heard and drew courage from the sigh. Already her mind was
-busy in working out a scheme for her boy’s salvation. Her eagerness led
-her to make a false step at the outset.
-
-“If you will go away even for a short time I shall feel happier,” she
-pleaded. “Won’t you try to separate yourself from this woman? If you
-like to go abroad I could come with you, perhaps. You have often said
-that you should like to visit Rome?”
-
-Alistair shook his head stubbornly.
-
-“I cannot go away without Molly.”
-
-The Duchess of Trent flushed. It seemed to her that this answer was an
-insult, even though she had in a manner forced it from him.
-
-“I wonder that you dare say that to me,” she said, with a touch of
-anger.
-
-“I beg your pardon, mother. But it’s no good our discussing such
-things. I can’t expect you to understand how I feel about her. She has
-given up everything--you may say she has reformed--for my sake, and if
-I were to send her adrift now I should feel myself a blackguard. Why,
-God help me, I believe the poor little thing’s been selling her jewels
-to pay the housekeeping bills for the last few months. If she’d been my
-wife she couldn’t have done more than that.”
-
-His mother started, and a look of dreadful apprehension came into her
-eyes.
-
-“Don’t talk like that, Alistair! I’m getting old, and it frightens me.
-Promise me, promise me, my own dear son, that you will never _marry_
-her?”
-
-In her agitation the poor lady rose and went to him, laying a pleading
-hand on his shoulder as she looked into his face.
-
-“No, I don’t suppose I shall ever do that,” he said.
-
-But he spoke in a tone of dejection, like a man not certain of himself,
-and the mother’s fear was not relieved.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV
-
-A FAMILY COUNCIL
-
-
-THE Duke of Trent and Colonsay, after shaking hands with the Prime
-Minister, and receiving the congratulations of several colleagues on
-his first appearance as a Minister in charge of an important measure,
-was walking out of the House, when he felt himself tapped familiarly on
-the shoulder from behind.
-
-He turned round in some annoyance, for he was careful of his dignity,
-but the look of rebuke was exchanged for one of respectful pleasure
-as he perceived that the hand which had touched him was the Duke of
-Gloucester’s.
-
-“Are you going back to Colonsay House?” the Prince inquired.
-
-“I _was_ going,” the Minister returned, conveying by the change of
-tense that his movements were for the Prince to dispose of.
-
-“That’s right; then I’ll walk round with you, if I shan’t put you out,”
-Prince Herbert said, linking his arm in friendly fashion in the Duke’s.
-
-The two companions were old acquaintances; they might almost be called
-friends. They had been boys together, in so far as a Prince is allowed
-to be a boy. Their houses were in the same part of the country, and the
-cordial relations between the Duchess Caroline and her royal mistress
-had been renewed by their descendants.
-
-At that time, indeed, Prince Herbert had been more intimate with
-Alistair Stuart than with James. The younger boy’s merry, versatile
-disposition had made him a favourite, while his brother was rather a
-dull companion. But the course of their later lives had tended to keep
-up the intercourse between the Prince and the Duke, while Alistair had
-gradually drifted away into paths in which it was impossible for his
-royal friend to keep him company.
-
-The new Home Secretary expected to receive some compliment as they
-passed out under the vast vault of the Victoria Tower and turned
-eastward. His speech that night had been a marked success. The Bill
-he had just introduced was one to provide the punishment of flogging
-for the gangs of street-boys who infested the southern side of the
-river. He had denounced the enemies of order with conviction, and the
-House had cordially endorsed his righteous anger. No one had been
-weak enough to think, or bold enough to suggest, that there was any
-better way to deal with the hooligan than to flog him. There had been
-a time when England could export her savages to savage lands, but, by
-some wonderful political alchemy, no sooner did she cast her convict
-colonies on the shores of America and Australia than they rose up
-mighty states, and with the zeal of renegades refused to harbour the
-next criminal generation. Even the army, so long the last refuge of
-the blackguard, was become respectable. Science was already lifting a
-confident voice to preach extermination for the unfit, and society,
-puzzled between the old creed and the new, found itself too weak to
-crucify, but not too weak to scourge.
-
-It was with a sense of disappointment that the young Minister found
-that their walk was to be a silent one. The Prince said nothing till
-they were in Colonsay House.
-
-“I suppose the Duchess is not up so late as this?” the Prince asked, as
-they entered the hall.
-
-“My mother generally goes on about this time, but I will ask. Stokes,
-go and see if her Grace is in her room, and if so tell her his Royal
-Highness has asked for her.”
-
-The Duke led the way into a Japanese smoking lounge which opened
-off the stairs. A large bow-window revealed the panorama of the
-night-enchanted river, the reflections of the bridge lamps veining the
-tide with molten gold.
-
-Prince Herbert walked to the window and gazed out speechless for
-several minutes, during which his host strewed a lacquered table with
-cigars of a rare brand, named after the Prince himself.
-
-“The grandest view in Europe, I always think,” the Prince observed,
-as he turned reluctantly from the window. “And yet there is something
-dreadful in it. It is so utterly removed from Nature. It makes one
-think of the underground life which we are told the race will one day
-have to take to.”
-
-“We have taken to it already, it seems to me,” Trent answered. “We
-travel underground, our light and water come to us underground, our
-food is cooked underground, and I am told there are underground stables
-in some parts of London.”
-
-Prince Herbert closed his lips as he walked across to choose a cigar.
-It was not the first time that he had found James Stuart a heavy person
-to talk to. He could not help comparing this commonplace mind, with
-its prim grasp of daily life and its impotence to rise to any higher
-plane, with the brilliant and sensitive imagination of Alistair, like
-a soaring bubble, one moment glowing with the reflected radiance of a
-thousand stars, the next moment smashed against the coarse paling of
-the roadway.
-
-Yet it was this man who enjoyed honour and favour, while the other was
-become an outcast. It was to this man that he himself was about to sue
-for some toleration of the other.
-
-He had just struck a light when the door opened to admit Alistair’s
-mother. With the quick instinct of sympathy she had divined the object
-of the royal visit, and she pressed a warm kiss on the Prince’s
-forehead as he came forward to greet her.
-
-“My dear aunt,” he exclaimed, using the title which he had given her in
-his boyish days, “I hope you haven’t come downstairs on my account. I
-ought to have gone up to you.”
-
-“I would much rather sit here, and see you smoke,” she said, with an
-affectionate smile. “That is, if an old woman is not in the way of two
-young men.”
-
-Prince Herbert hastened to draw forward a chair, but the Duchess
-refused to sit down till the visitor had lit his cigar. As soon as some
-servants who had brought in a tray of spirits had left the room, the
-Prince opened his appeal.
-
-“I am very sorry about Alistair,” he said.
-
-A frown passed quickly over the Duke’s face at this allusion to the
-family trouble, but his mother looked up gratefully.
-
-“I was sure you would be,” she responded. “Poor foolish boy! If only I
-could find a way to save him!”
-
-“Couldn’t this have been prevented?” inquired Prince Herbert, glancing
-at the elder brother.
-
-James shook his head decisively.
-
-“It was impossible. My mother will tell you I did everything I could.
-Twice I have got him to give me an account of his debts, and settled
-them, as I thought. But I don’t believe now that he ever let me know
-one half of what he really owed. It is like pouring water into a sieve
-to try and help Alistair.”
-
-“Do you know what the amount is now?”
-
-“Fifty or sixty thousand, I understand. I don’t suppose he knows within
-ten thousand or so himself. It is two years’ revenue of the property.
-Everything is entailed; I can only mortgage my life interest, and that
-means paying a heavy premium for life insurance. Ever since he came of
-age I have given him a thousand a year, and of course he could have his
-rooms here if he chose to lead a decent life. My mother knows that that
-is the very utmost I can do for him if I mean to keep up the estates as
-they ought to be kept up. I have to think of a jointure for my wife, if
-I should ever marry, and some provision for my own children.”
-
-The Duke delivered his defence in an injured tone, as though he felt
-that the sympathy of his audience was against him. Prince Herbert, in
-his quiet way, returned to the attack.
-
-“I have really no right to ask you, but I should have thought your
-properties brought you in a great deal more.”
-
-“They are still heavily encumbered,” was the answer. “There are
-mortgages on nearly everything except the Scotch land, and that brings
-in nothing. I might let the moors, I suppose, but in my opinion that
-would be another disgrace. I am very strongly opposed to giving these
-Americans and stockbrokers the pick of all the historic places in Great
-Britain. I blame Cantire for letting Mull.”
-
-This time the Duke spoke with undisguised warmth. It was a relief to
-him to silence the misgivings from which his own mind was not entirely
-free on the subject of Alistair.
-
-“After all, I owe a duty to my people, as well as to Alistair,” he
-continued. “I am the head of the clan as well as the landlord. I regard
-myself as a constitutional monarch on my own estate, and I have no
-right to sacrifice my tenants in order to enrich Molly Finucane.”
-
-Prince Herbert felt himself rebuked. He doubted no more than others
-that the house in Chelsea had been Alistair’s undoing.
-
-“Is there no hope of rescuing him?” He looked hesitatingly at the
-Duchess.
-
-“I have just seen Alistair,” she confessed, not without some fear of
-her elder son’s resentment. “He came here to see me to-night.”
-
-“To ask for money, I suppose,” said the Duke.
-
-The Duchess was wounded by the taunt.
-
-“He did not ask for any, and I did not give him any,” she said with
-dignity. “I told him I was sure that you would help him if he would
-only leave that woman.”
-
-“And what did he say?”
-
-“I don’t think he meant what he said; I can’t think so. But he talked
-about her in such a way that for a moment I thought he wanted to marry
-her.”
-
-A fierce exclamation broke from the Minister, a milder one from Prince
-Herbert.
-
-“If he does that, he shall never have another farthing from me; I will
-never acknowledge him again!”
-
-“His infatuation for her is terrible,” the mother went on. “He even
-defended her to me. He told me that she had made sacrifices for
-him--that she was paying for the house.”
-
-The two men exchanged glances. This was a deeper depth than either of
-them had suspected. Perhaps the Duchess would have suppressed this part
-of her information if she had understood how it would strike a man.
-
-“Is there no chance that the woman herself may give him up now?”
-
-The Duchess shook her head doubtfully.
-
-“I should think not, from what he says. I hardly know what it is best
-to do. I think perhaps he might be induced to give an undertaking not
-to marry her, in return for some assistance.”
-
-The Home Secretary made a face of disgust.
-
-“So I am to be blackmailed, am I? I have to bribe my brother not to
-make a street-girl the next Duchess of Colonsay.”
-
-Prince Herbert looked distressed.
-
-“Are you sure that is the right way to go to work with Alistair?” he
-asked gently. “I have always believed that there was good in him, you
-know. Perhaps if you tried to appeal to his generosity you might do
-more than you suppose.”
-
-Alistair’s mother gave the speaker a grateful look.
-
-“Thank you, Bertie. It is very good of you to plead for my poor
-boy. I think, James dear, you may have been a little harsh with him
-sometimes.”
-
-“If you were to go to him now,” the Prince pursued, “not to scold him
-at all, but just to say, ‘Well, old fellow, you’re in a mess; let’s see
-if I can get you out,’ I think you would find him very different to
-deal with.”
-
-The elder brother still frowned.
-
-“You don’t know Alistair as well as I do. He would most likely insult
-me. The last time I wrote to him, nearly a year ago, enclosing his
-allowance, and pointing out to him how the life he was leading was
-bound to end, he wrote back to me--my mother saw the note: ‘Dear Jim,
-your cheques are better than your sermons. Affectionately, Alistair.’”
-
-Prince Herbert by a severe effort checked the smile which rose to his
-lips.
-
-“After all, he is your brother,” he reminded the aggrieved senior.
-
-“I’m sure I don’t know why he should be,” the Duke muttered, but he let
-his voice drop at the sight of his mother’s sorrowful face.
-
-“I would see him myself,” the Prince added, “only I have to leave for
-Birmingham to-morrow to lay the foundation stone of a cathedral, and
-I am under engagements which will keep me in the district for several
-days.”
-
-The Duchess rose and walked across the room to where her son was
-seated, tapping a fretful foot upon the floor. She laid her hand on his
-arm, and looked him beseechingly in the face.
-
-“My son, my eldest son!” she murmured softly. “You need not be jealous
-of the poor prodigal. Say that you will go?”
-
-And James said that he would go.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-That night Alistair’s mother did not sleep.
-
-The bankrupt himself slept heavily after emptying a bottle of
-champagne, at whose expense he no longer hesitated. The new Minister
-tossed to and fro till the excitement of debate had evaporated, and
-then sank into a calm, health-giving slumber. Prince Herbert slept too;
-if he had passed a troubled night the wires would have flashed the news
-next day from Auckland to Vancouver.
-
-But the Duchess of Trent could not sleep. She spent a night of fear and
-sorrow, her mind haunted by the terrible word that spelt the wreck of
-her darling--the word _wife_.
-
-Rather than see her son married to Molly Finucane she could have prayed
-that he might be taken from the world. To her apprehension such a
-marriage meant ruin final and irretrievable, ruin social, moral and
-religious, ruin in this life and the next.
-
-As the first streak of dawn slanted through the window the poor lady
-crept from her bed, and throwing a dressing-gown round her shoulders,
-sat down at a small writing-table to write a letter.
-
-She began by addressing the envelope, with fingers that shook partly
-from cold and partly from anguish: _Miss Finucane, Elm Side, Chelsea_.
-
-She had made up her mind to take the desperate step of writing to
-Molly Finucane to implore her not to marry Alistair.
-
-She had first entertained the idea of going to Molly to make the appeal
-in person, but she had found herself unable to face the reception which
-she feared was possible. Molly Finucane’s reputation daunted her.
-The courage of this gentle, pious, pure-minded woman was not great
-enough to brave the scoffs of a girl whom common fame reported as more
-foul-mouthed than a bargeman.
-
-The letter took a long time to write. The words came slowly, and more
-than once the writer felt inclined to drop the pen in despair. But at
-last it was finished.
-
-The letter ran like this:
-
-  “DEAR MADAM:
-
-  “Will you pardon the liberty I take in addressing you? I write on
-  behalf of my son Alistair. I hardly know how to express myself
-  without seeming unkind, but you will understand what a shock it has
-  been to his mother to see him in the Bankruptcy Court. He was here
-  last night, and from what he has said to me I feel sure that you do
-  not wish him ill. His only chance of salvation is an entire change
-  of life, and that can only be brought about by your influence. The
-  tremendous hold you have over him is my only excuse for appealing to
-  you like this. I have no doubt you see as clearly as I do how his
-  present life is likely to end--in misery and distress. Nothing I
-  could do would be too much to show my gratitude if you would consent
-  to let his friends extricate him from his present way of life, and
-  give him a fresh start. He is still a young man, and unmarried, and
-  therefore we hope it is not too late to save him. If you are really
-  his friend you will yourself be anxious to do nothing that would
-  drag him deeper down into the abyss. In his present state of mind
-  I fear for him; he is hardly master of his actions, and might be
-  led in a thoughtless moment to take some step which he could never
-  recall. It is even possible that he might contemplate marrying you,
-  which--forgive my saying so--would entail certain misery on you both.
-  He would lose all his friends, and as soon as the awakening came he
-  would regard you as his bitterest enemy, and the cause of his ruin.
-  I hope you will not resent my speaking thus plainly; I need not say
-  I do so solely out of the natural anxiety of a mother for her boy,
-  and not out of any desire to say anything harsh or unkind toward you
-  personally. Most earnestly I implore you, I appeal to you in the name
-  of your own mother, to let me save my boy! With many apologies for
-  thus addressing you, believe me,
-
-                                      “Yours very sincerely,
-
-                                          “CAROLINE TRENT AND COLONSAY.”
-
-The letter finished, the Duchess betook herself to her praying-closet,
-where she remained till her maid appeared.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V
-
-BEERS COOPERAGE
-
-
-THE Duchess of Trent would never call the little chamber which she used
-for her devotions an oratory, thinking that term savoured of Romanism.
-The furniture of the praying-closet was as downright and old-fashioned
-as its name. There was a little table against the wall, supporting a
-plain cross of silver, a Bible, a Book of Common Prayer, a small book
-of devotions called Bogatzky’s “Golden Treasury,” containing portions
-of Scripture, with hymns and prayers for each day. An armchair and a
-kneeling-cushion were the only other articles in the closet, except on
-the walls, which were hung with a few illuminated texts of Scripture,
-and a fine engraving of one of Holman Hunt’s pictures. It was such
-a room as might have been used by the pious Countess of Huntingdon,
-or one of those saintly dames who kept alive the lamp of Evangelical
-Christianity through the days of the Regency.
-
-Here the Duchess was accustomed to spend many hours in pious
-meditation. Her nature was inclined to the tenets of the Quakers, but,
-like the royal mistress whom she had formerly served, she deemed that
-questions of ecclesiastical forms and government were unimportant,
-provided they did not come between the soul and its Maker. Her horror
-of Romanism had its root in the natural strength of her character; she
-revolted from the devotional practices of that communion as a healthy
-man might revolt from the use of crutches. Her education had taught
-her to consider that the claims of the Roman Church were a deliberate
-imposture, but she was too charitable to think evil of the individual
-members of its priesthood. The great wave of medieval reaction which
-was now sweeping over the English Church, and in a lesser degree
-over the Nonconformist bodies, had passed her by. The ecclesiastical
-subtleties which had exercised the mind of Newman and his followers
-were meaningless to her. She lived, as she humbly believed, in direct
-communion with God, whose Holy Spirit afforded her what light was
-necessary to salvation, and the Sacraments she regarded as mere outward
-tokens of a spiritual allegiance.
-
-Believing thus, her piety overflowed, not in the observance of fasts,
-nor in attendance at public services, but in works of benevolence. In
-the country parish where she had formerly lived she had discharged all
-the duties of a curate, except those connected with public worship.
-The cottagers believed in her more than in the Rector; on several
-occasions she had been asked to baptize some new-born infant whose
-little life seemed to be guttering out. Those of such children who
-survived were regarded as singularly blest, and their parents showed
-great reluctance to let the ceremony be repeated in the church with the
-proper forms. She had been in still greater request as a peacemaker;
-no quarrel ever outlived her interference in that office. Yet she
-never scolded the people, and seldom rebuked them. Her method was to
-take the causes of mutual offence upon herself, and ask forgiveness
-from each in turn. It became imprudent for her to speak severely to
-any of the villagers, even when rebuke was called for. She found out
-once that a drunkard whom she had sternly reproved for ill-treatment
-of his children was set upon in consequence by the entire village and
-beaten dangerously. Her removal to London was felt like death. The
-whole country-side was downcast. She arranged to keep up the payment
-of all her alms by the hands of the Rector, but this was not felt as
-a consolation. Half the population of the parish followed her on the
-day she went away from them, the mothers crying and holding up their
-babes to take a last look at her, the children silent and hanging their
-heads. The fathers at work in the fields cast down their tools as the
-carriage went by, and came and stood in the road, with bared heads,
-till it had disappeared.
-
-Afterwards the Rector, himself a well-meaning but dull man, meeting one
-of the men on his way home, said that he was glad to see so much love
-shown by the people for her Grace.
-
-The man stared at him.
-
-“Us love she, sir? Why, that’s nought. ’Twere her as loved we, sir,
-better than us love each other.”
-
-When the Duchess settled in her son’s London house, she sought at
-once for the spot where such service as hers was most needed. She
-did not apply to the minister of the parish in which Colonsay House
-was situated, lest, tempted by her great rank, he might exaggerate
-the claims of his own district, and perhaps push out some humbler
-worker. For though every Calvinist is something of a republican, and
-the Duchess of Trent made it a point of conscience not to set value
-on the title she bore, a wise prudence taught her never to forget the
-importance attached to it by others, and the unwholesome influence
-it was likely to have over a certain class of minds. She knew how
-to distinguish with perfect clearness between the courtship paid to
-her rank and the love which she inspired on her own account; in this
-respect again resembling the monarch who was her friend.
-
-After a careful investigation, carried out quietly by herself, the
-Duchess chose for her sphere of charitable labour a district lying
-in the south of the Thames, between Lambeth and Westminster Bridges.
-Here, under the shadow of the Archbishop’s Palace, she found heathendom
-as utter as, and vice more rank than that the Church was sending out
-missionaries to cope with in China and Hindustan.
-
-The Vicar of the parish in which this region was included, whose name
-was Dr. Coles, was a pious, learned, and zealous divine, but he was
-believed to construe his ordination vows according to a code of honour
-more Roman than English. The services at St. Jermyn’s bore little
-resemblance to those of a Protestant place of worship, and it was
-suspected that they were but the outward and visible signs of a still
-deeper cleavage between the Doctor’s private beliefs and those affirmed
-in the articles of religion which he had subscribed. The Vicarage
-was the resort of a great number of young men from the theological
-colleges, among whom the Vicar of St. Jermyn’s appeared to enjoy an
-authority not explained by his rank in the Church.
-
-Being a man advanced in years, and not being able to afford more than
-one curate, Dr. Coles was glad to avail himself of the services of
-helpers from outside the parish. Most of these were women of wealth
-and position, who came from their homes in the fashionable quarter to
-minister to the dwellers in the back streets of Lambeth. The reader of
-the society paragraphs in the daily press sometimes little suspected
-that the women whose names he saw in the list of guests at a grand
-dinner-party or dance the night before had spent their morning going
-about the slums of St. Jermyn’s.
-
-The Duchess of Trent and Colonsay went to work without fuss, calling
-herself at the homes of the poor, and winning an easy entrance by
-her own kindly and modest demeanour. The sullen drudges of these
-dark precincts soon learned to look for her coming, not as that of a
-patroness, but as that of a dear friend, who was interested in the
-small details of their daily lives, and ever ready to sympathize if a
-drunken husband overnight had left a black bruise on the poor thin arm,
-or a ne’er-do-well son had been sent to the cells for fighting in the
-streets. They never knew how closely their own stories often tallied
-with the experience of the lady who listened to them so wistfully, and
-who found in soothing their sorrows the means of living down her own.
-
-It was to this district that the Duchess took her way on the morning
-after she had seen her son.
-
-The carriage set her down at the corner of a small street, called, as
-if in mockery of a more splendid region, Little Bond Street. Walking
-down this street, where she was well known, and nodding pleasantly to
-those of its inmates who were at their doors, the Duchess presently
-came to a small court or yard, which bore on the wall of the archway
-opening out of the street the legend “Beers Cooperage.”
-
-Beers Cooperage no longer retained any trace of the manufacture of
-casks and barrels which some departed cooper had doubtless carried on
-there in bygone days. It consisted of a row of half a dozen very small
-cottages, with still smaller enclosures in front, which looked as
-though they might once have been meant for gardens. A last reminder of
-the time when Beers Cooperage had considered itself to be in a rural
-neighbourhood lingered on the window-sills of some of these cottages,
-which were ornamented with miniature wooden railings and five-barred
-gates, a touch of rustic fancy of which the modern Londoner has become
-incapable. Yet though the inhabitants of Beers Cooperage could not have
-originated these quaint decorations, and had probably never seen the
-country sights they were meant to recall, they took a pathetic pride
-in possessing them, and as soon as one of the railings or gates showed
-signs of decay it was carefully repaired.
-
-Who knows what influence such trifles have over all of us? It is
-certain that the dwellers in Beers Cooperage were generally quieter
-and more decent in their lives than most of their neighbours. One
-or two of them kept singing-birds, instead of terriers to kill rats
-with. The inmate of one house, a poor cripple, had even set himself
-resolutely to make his front garden a reality instead of a name, by
-planting a row of wallflowers, bought full-grown from a coster-monger,
-in what he evidently considered a bed. These plants, which perished
-periodically, and were regularly renewed, were regarded with reverence
-by the neighbours, and attracted pilgrims to view them from two or
-three streets away. But on the rare occasions when they burst into
-bloom of their own accord, no profane hand was allowed to come too near
-them. After being reverently smelled at a distance by the dwellers in
-the Cooperage, the blossoms were culled with anxious pride by their
-proprietor, and made into a nosegay for the Duchess, who carried them
-home with her, and set them on the table of her oratory. They were the
-only flowers ever seen on that simple altar.
-
-There was one house in Beers Cooperage, however, which differed
-strikingly from the rest. This was the hovel at the upper end, where
-the yard terminated in a high blank wall. There were no five-barred
-gates on the window-sills here; nothing but fragments, which hung
-rotting over the edge. Half the panes in the window were broken, and
-stuffed with dirty scraps of paper. The paling before the house was
-also fast disappearing, and the space in front was littered with broken
-tins and refuse not sufficiently noisome to attract the notice of the
-sanitary inspector. In the corner stood a kennel tenanted by a mongrel
-bulldog, the terror of the small children in the Cooperage. The door
-of this cottage generally stood half open, and through it came all
-day and night long sounds of angry scolding, or of oaths and drunken
-yells. The inside of the place matched with its outside. The floors and
-stairs looked as if they were never washed; the germs of a dozen fevers
-might have lurked in the dirt which was thickly piled everywhere. The
-miserable crockery and kitchen stuff was in as deplorable a condition
-as the windows. The bedding chiefly consisted of heaps of unwashed rags.
-
-This was the one house in Beers Cooperage into which the Duchess had
-never yet ventured to go. It was tenanted by an Irishman, who had
-threatened to wring the neck of any ---- Protestant who came meddling
-inside his doors.
-
-For the last fortnight the Cooperage had enjoyed a blessed spell of
-relief from the presence of this man, whose formidable strength, added
-to his choleric temper, rendered him the terror of his neighbours.
-He had been taken in the act of kicking an old man whom he had first
-knocked down. The magistrate before whom he was brought, who had just
-previously imposed a sentence of six months on a boy for the theft of
-a pair of boots, desirous, perhaps, to show that he could be merciful
-on occasion, sent the hooligan to prison for fourteen days, thereby
-releasing the rest of the inhabitants of Beers Cooperage for that exact
-length of time.
-
-On this morning, as soon as the Duchess came out from under the archway
-which formed the entrance to the Cooperage, she saw that something was
-amiss.
-
-Several of the cottages showed broken windows, and in one or two places
-even the cherished gates and rails had been damaged or destroyed. A
-broken birdcage lay on the ground in the far corner of the yard beside
-the dog’s kennel. All the doors of the houses were closed, except the
-Irishman’s, through which shrill screams were issuing. Lastly, the poor
-lame gardener was standing in his little plot disconsolately regarding
-the wreck of his cherished flowers, which looked as though they had
-been trampled over by a regiment.
-
-“Mike Finigan done it,” he explained, in answer to the Duchess’s
-sympathetic exclamation. “’E got outer prison yisterday, and ’e come
-in drunk lorst night with ’is crew, and played old ’Arry all over the
-place.”
-
-As if the presence of the Duchess had instantly become known, by what
-is called mental telepathy, to every resident in the Cooperage, all
-the other doors were thrown open, and the women crowded about her,
-recounting the tale of the Irishman’s misdeeds, and denouncing their
-author. The owner of the broken birdcage pointed to it, not without a
-certain melancholy pride in her pre-eminence of wrong.
-
-“’E broke it ’isself, and ’is mates killed my bird; and there I’m going
-to let it lie till I ’aves the law of ’im, the roughing.”
-
-Whether the woman believed that the continuance of the broken cage on
-its present spot would be a strong confirmation of her story, like the
-bricks in Jack Cade’s chimney, or whether she had some obscure feeling
-like that which causes a Brahmin creditor to starve himself to death,
-in a spirit of revenge, on his debtor’s doorstep, and considered the
-wrecked cage as a talisman which would work harm to the wrongdoer,
-she failed to explain. But the threat of legal proceedings was not
-taken seriously by her neighbours, the inhabitants of Beers Cooperage
-regarding an appeal to the constituted authorities with much the same
-feeling as schoolboys do a complaint to a master. The poor have an
-instinct which teaches them that the State is their enemy; they are a
-subject population within the borders of the Raj.
-
-While the group round the Duchess were still shrilly vociferating,
-evidently with the object of making their reflections reach the ears of
-the Irishman in his retreat, they were interrupted by the appearance of
-two figures in the mouth of the archway.
-
-One of these new-comers was a man, the other a girl of nineteen
-or twenty. At the sight of the first the Duchess of Trent frowned
-slightly, but her face brightened again as she caught sight of his
-companion, whom she had come out this morning in the secret hope of
-meeting.
-
-There is a type of womanhood known all over the world as English,
-and in that bright and gracious type Hero Vanbrugh was completely
-moulded. It is not a type of classical perfection, like that associated
-with the Roman virgin; it does not cast that intoxicating spell over
-the passions of men which Southern poets mean by love. The Southern
-language has no word for this type; it is only the dear old Northern
-names of maid and sweetheart and wife which express its tender charm.
-
-Hero Vanbrugh, as she stood framed in the archway, was a picture to
-gladden the eyes. It was not only that her features were delicately
-chiselled, and her body a harmony of slenderness and strength; there
-were men who declared that at some moments she seemed to them to be
-actually plain; but the freshness of the rain was in her face, and the
-laughter of the wind in her hair, and the blue breath of the sea in
-her eyes, and there were other men to whom at many moments she seemed
-the fairest sight that they had ever looked upon.
-
-The dress which she wore was of that unpretending serviceable pattern
-which would have been deemed almost masculine a few years before. In
-the eyes of a man the simple coat with its white collar, and the plain
-skirt, might have appeared homely, but the eye of another woman would
-have been quick to note the marks of an artist’s hand in the cut of
-each garment, and would have credited the wearer with perfect taste,
-coupled with the means to gratify it.
-
-The man who stood beside her in the archway was as unlike her as it was
-possible to be.
-
-If Hero Vanbrugh might have been taken as a type of all that was best
-in English humanity, the same could scarcely have been said of her
-companion. Big and bull-necked, with coarse, flushed features, small,
-deep-set eyes, and a round fleshy chin, he might have passed, in a
-different dress, for a comrade of Mike Finigan himself. His costume
-would have marked him out in any other country as a Roman priest. He
-wore the shovel hat, with a long brim projecting before and behind,
-which is associated with the stage priest of comic opera, and his whole
-figure, from the neck to the ankles, was enveloped in a long black robe
-of design similar to that worn by Noah and his family in the toy arks.
-The priests of Rome in this country being in the habit of adopting a
-dress corresponding with the character of that worn by the people
-among whom they live, this outlandish disguise served to indicate that
-the wearer was in Anglican Orders. He was, in fact, the Rev. Aloysius
-Grimes, curate of St. Jermyn’s parish.
-
-The Rev. Aloysius was one of that class which has flowed into the
-ranks of the clergy of late years in increasing numbers, to fill the
-gap created by the falling off in the supply of graduates from the
-Universities, a falling off due as much to the decline in the value of
-the Church’s preferments, perhaps, as to the decline of belief in her
-doctrines. The son of a small tradesman in the suburbs, he had passed
-from a higher-grade Board School into a theological college. He had
-entered the college an ordinary sharp London lad of the lower orders,
-and left it the social equal of dukes.
-
-Such a youth, strongly conscious of the importance of the step he had
-gained, was not likely to listen with reluctant ears to any doctrine
-which exaggerated the dignity of his profession. The Rev. Aloysius came
-out into the world firmly impressed that he was a priest, commissioned
-by the Maker of the Universe to teach and to rule mankind, endowed
-with power to bestow the absolution and remission of sins, and
-supernaturally enabled to work the awful miracle of Transubstantiation.
-
-Between the Duchess of Trent and Mr. Grimes there was an instinctive
-antagonism, which each strove to veil beneath the outward forms of
-courtesy, the Duchess because she respected the curate’s cloth,
-the curate because he respected her Grace’s rank. To the Duchess
-the doctrines held and taught by the Rev. Aloysius were simply and
-literally blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits. She supposed that
-they had been abandoned as such at the Reformation, and she understood
-them so to be condemned by the Articles of the English Church. Yet she
-perceived that they were now freely tolerated within its pale by those
-to whom the government of the Church was committed, and she shrank
-with real pain from setting up her own judgment against that of the
-Episcopal Bench.
-
-What added to her distress was the fact that she was unable to credit
-the head of that Bench with any belief in what she had always regarded
-as the cardinal doctrine of Christianity. That doctrine in her mind was
-the Atonement. The great truth which Catholicism images in the crucifix
-seemed to her the central one of Christianity, and those who doubted it
-became in her view mere Deists, with a reverence for Jesus of Nazareth.
-Such a Deist she believed Dr. Dresden, the then Primate, to be, and,
-believing it, she regarded even the Rev. Aloysius as more worthy of his
-place in the Church than the Archbishop.
-
-Mr. Grimes glided in front, fawning over the hand of the Duchess,
-before Hero could come up.
-
-“I am so delighted to meet you here, Duchess. It is so good of you to
-do so much for our poor people. They are always singing your praises.”
-
-The Duchess made the briefest response to these compliments as she
-turned to greet Hero.
-
-“My dear, how well you are looking! One would think that St. Jermyn’s
-was a health-resort, to see you. Now I wonder whether you will take
-compassion on a poor old woman, and let me carry you home to lunch with
-me presently?”
-
-Hero blushed as she listened to these old-fashioned compliments.
-
-“You are exceedingly kind, Duchess. I shall be delighted. I came here
-in the brougham to-day, so that I shall be able to send a message to
-my father to let him know where I am. But what is all this about?” She
-turned to the excited women who were now repeating the tale of Mike
-Finigan’s outrages in the ears of Mr. Grimes.
-
-The Rev. Aloysius was listening with a troubled brow. In his secret
-heart he had a great respect for Finigan, partly because he knew
-that the Irishman had no respect at all for him, and regarded him as
-an impostor, dressed in plumes borrowed from his own clergy, partly
-because of the superior example which the Finigans showed to his own
-flock in the matter of reverence for the priesthood. The hooligan and
-his family in their wildest moments treated their own priest as being
-invested with dreadful sanctity and tremendous powers. They firmly
-believed that Father Molyneux could strike any one of them dead without
-moving an eyelash; if one of them had been betrayed into lifting a hand
-against the Father’s person, they would have expected to see it wither
-to a stump. Yet Father Molyneux was a very insignificant-looking little
-man, with a jolly smile, and a brogue like the scent of an onion, who
-went about dressed in a shabby overcoat and a disreputable hat of the
-ordinary chimney-pot shape. He said “Sorr” to Mr. Grimes when that
-gentleman condescended to greet him in the street, and never showed by
-a word or look that he did not regard him as a superior by whose notice
-he was honoured. It was true that the little priest had a reputation
-for humour among his own friends; a sound as of laughter was sometimes
-heard issuing from the presbytery as the Rev. Aloysius passed by; a
-book entitled “The Secret History of the Romish Conspiracy” had been
-found by the priest’s housekeeper in the cupboard where his reverence
-kept his whisky and his slippers; but those things were mercifully
-hidden from the curate of St. Jermyn’s.
-
-Mr. Grimes turned towards Hero, as she came forward, shaking his head.
-
-“I’m afraid it’s a sad business, Miss Vanbrugh. Finigan has broken
-out again. I can’t understand how it is that a man so well conducted
-in some respects, with such genuine faith in his religion, schismatic
-though it may appear to us, should be guilty of outrages like this.”
-
-Hero flushed up. She did not share the elder woman’s deep-rooted
-prejudice against the Catholicizing movement, which attracted her
-strongly on its æsthetic side, but her English common sense remained
-to her.
-
-“The man is a drunken brute, who ought to have been sent to penal
-servitude for fourteen years, instead of being let off with a paltry
-fourteen days!” she exclaimed. “What are prisons for, I should like to
-know, except to protect peaceful folk from ruffians like that?”
-
-The Rev. Aloysius shook his head doubtfully. He was inclined to read
-the text, “Thy faith hath made thee whole,” in a very broad sense, and
-to consider that Mike Finigan’s admirable loyalty to his creed ought to
-atone for any trifling disregard of his neighbours’ peace and comfort.
-
-But the inhabitants of Beers Cooperage, whose rude minds failed to
-appreciate the beauty of Mr. Finigan’s theological attitude, in the
-face of their broken flower-pots and slaughtered pets, were quick to
-perceive that Hero was the champion of whom they stood in need. They
-deserted the curate to besiege her with their complaints; the owner of
-the birdcage renewed her direful malediction, and another woman, who
-could boast no injury on her own account, drew the sympathetic young
-lady to the scene of the trampled wallflowers.
-
-The sight aroused Miss Vanbrugh’s wrath in real earnest.
-
-“I have a great mind to send for the police myself,” she declared. “I
-only wish I had seen him do it, so that I could give evidence.”
-
-The women shrank back at these words. Their anger against Finigan,
-already partly relieved by the mere exertion of denouncing him, was
-cooled at once by Miss Vanbrugh’s threat.
-
-“That ’ud only mike it wuss, miss,” the lame man responded dolefully.
-“’E’d come out again at the end of a week like a mad Calico, an’ not
-leave a roof over our ’eads.”
-
-Before Hero had time to resolve this extraordinary expression into an
-allusion to the late Khalifa of the Soudan there was a stir among the
-little group behind, caused by the sudden appearance of Mike Finigan
-himself at the door of his abode.
-
-Now that the women perceived that their clamour had achieved its
-purpose of rousing the evildoer, they suddenly became silent. Finigan
-lounged forward, with a masterful air, his hands in his pockets, and
-surveyed his neighbours disdainfully.
-
-It said, in the history-books out of which the small Britons of Beers
-Cooperage were taught in the Board School, that Ireland had been
-conquered by England in the year of grace 1172. The history-books said
-nothing about the conquest of Beers Cooperage by Mike Finigan.
-
-Seen close at hand, the Irishman did not look a remarkably vicious or
-ill-disposed creature. His face was of the dark, heavy, animal type
-to be met with in some of the western counties of England itself.
-He represented that mixed remnant of old, forgotten races which is
-found washed up in out-of-the-way corners of the land, the relics of
-prehistoric wanderings and subjugations, the rubble of European man.
-
-Because his ancestors during a thousand years or so had spoken a
-Gaelic dialect, learned language-mongers called Mike Finigan a Celt.
-His name might have told them that he was a mongrel Finn, between whom
-and the fair-haired, blue-eyed Gauls who took Rome there was no more
-kinship than between the Chinaman and the Greek. The traditions of his
-own land, had the language-mongers cared to study them, would have
-disclosed to them the existence of half a dozen strange older races,
-some of whom in all likelihood were still speaking Neolithic dialects
-of their own when the armies of Cæsar landed in Britain.
-
-This primitive savage had been brought from his native bogs, and set
-down among a peaceable town-dwelling population, chiefly of Dutch
-descent, by the economic machinery of the Raj. The Raj had taught him
-to speak its language, and bestowed upon him a voice in the choice of
-its administrators.
-
-Now the Raj was trying to digest Mike Finigan.
-
-In his own country, dwelling on some bare hillside beaten by the rains
-of the Atlantic, the Irishman might have seemed a picturesque figure.
-Living the life that was natural to him, digging his native peat, and
-finding an outlet for his brutal instincts in the folk-fights that
-formed the immemorial pastime of the country-side, he would have been a
-harmless subject.
-
-In the streets of London he was a dangerous criminal. The civilized
-life brought out all that was worst in this wild nature. It galled him
-with its manifold restraints. It stunned him with its monotony of work.
-It teased him with its decorum. It stifled him with its lack of air and
-space. Finally, it drove him to the public-house.
-
-If dirt be matter in the wrong place, so is crime conduct in an unfit
-historical or geographical environment. If the hooligan had lived a
-few thousand years earlier he would have been a hero. He would have
-refreshed himself with his native mead before going into battle, and
-his strength becoming as the strength of ten, he would have been deemed
-of supernatural birth. His exploits would have become the theme of
-bards, divine honours would have been rendered to his memory, and,
-his figure shining through the mist of saga like a demigod’s, learned
-students would have been engaged to-day in identifying him with the
-solar orb.
-
-As it was, Mike Finigan’s history was already written to its end. After
-a long or short series of savage atrocities, after wounding and maiming
-a certain number of peaceable citizens, and being punished by sentences
-ranging from a small fine to six months’ hard labour, according to the
-magistrate before whom he happened to be brought, one of Mike Finigan’s
-kicks some day, probably by pure accident, would cause a death; when
-society, seizing the excuse for which it had been waiting all along,
-would hang Mike Finigan. A pity that you could not have passed the
-sentence before the murder, and commuted it to transportation, back
-to the little shieling in the potato-patch from which you dragged his
-father, Your Majesty the public!
-
-The effect of alcohol is different on different constitutions, a truism
-which fanatics forget. On Finigan its effect was to make him a raging
-wild beast. His unfortunate neighbours would have been the first to
-bear witness that when the drink was not in him the Irishman was
-harmless enough. His speech was always coarse, and he was a stranger
-to soap and water, but those were venial faults in the light of his
-drunken frolics. At such moments the appearance of the Khalifa himself
-in their archway would have struck less consternation into the dwellers
-in the Cooperage than Mike Finigan’s.
-
-After one of these outbursts the Irishman was usually sullen and silent
-for a day or two, during which period his neighbours found it wisest to
-leave him alone. He was in that condition, surly, but not dangerous, as
-he strode forth to silence his assailants.
-
-At the sight of the Duchess he paused, uncertain. Though he had uttered
-a coarse threat against any Protestant who should invade his own home,
-he had acquired a tacit respect for the quiet lady who visited his
-neighbours, and perhaps there were times when he would not have been
-sorry if the Duchess had disregarded his words, and included his wife
-and family in her friendly ministrations. A secret shame at having
-disgraced himself in her eyes caused him to assume a defiant and
-insolent air as he demanded of the women:
-
-“And what have yez got to say agin me, now I’m here?”
-
-The women shrank back terrorized.
-
-The Duchess thought it useless for her to speak. But Mr. Grimes,
-anxious to show her Grace how well he could administer a priestly
-reproof, rashly undertook to answer the bully.
-
-“I wonder you are not ashamed to ask the question, Finigan. You have
-been behaving in a shocking, scandalous manner. Do you consider what
-disgrace you bring, not merely on yourself as a man, but on the Church
-to which you belong?”
-
-The Irishman turned red.
-
-“Here, Mister, yez lave me Church alone, an’ I’ll lave yours,” he
-muttered.
-
-The Rev. Aloysius smiled at the success with which he had touched the
-man’s weak spot.
-
-“I am not blaming your Church,” he said impressively. “The teaching you
-have received is good enough for you to know when you have done wrong.
-I am pointing out to you that your neighbours here, who do not know
-and understand the Church of Rome as I know and understand it, are not
-likely to have their opinion of it raised by such conduct as yours last
-night.”
-
-The curate was warming to his work, and would have gone on to inflict
-further stabs on the sensitive place, when suddenly the Irishman
-clenched his fists, and stepped towards him.
-
-“Say another word about me Church, good or bad, and, be the Howly
-Moses, I’ll knock yer teeth down yer Protestant throat!”
-
-The Rev. Aloysius fairly recoiled, stunned, to do him justice, as much
-by the insult conveyed in the description of himself as a Protestant as
-by the threat of personal violence. It was too bitter; the serpent of
-schism had raised its baleful crest, and stung him in the very midst of
-his flock.
-
-Fortunately, or unfortunately, no one suspected the true cause of his
-agitation. Before he could frame a suitable retort an unexpected ally
-came to his rescue.
-
-Hero Vanbrugh had listened impatiently to the curate’s attempted
-admonition of the hooligan. Her indignation at the brutalities whose
-effects she had just seen was still hot within her, and the Irishman’s
-hectoring demeanour made it boil over.
-
-She walked up quickly, and confronted him with blazing eyes.
-
-“You coward! How dare you stand there and bluster! How dare you come
-out and show yourself, in the face of all the mean, silly, brutal,
-wicked things you did last night! Where is the bird you and your
-friends killed? There is its cage! Look at it, and stay here and brazen
-it out if you dare! Look at that poor man’s flowers all trodden down
-and broken! I wonder you can bring yourself to pass them! To rob a
-poor lame man! a cripple! I suppose you will beat him next, or murder
-him if you are not afraid of the police. I tell you, you are a coward,
-nothing but a big hulking coward, who goes about bullying women and
-children--and cripples! Go! Don’t stay out here! Go and hide yourself,
-lest a man should come along and see you!”
-
-Then a great thing happened. For Mike Finigan, the tyrant of Beers
-Cooperage and the terror of the police, raised his finger to his
-forelock, and with a muttered--“Beg pardon, miss,” turned round, and
-shrank back into his house like a thoroughly ashamed man.
-
-The Duchess turned to Hero with a look of grateful admiration.
-
-“You did that splendidly, my dear. Thank you.”
-
-The women, relieved of the presence of their enemy, would have burst
-out in a triumphant chorus, but Hero restrained them with a gesture,
-and the next minute they were surprised to see her turn white and
-totter against the side of the Duchess, who hastened to draw her away.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI
-
-THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN
-
-
-AS the two ladies passed under the archway from Beers Cooperage into
-the street they were followed by Mr. Grimes, anxious to efface the
-rather humiliating figure he had cut in his encounter with Mike Finigan.
-
-“I wonder if we may have the honour of seeing you at our bazaar this
-week, Duchess?” he said smirkingly.
-
-“What bazaar is that? I don’t think I have heard of it,” the Duchess
-responded, with indifference.
-
-“The Legitimist bazaar--to obtain funds on behalf of the cause,” the
-curate explained.
-
-The Duchess of Trent knitted her brows.
-
-“I am afraid I don’t understand. What cause is that, if you please?”
-
-The Rev. Aloysius faltered somewhat in his speech as he answered:
-
-“It is the cause of the legitimate monarchs who have been excluded from
-their thrones by--ah--popular insurrections, and--ah--constitutions
-and republics, and so on. The Duke of Orleans is one of our principal
-objects,” he went on rather hurriedly, observing a significant frown
-come over her Grace’s brow at the word constitution--“rightfully Louis
-XIX of France; and then there is Don Carlos of Spain, and the Duke of
-Cumberland, and others. Many of us consider that the Bishop of Rome has
-been wrongfully deprived of his sovereign rights by the House of Savoy.”
-
-“Any more?” asked the Duchess, with some scorn. “I shall be glad to
-know whether you consider the Queen as a usurper, because I have served
-in her household as a girl, and I have no desire to conspire against
-her in my old age.”
-
-The curate of St. Jermyn’s cast down his eyes.
-
-“Oh, I dare say there are a few members of the Guild who hold, in an
-academical spirit, of course, that the elder branch of the Stuarts
-are entitled to our allegiance, but that is really more a pose than
-anything else. No one intends the slightest disrespect towards Queen
-Victoria. But the French Republic is very different; its intolerance
-towards the religious orders must make every Christian wish to see its
-downfall.”
-
-“I am afraid that I do not sympathize with your views sufficiently to
-care to come to your bazaar,” the Duchess said dryly. “It appears to
-me that Legitimism, according to your account of it, is another name
-for Roman Catholicism, and I am a Protestant.” The Rev. Aloysius looked
-pained. “Besides,” her Grace went on severely, “even if this nonsense
-about the Stuarts is only a pose, as you say, it seems to me in very
-bad taste. I only trust it is not actually treasonable.”
-
-Mr. Grimes bit his lip. Then he put on a touch of bravado as he replied:
-
-“I am sorry you should think so harshly of us, Duchess. I should not
-have ventured to broach the subject, only Lord Alistair Stuart is among
-our patrons, and we hope to see him on Saturday. Miss Vanbrugh also
-held out a hope that she might drop in for an hour.”
-
-“I was only coming out of curiosity, remember; I told you that, Mr.
-Grimes,” put in Hero promptly. “As it is, I think I shall follow the
-Duchess’s lead, and boycott you. I have no objection to Louis XIX, but
-I think I must draw the line at Mary III.”
-
-It was under this name that the Bavarian Princess whom the Legitimist
-Guild honoured with their homage, figured in their recently published
-calendar of true and lawful Sovereigns. It must not be supposed
-that in so styling her the Legitimists were inconsistent enough to
-acknowledge the title of the wife of William of Orange to a place in
-the list of British monarchs. The Mary II recognized by them was the
-ill-starred rival of Queen Elizabeth. Further back than the martyr of
-Fotheringay their genealogical inquiries did not too curiously extend,
-lest, perhaps, they should find themselves confronted with that direct
-descendant of the Plantagenets who plied the trade of a chimney-sweeper
-in the last generation, and who, as a base Protestant mechanic, would
-have been ill-deserving of the sympathy accorded to such illustrious
-figures as Don Carlos and Leo XIII.
-
-But a change had come over the face of the Duchess while Hero was
-speaking. Now she said to her:
-
-“After all, I expect it is a mistake to treat Mr. Grimes’s friends
-seriously. Suppose we agree to look in on the conspirators together? I
-should like you to meet my boy Alistair.”
-
-And without waiting for the expression of the curate’s exuberant
-delight at this decision, the elder woman gave the signal to enter the
-carriage that was to convey them to Colonsay House.
-
-On the way thither the Duchess made no further reference to what was in
-her mind. But while they were waiting for lunch to be served, she took
-her guest into the little drawing-room where Alistair had found her the
-night before.
-
-“I want to talk to you about my boy,” she said, making Hero sit down
-beside her on the couch. “I dare say you know he is in sad trouble just
-now.”
-
-This was by no means Hero’s first visit to Colonsay House. The
-friendship between her and the Duchess was of some standing.
-Encountering each other among the squalid byways of St. Jermyn’s
-parish, a mutual liking had quickly sprung up between them, which
-rested on no more occult base than the simple goodness of heart which
-was common to the two. The older woman admired Hero Vanbrugh for her
-courage and plain good sense, and Hero on her part revered the Duchess
-for her antique piety and single-mindedness. Thus it came about that
-the two were constant companions, visiting in the same district and
-helping in each other’s work.
-
-It was a source of secret regret to the Duchess that Hero did not
-share her own old-fashioned prejudice against the Catholic practices
-and teachings of Mr. Grimes and his Vicar. Hero had an æsthetic
-appreciation of the ritual of St. Jermyn’s, with its banners and
-processions, its incense and its worship of the consecrated elements,
-and this led her to listen with outward tolerance to the utterances of
-Dr. Coles and his disciple on the subject of the Catholic doctrines
-which lay behind these outward symbols. But the native strength of her
-mind forbade her to make that surrender of her own judgment to priestly
-authority which is the real test of the Catholic temper.
-
-Perhaps this obstinacy was due more largely than she suspected to
-the personal antipathy inspired in her by the Rev. Aloysius. A young
-woman’s religion is generally coloured by her personal relations with
-the man who is her religious teacher; and Hero secretly despised Mr.
-Grimes as a man, though she tried to respect him as a clergyman. A
-suggestion from the curate that Miss Vanbrugh would derive spiritual
-benefit from a visit to his confessional had been so discouragingly
-received that he never ventured to renew it.
-
-The curate did not help himself in Hero’s eyes by his rather too
-evident admiration of her as a woman. If he had not been vowed to
-celibacy it might have been supposed that he was courting her; and even
-as it was, there were jealous eyes, belonging to older and plainer
-women in the St. Jermyn’s flock, which watched him with distrust, and
-jealous minds which dwelt upon the fact that Anglican vows of celibacy
-are a poor security. Perhaps it is not doing much injustice to Mr.
-Grimes to suppose that there were moments when he himself recollected
-with some satisfaction that in his Church such vows resemble the
-treaties of civilized Powers, and are liable to be repudiated the
-moment they become inconvenient.
-
-Be that as it may, it is certain that Hero Vanbrugh was heart-whole as
-far as her clerical admirer was concerned. Lord Alistair Stuart she had
-never met, her intimacy at Colonsay House dating since the separation
-due to Molly Finucane.
-
-She was familiar with Lord Alistair’s story, in so far as it had become
-a social scandal, but this was the first time his mother had pronounced
-Alistair’s name in her presence, and her interest was strongly roused.
-
-She gave the Duchess a nod of sympathy and understanding.
-
-“I saw what had happened in the papers. I was very sorry. It must have
-been a great blow to you and to the Duke.”
-
-“It is a crushing blow,” the mother answered. “Not only in itself, but
-because of what lies behind it. My boy would never have come to this if
-he had not fallen under the influence of that dreadful woman.”
-
-In saying this the poor mother spoke quite sincerely. In spite of
-Alistair’s disclaimer, in spite of her own experience with him in the
-past, she could not bring herself to forego the mother’s consolation
-of laying her darling’s sins upon another’s shoulders. In the eyes of
-a true mother the whole world is full of wicked men and women busied
-in laying snares for the destruction of her child; she never deems it
-possible that her child may be himself the tempter of others.
-
-Hero did not doubt that the Duchess spoke perfect truth. What woman
-likes to think that another woman’s influence is otherwise than hurtful
-to a man in whom she is interested?
-
-“I am sure of it,” Miss Vanbrugh said with conviction. “But perhaps
-what has happened”--they both shrank from the word “bankruptcy”--“may
-be the best thing in the end, if it compels him to leave her.”
-
-The Duchess shook her head despondently.
-
-“I hardly know what will happen yet. I hinted that his brother might
-come to his help if he would give up his present life, and he refused.
-Do you know what I am actually afraid of? I believe that woman is
-scheming to make him marry her!”
-
-Hero Vanbrugh was as much shocked by this suggestion as the Duchess
-could have desired. Her training had not been severely Puritanical,
-but an instinct older than copybooks and Sunday schools taught her
-to look on Molly Finucane as her natural enemy. Such women as Molly
-were traitors to their sex; they were the blacklegs of the feminine
-trades-union. The wage which the others had worked from time immemorial
-to establish--honour, a home, the half of all a man’s possessions, and
-the chief place in his life--all this the free-lance had foregone, to
-snatch the miserable gains of adventure.
-
-The announcement that lunch was on the table did not interrupt the
-conversation. But it added another interlocutor in the person of the
-Duke of Trent.
-
-The new Minister had passed a busy morning at the Home Office. His
-first care had been to send for his solicitor, to consult him about
-Lord Alistair’s affairs. The lawyer told him that, though the nominal
-amount of his brother’s indebtedness was not less than fifty thousand
-pounds, the creditors would probably be willing to accept one-half to
-cancel the proceedings. Twenty-five thousand was a large sum to a man
-circumstanced as the Duke was; nevertheless, he had made up his mind
-that it should be forthcoming, and he had instructed the solicitor to
-open the negotiations on his behalf.
-
-The most important item of official business had been a call from the
-Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who reported a fresh
-piece of hooligan violence from the neighbourhood of Bermondsey. A
-policeman was again the victim, and the Force were beginning to show a
-dangerous temper, and to demand permission to carry revolvers for their
-own protection.
-
-The Home Secretary privately sympathized with this demand, but he
-foresaw that such a departure would be the signal for a storm of
-protest in the workmen’s papers and in the House of Commons. The
-particular quarter of London where the latest outrage had occurred was
-represented in the House by a sturdy demagogue who was not likely to
-sit with his mouth closed while his constituents were threatened with
-what he had already described in advance as martial law. The very gangs
-which were now defying the police were believed to have done effective
-work during the last election, and on one memorable occasion their
-popular representative had led them to an armed encounter with the
-forces of law and order in the heart of the capital.
-
-These considerations had to be weighed by the Home Secretary. A Cabinet
-Minister in these days holds the position of a buffer between the
-permanent heads of his department, who really govern the Raj, and
-the assembly elected by the populace to supervise them. The first
-duty of the Minister, no doubt, was to support his staff, but it was
-also imperative to take no step that might endanger the popularity of
-his party in the constituencies. In this dilemma the Duke of Trent
-had reserved his decision till he should have had an opportunity of
-consulting Major Berwick, the trusted chief of the electoral machine.
-
-A smile of pleasure betrayed his gratification at the entrance of Miss
-Vanbrugh, who greeted him with the ease of old friendship. He told his
-mother briefly of the steps he had already taken on Alistair’s behalf.
-
-The Duchess gave him a grateful look.
-
-“Thank you, dear; I knew you would do what you could. I was just
-talking to Hero about the poor boy. The one thing we have to try for
-now is to make this trouble a means of rescuing him from his present
-life.”
-
-“I ought to make that condition, of course,” the elder brother observed
-doubtingly; “but from what you told me last night he would only refuse
-it if I were to.”
-
-“It is very difficult,” the Duchess admitted. “I am afraid you are
-right. Perhaps if you say nothing about conditions, and simply let him
-know that you are helping him generously, he will feel ashamed not to
-make a return.”
-
-The Duke of Trent had his own opinion as to his brother’s sense of
-shame, but he did not care to express it before Miss Vanbrugh.
-
-“What I want most,” the Duchess proceeded, “is to induce him to come
-here again. I dread the consequence of his always being with that
-woman. If I could get hold of him sometimes, and bring him into contact
-with women of a different kind, I feel sure that the contrast between
-them and the woman he is living with would soon disgust him with her.”
-
-Even if the Duchess had not stolen a glance at Hero Vanbrugh as she
-spoke, her drift could hardly have been misunderstood by the girl. The
-Duke failed to see the personal application of his mother’s remark.
-
-“If you could find some decent woman who would overlook the past, and
-get him to marry her, she might be able to keep him straight,” he said
-bluntly. “On the other hand, she might not.”
-
-“I feel sure that he might be saved by the right woman,” the Duchess
-said earnestly. “I am convinced that the poor boy is secretly sick of
-the life he has been leading, and only his pride keeps him from giving
-it up. A noble, pure-minded girl, who really cared for him, would be
-able to do anything she liked with Alistair.”
-
-This time the allusion was too plain to be mistaken. The Home Secretary
-intercepted the blush on Hero’s face, and his eyes were opened. A look
-of dissatisfaction replaced his indifferent air, as he replied with
-some bitterness:
-
-“I am not so sure of it. Many a good woman has sacrificed her life
-before now in the effort to reclaim a man who was unworthy of her, and
-the sacrifice has been in vain.”
-
-In saying this he was thinking of the history of his own father and
-mother, of which he had learned more than his mother suspected. He had
-sometimes felt surprised, as well as mortified, that he should have
-had such a parent as Lord Alexander. Never having seen his father since
-early childhood, and being free from any tendency to romantic idealism,
-the Duke was able to judge the dead man quite impartially, and to think
-of him as if he had been some remote ancestor, whose virtues and vices
-were merely matter of curiosity for his descendants.
-
-“I wonder my mother’s own experience has not taught her the folly of
-thinking that a worthless man can be redeemed by a good wife,” he
-reflected impatiently. “Alistair takes after his father; no doubt
-that is why she has always loved him better than me. Her whole soul
-is absorbed in trying to save him from the consequences of his own
-follies, and I am merely a pawn in the game. Now she wants to enlist
-Hero Vanbrugh in the same task, as if a girl like that were fit for
-nothing better than to be the keeper of a drunken prodigal.”
-
-The Duchess observed the frown on her eldest son’s brow with wondering
-dismay. It did not occur to her that he could be moved by any other
-feeling than fraternal jealousy. Old-fashioned in her ideas on this
-subject, as on most others, she had never contemplated it as possible
-that the Duke of Trent and Colonsay could marry out of his own
-class. And the class in which, with perfectly unconscious pride, she
-placed her young friend was that middle one which appeared to have
-been created to supply doctors and lawyers and men of business for
-the service of the aristocracy. In her eyes the girl’s father, Sir
-Bernard Vanbrugh, was simply a successful medical man. The scientific
-achievements which had made him a European personage, greater than any
-Secretary of State, were outside her ken.
-
-If she had come to entertain the project of marrying Hero Vanbrugh to
-her prodigal son as a last means of averting the terrible catastrophe
-of Molly Finucane, she did so honestly, considering that she offered a
-privilege to Hero, corresponding with the greatness of the interest at
-stake. It was in the perfect simplicity of this conviction that she had
-so candidly revealed her design. In the same spirit she had been ready
-to take Alistair’s brother into her confidence without any apprehension
-that she might be applying the spur of rivalry to a slumbering
-admiration.
-
-She was familiar with the Duke’s expressed views on matrimony, which
-she respected, although they struck a little cold on her own more
-emotional nature. She knew that he had made up his mind from an early
-age to two things--that he was one of the best matches in Great
-Britain, and that marriage was the most important card he had to play
-in the game of life. It had long been understood between them that
-Trent was in no hurry; that what he required in a wife was a great
-fortune, accompanied by those social graces which count for so much
-in politics; and that when he found a possessor of both these gifts
-who pleased him she would become his Duchess. The mother lived in the
-mild expectation of hearing some day that her young sultan had thrown
-the handkerchief to a fitting aspirant, whom it would be her part to
-welcome with what tenderness was permitted, and in whose favour she
-would cheerfully resign her place in Colonsay House.
-
-Thus it lay altogether outside her calculations that her eldest
-son could take any interest in Hero Vanbrugh warmer than a passing
-friendship. The prudent young statesman was the last person in the
-world whom anyone acquainted with him would have believed capable of a
-romantic passion. And the last person in the world to believe it would
-have been the young Minister himself.
-
-A man who has lived to the age of thirty without ever losing his head
-in the company of a woman naturally regards himself as love-proof, and
-perhaps insensibly relaxes his self-defence. But Hero Vanbrugh enjoyed
-one great advantage over almost every unmarried girl whom Trent had
-ever met, inasmuch as she had not come before him as a candidate for
-the orange-blossoms.
-
-If he had met her in one of those crowded ballrooms where her sisters
-are paraded nightly in the London season for the allurement of
-intending purchasers, Trent would have carefully guarded himself from
-giving her a second thought. He had met her for the first time at his
-own table, lunching in outdoor costume with his mother, who introduced
-her as a helper in her charitable work. The Duke, presuming that
-Miss Vanbrugh came from some humble clerical circle, unbent from his
-ordinary reserve in the desire to put her at her ease. He was rewarded
-for this kindly effort by the discovery that she was beautiful and
-charming.
-
-It was not until afterwards that he learned from his mother, who
-rallied him playfully on his fascination, that he had been entertaining
-the daughter of the great Vanbrugh. It was chance, therefore--one
-of those chances that every now and then take over the control of
-our lives and change them for us--that had caused Trent to meet Hero
-Vanbrugh on this easy footing instead of in the cankered atmosphere
-of fashion. But the ice, once broken, could not be re-formed, and the
-relations between Hero and her host at Colonsay House had developed
-into intimacy.
-
-Up to this time the Duke’s mental attitude had been that of a man who
-views a tempting object in a shop-window, and stands hesitating, purse
-in hand, wishful to buy, but unable to make up his mind to give the
-price. Now he suddenly became aware that another possible purchaser was
-coming up, and that if he wanted to make sure of the bargain, he must
-lose no more time.
-
-An embarrassing silence was broken by Hero, who undertook to divert the
-thoughts of the Home Secretary by asking:
-
-“What do they think in the Home Office of the Legitimist Guild?”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII
-
-THE DECADENTS
-
-
-IT was some time after dinner when the Duke of Trent, faithful to his
-promise to their mother, drove up to the gate of Alistair’s house in
-Chelsea.
-
-On the way James considered what line it would be best for him to take.
-He reckoned on finding the prodigal in a despondent mood, perhaps half
-estranged from the temptress already, under the stress of poverty and
-disgrace. If so, it should prove an easy task to appeal to him by the
-picture of the welcome awaiting him in Colonsay House. Alistair could
-not but be touched by his brother’s generosity--and James meant to be
-generous. He meant to say--to say a little condescendingly, perhaps,
-but kindly: “I take your debts on myself. Your name is cleared. Your
-mother and I only ask you not to forget that you have a home to come to
-when you like.”
-
-By the time he had reached the house the Duke had half persuaded
-himself that he should be able to bring the repentant one away with him
-that very night.
-
-The house was surrounded on all sides by a high brick wall, pierced at
-the entrance by a tall narrow gateway, the gate of Georgian ironwork.
-Ordering his coachman to wait, the Minister strode up a covered pathway
-that led to the door of the house, and knocked.
-
-As he did so he was aware that the lower part of the house was
-brilliantly lit up. He caught a murmur of voices coming through the
-windows of a room which overlooked the front garden, and even heard
-what sounded like applause.
-
-Before he could frame any explanation to himself of these sights and
-sounds the door was opened by a smart lad in a rather untidy page’s
-livery, who stared at the visitor with the vulgar impertinence of a
-servant who does not respect his employers.
-
-At the same instant a loud burst of laughter came from the interior of
-the building.
-
-“Is Lord Alistair at home?” the Duke demanded sharply, incensed by this
-reception.
-
-“He’s engaged,” said the boy glibly, giving the Duke a cautious look.
-“What name, please?”
-
-“The Duke of Trent. I am his lordship’s brother,” returned the Home
-Secretary, frowning.
-
-“Oh, that’s all right, my lord--I mean Your Grace,” the page responded,
-with an air of relief. “Come in, please.”
-
-And, scarcely giving the visitor time to remove his hat, he threw
-open the door of the room from whence the sounds had proceeded, and
-announced him.
-
-The new-comer took two steps through the doorway, and stopped
-astounded.
-
-He had arrived on the scene of a festivity. Around a dining-table,
-crowded with a confusion of dessert-dishes, champagne-bottles,
-coffee-cups, cigar-boxes, and spirit-stands, with the ashes of
-innumerable cigars and cigarettes soaking in the spilt wine and coffee
-on the tablecloth, were seated some seven or eight men, most of them
-young, all wearing evening dress, and seeming to be in the highest
-spirits. At the head of the table, facing the Duke as he came in, the
-woman he had come to snatch his brother away from lolled back in her
-chair, puffing a cigarette, her hands monstrously encumbered with
-coloured stones, and her powdered bosom resplendent with five or six
-chains of jewellery. At the foot of the table, beside the door by which
-James had just entered, the brother he had come to pardon and to redeem
-turned languidly in his seat, and, rising with studied nonchalance,
-removed a cigar from his lips to say:
-
-“That you, Trent? So good of you to join us.” And, turning to the
-company again, he added the careless introduction: “My brother.”
-
-His second glance round the room had warned the angry Duke that,
-however he might be disposed to treat Molly Finucane, her guests were
-not men whom he had any right to object to meet. Too well-bred to make
-a scene under the circumstances, he choked down his indignation, and,
-after a haughty bow, which neither included nor excluded the lady of
-the house, he accepted the chair which someone offered him. It was with
-a sense of satisfaction not unmingled with surprise that the Secretary
-of State discovered on sitting down that his neighbour was a personal
-acquaintance, the great Mendes, head of the South American Bank, and a
-financier with whom Cabinet Ministers were obliged to reckon.
-
-Lord Alistair vouchsafed a light word of explanation.
-
-“Been having a little feed to celebrate my smash,” he said, waving
-his hand over the dirty table. “These are my friends. You see before
-you the members of the Dishonourable Brotherhood of Decadents, an
-association for the spread of corruption among the upper classes.
-Dishonourable Brother St. John, I call upon you for a speech.”
-
-“What on earth is all this?” the Duke demanded in a whisper of his
-neighbour.
-
-The millionaire shrugged his shoulders, as though he were slightly
-ashamed of his company.
-
-“I suppose they intend it for humour,” he answered in the same key.
-“It’s one of your brother’s ideas. He’s always starting something
-of the kind. It used to be a Chinese Guild, and they all dressed as
-mandarins and wore pigtails. Last year it was an anti-Semite show,
-and Stuart had the cheek to ask me to join it.” The Jew’s smile as
-he said this was a trifle threatening. “They parody everything. That
-Frenchman opposite, Des Louvres”--he nodded towards a man with a thin,
-wicked-looking face and small dark beard and moustache--“he is at the
-bottom of it, I believe. They may know something about him in your
-Office.”
-
-The Home Secretary was staggered. Possessed of too little imagination
-to see anything in the proceedings but a rather scandalous jest of
-the kind that undergraduates indulge in at places like Cambridge and
-Oxford, he felt that the mere fact of the jest being carried out by
-grown men made it doubly unbecoming. And he felt personally aggrieved
-that these men should be making merry over an event which had cast a
-shadow on the house of which he was the head. He recalled his mother’s
-grief, Prince Herbert’s gracious interest, the money sacrifice which he
-himself was preparing to make; and his heart swelled with inward wrath
-and shame.
-
-He could not help wondering privately what Mendes was doing in such
-company. The keen, remorseless man of business who had executed a
-masterpiece of legal robbery, and thereby made himself one of the new
-world powers which were taking the place of Kings and Cabinets, seemed
-strangely out of place among that crew of mockers. The Brazilian sat
-for the most part silent, his lips set in an ironical smile. But from
-time to time his glance wandered in the direction of Molly Finucane,
-who moved restively in, her chair whenever she caught Mendes’s black
-eyes fixed on hers.
-
-The rest of the revellers were all excited in different degrees by the
-wine they had been drinking, and their remarks and interruptions formed
-a sort of ground-bass to the speech which Alistair had called for. Mr.
-Gerald St. John, whom the “Court Guide,” more tender of his dignity
-than he seemed to be himself, described as “Honourable,” was a man of
-about the same age as Stuart, though his bald forehead gave him the
-appearance of being older. He had some little reputation as an amateur
-in music and painting; he had composed songs which were occasionally
-sung, and painted pictures which the New Gallery did not disdain.
-
-Addressing his friends as “Dishonourable Brethren,” he hailed them as
-the missionaries of a new gospel. Theirs was the task to purge society
-of Puritanism and propriety. They were to set the example of becoming
-artists in Beautiful Sin. It was impossible for Trent to tell how far
-he was serious. His speech mingled echoes of the cant of a certain
-class of literary and artistic critics with what appeared to be broad
-farce.
-
-But two passages in the address made an impression on the Minister, by
-their curious connection with his recent interests. The first was a
-surprising compliment to the Church of Rome; the second was a panegyric
-in a much broader vein of the hooligans.
-
-Of the Roman Church the speaker said that it was the only form of
-Christianity which deserved their toleration and respect. He regarded
-it as the true Church of the Decadence, and as such he called upon the
-Brotherhood to support it. He was not himself a Catholic; he was a
-polytheist. But he considered that, next to polytheism, the Church of
-Rome afforded the best rallying-point for all that was beautiful and
-corrupt in the art and life of the age.
-
-This extraordinary eulogy was received with vociferous applause,
-especially by the French Count, whose air was that of a man enjoying
-a personal triumph. Molly Finucane, who had not been to Mass or
-Confession for many years, but who had not quite shaken off her early
-impressions, tried to disguise her nervousness by hammering the table
-with her wineglass till it broke--an accident which she was half
-disposed to interpret as the work of an offended Power.
-
-The Duke of Trent, who entertained a vague respect for the Roman Church
-as a venerable institution whose influence was generally exerted on
-the side of the Conservative party, hardly knew what to think of this
-equivocal homage to its merits. The Honourable Gerald St. John passed
-on to the question of hooliganism, not without a shy glance in the
-direction of the Home Secretary, which showed how much the jest was
-enhanced by the presence of hooliganism’s official adversary.
-
-The hooligans, he declared, were crusaders fighting for the same
-cause as that Dishonourable Brotherhood. They were martyrs of the new
-individualism. Their so-called outrages constituted a protest--the
-only form of protest which dull and hidebound statesmen could
-understand--against the iron yoke of Socialist civilization, under
-which they were all groaning. He regarded the hooligans as saviours. It
-was significant that so far the man whom they had selected for attack
-was that embodiment of everything vulgar and virtuous, the suburban
-ratepayer. When they had exterminated the ratepayer, he hoped they
-would go on to the millionaire. He had always regretted that their
-fellow-workers, the Anarchists, should show so much antipathy to Kings.
-It was an unreasonable prejudice. Kings were picturesque survivals in
-the midst of the hideous monotony of modern life. Kings were rarely
-respectable, and were not seldom steeped in crime; and this applied
-particularly to those romantic claimants--he, the speaker, preferred
-the dear old name “Pretender”--whom their Dishonourable Brother on the
-left was seeking to restore.
-
-This allusion was accepted by Des Louvres with eager manifestations of
-approval. Once more the Secretary of State felt an obscure uneasiness
-as he compared these mocking utterances with the recent experience
-of his own department, and he began to ask himself if he was indeed
-listening to the first whispers of a coming storm.
-
-Hero Vanbrugh’s question about the Legitimist Guild had not fallen on
-deaf ears. He had had the curiosity to ask his permanent staff if they
-knew anything of the Legitimists, and he found they knew very little.
-There is nothing Government Departments dislike so much as information,
-except the trouble of acting on it. No one in the Home Office could say
-exactly who the Legitimists were, or how they had come into existence
-as a guild. Their very number was unknown, but it was believed to be
-insignificant. They were wholly without influence or following, and
-would never have been heard of but for the fact that the newspapers
-regarded their proceedings as a good joke. Every sensible person put
-them down as a clique of vain and foolish young men who made themselves
-supremely ridiculous by trying to revive a cause which had been dead
-for a hundred and fifty years.
-
-Such was the official view. Sixty or seventy years before a similar
-view had been taken of the action of a little clique of Oxford men who
-were setting themselves to undo the work of the Protestant Reformation.
-That little clique had undertaken to break up a settlement which had
-taken root for two hundred and fifty years, and had survived twelve
-reigns and six rebellions. In the course of a single reign they had
-come within sight of their goal. They had driven the word “Protestant”
-out of polite conversation, and made it a synonym for everything base,
-ignorant and malicious. They had made it dangerous for a Protestant to
-object publicly to Catholic practices which were still forbidden by the
-letter of the law. They had sent an informal embassy to the Vatican to
-negotiate the re-entry of England into the Roman obedience; and they
-had delivered the first open attack on the legislative bars which still
-hindered that consummation.
-
-Fresh from the assurances of the Home Office, it was a shock to the
-Minister to find himself for the second time that day confronted with
-this ridiculous but offensive movement. It was true that Mr. St. John’s
-remarks bordered on satire, but the serious-minded are apt to resent
-satire at the expense of what they fear, as much as at the expense of
-what they revere; the only notes they wish to hear are the snap of
-cavil and the rumble of denunciation.
-
-If the Duke of Trent had consulted his own inclination he would have
-risen and protested against this trifling with treason. But, like most
-men who are deprived of the sense of humour, James Stuart was keenly
-sensitive to ridicule, and he dared not expose himself to the merciless
-wit of this crew of profligates. He bitterly repented the false step he
-had taken in sitting down amongst them, but he sought in vain for any
-means of extrication.
-
-Meanwhile the orator concluded with a felicitous reference to the
-occasion of the feast.
-
-One Dishonourable Brother--in fact, the founder of their Order, he
-said--had shown that it was possible to emulate, if not to surpass,
-the exploits of the humble hooligan. By his magnificent defiance of
-the day before he had struck dismay into the mercenary ranks of their
-hereditary foes--he need not say he meant the trading class, whose
-shameful supremacy had made England unfit to live in. Their gallant
-host had plundered the hostile camp of a sum which represented one of
-the greatest triumphs ever achieved over the Philistine. He called
-upon him, in their name, not to pay this _canaille_ a farthing in the
-pound. And he called upon them to drink confusion to the respectable
-classes, coupled with the name of their Arch Decadent!
-
-Everyone rose to his feet to drink the toast, with the exception of the
-bankrupt himself, and his brother, who tried to conceal his disgust
-under an air of amused tolerance.
-
-Alistair Stuart was conscious of his brother’s real feeling, and
-resented it all the more because he was half ashamed of his own part in
-the buffoonery. His tone became louder and more insolent as he gulped
-down glass after glass of spirits, and called upon one or other of his
-guests to keep up the entertainment.
-
-Nobody dared call upon the Secretary of State. They all knew enough to
-feel that he was a stranger in the camp, if not a spy, and only the
-emphasized indifference of Stuart to his brother’s presence gave them
-courage to go on. The presence of this representative of all that they
-professed to loathe and despise, looking on with chill disapproval,
-dashed their spirits unexpectedly, and even to their own ears their
-customary jests took on a hollow sound.
-
-Presently it came to the turn of a youth seated opposite to the Duke.
-He was of a pale and sickly countenance, the whiteness of his face
-being accentuated by the black locks which he allowed to grow down to
-his neck. His tie was a black sash with flowing ends like that worn by
-French Art students in the quarter of Batignolles. He did not appear
-to be much more than twenty, and answered to the name of Egerton Vane.
-
-“Who is he?” Trent asked his neighbour.
-
-“The lunatic with the scarf round his neck? That’s a minor poet.
-I don’t suppose you have ever come across his works. He publishes
-two volumes every year, at his own expense, of course, with about
-twenty poems in each. No one ever reads them, except the provincial
-reviewers. He has got an album filled with cuttings from papers like
-the _Pembrokeshire News_ and the _Berwick-on-Tweed Gazette_. ‘A volume
-of verse from the graceful pen of Mr. Egerton Vane’--that’s the kind
-of incense he feeds on. Once he got a puff in a paper called the
-_Librarian_, and carried it about with him for months. He said to me
-with tears in his eyes: ‘This is recognition!’”
-
-Everyone in the room seemed to have some literary or artistic vocation,
-except Mendes himself. The motive which brought the South American
-there remained unguessed by Trent, but it was clear that he extracted
-some amusement from his strange associates.
-
-“That other young fool over there is his brother, Wickham Vane,” the
-millionaire continued, indicating a boy of eighteen or thereabouts, at
-the other end of the table.
-
-“Does he write poetry, too?”
-
-“No, he doesn’t do anything so material as write. He thinks beautifully
-about old tapestry.”
-
-Wickham Vane might have been pursuing his peculiar vocation at that
-moment from his absorbed expression. But he roused himself from his
-abstraction to pay the homage of attention to his elder brother.
-
-Egerton Vane held a large sheet of paper in his hand, but before
-reading from it he prepared his hearers’ minds by a short allocution.
-
-“The poem I am about to read you strikes an entirely new note in
-literature, the note of the unreal. It is a ‘Sonnet to a Drawer in a
-Japanese Cabinet.’ I have come to the conclusion that all the poets
-who have preceded me have been mistaken in thinking that Nature was
-poetical. The artificial only is poetical, because only Art can be
-artistic. Nature is incapable of symbolism, and the symbol alone is
-truly beautiful. All the glorious sins which reveal themselves crudely
-and grossly in mere human beings are latent in exquisite suggestion in
-the divinely precious works of Art. Even the handicrafts of the East
-are steeped in the splendid sensuality of its peoples. In this poem
-I have attempted to do justice to the subtle and elusive vice which
-clings like the aroma of putrefying rose-leaves to the workmanship of a
-Japanese cabinet in my possession.”
-
-The poet proceeded to read:
-
-  SONNET
-
-  TO A DRAWER IN A JAPANESE CABINET
-
-  What shadow of dead secrets, lemon-eyed,
-    Lurks in thy black recesses, frightful drawer,
-    Crowned with the Pagan scent of delicate gore
-  Fresh from the veins of some green suicide?
-
-  Behold thy lacquered sins are glorified
-    In frantic fowls that round thy handle soar,
-    Mad with obscure desires, like those that tore
-  Unclean blue Mænads by the Phrygian tide!
-
-  And horrors like vermilion rats awake
-    And crawl about thee, crooning in my ears
-  Dim, vampire songs of shrivelled souls that ache
-
-  With the strange lust for torture-baths of pain;
-  Sick with the thirst of poison drunk in vain,
-    And bleeding with the clammy blood of tears.
-
-The new note thus successfully struck in literature was applauded with
-a vehemence that concealed some jealousy on the part of the other poets
-present. Only Molly Finucane, who was beginning to feel herself left
-out in the cold, asked the author impertinently what his work meant.
-
-“Nothing!” was the rapt reply. “All Art is quite meaningless.”
-
-The Duke of Trent turned to Mendes.
-
-“And is that absurd and disgusting rubbish the sort of thing which
-passes for poetry to-day?”
-
-“Not to-day, perhaps, but it will pass for it to-morrow. If Egerton
-Vane goes on long enough, I have no doubt he will found a school. But I
-have noticed that most young fellows who begin like that end by going
-into a monastery.”
-
-The Duke began to see a new usefulness in the institutions which he had
-been brought up to regard with aversion.
-
-The Brazilian, who knew the weak spot in most of his fellow-men,
-maliciously threw an apple of discord among the company by asking
-Egerton Vane across the table what he thought of the poems of Rowley
-Drummer.
-
-The quarrel which instantly arose and raged over the merits of this
-distinguished writer showed that envy of a rival’s renown may be a
-stronger passion than hatred of the middle classes.
-
-The chief apologist for the poet was a man who had recently achieved
-a scandalous success with a novel in which he dealt faithfully with
-the vices of all his most intimate friends. The terror inspired by
-this performance had made him for the moment the most courted man in
-London society, and persons like the brothers Vane followed him about
-everywhere in the hope of finding themselves pilloried to fame in Basil
-Dyke’s next libel.
-
-Dyke, who found his antipathy to the _bourgeoisie_ sensibly diminished
-by every cheque which reached him from his publisher, and who was
-already meditating desertion from the decadent ranks in favour of
-marriage with an heiress, put forward a claim on behalf of his client
-which it did not seem easy to refute.
-
-“He has made vice popular in the person of the British soldier,” he
-urged. “He has stamped with brazen hoofs upon the Gordons and the
-Havelocks and the prayer-meeting heroes of the Victorian Age, and has
-called upon the drudging taxpayer to bow down and worship a swearing,
-drinking blackguard. His patriotism is nauseous in itself, I grant,
-but then he has made it patriotic to break the Ten Commandments. He has
-identified Imperialism with immorality.”
-
-“And therefore, I suppose, you would say with Art?” retorted Egerton
-Vane, with ill-concealed annoyance. “All Art is immoral, but it does
-not follow that all immorality is artistic.”
-
-“Vulgarity is never artistic,” added the thinker about old tapestry,
-coming to his brother’s support. “Rowley Drummer has no sense of the
-unreal. He sees life in all its blinding vulgarity, and therefore the
-better he paints it, the worse is the result.”
-
-Dyke saw that he had gone too far. It is always bad manners to praise
-one poet in the hearing of another. He tried to qualify his praise.
-
-“I do not defend him as an artist,” he explained, “but as a demagogue.
-I say that the coarse passion called patriotism, in his hands, has been
-turned to a good purpose. After he has taught the public to acclaim the
-hooligans of the barrack-room, they cannot very well flog the hooligans
-of the street.”
-
-To the Minister, fresh from his legislative essay, this remark sounded
-like a challenge. Once more a doubt invaded his mind as to whether all
-that he was listening to was sheer ribaldry, or whether there were not
-underlying it some serious purpose, or at least some serious tendency,
-of which Cabinet Ministers one day might have to take heed.
-
-Molly Finucane had been feeling bored for some time, and, what was
-worse, feeling that her exclusion from the conversation reflected on
-her position as the lady of the house. She seized this opportunity to
-assert her prerogative.
-
-“Who talks of flogging the hooligans?” she asked, with a good deal of
-scorn. “They’ll have to catch ’em first.”
-
-She stopped short, warned by the uneasy looks of the rest that she had
-committed herself in some way. Molly did not read the papers, and so
-was ignorant of the recent proceedings of the House of Lords. But she
-was aware that Lord Alistair’s brother was identified in some way with
-the Government, and therefore with the cause of law and order, and she
-guessed that her expressions might contain some element of offence.
-
-There had been a time when Molly would have enjoyed nothing so much as
-shocking a Cabinet Minister by telling him across her own table that
-her brother was a corner-boy. But for the past year a great change
-had come over her disposition, as great as that which transforms the
-roystering medical student into the serious family practitioner. It had
-not needed the letter from Lord Alistair’s mother to put before her
-the idea of becoming Lord Alistair’s wife, nor to teach her the way in
-which his friends would take such an alliance. To become Lady Alistair
-without at the same time obtaining the social honours which other Lady
-Alistairs enjoyed would do little to satisfy that yearning for other
-women’s respect which is the torment appointed for such as Molly
-Finucane. And there was enough good in Molly to make her anxious for
-Alistair’s sake not to be a permanent blight on his career. It was for
-his sake as much as for her own that she had been striving painfully
-for the last twelve months to acquire the habitudes of a lady.
-
-The unexpected arrival of the Duke of Trent had caused her a thrill of
-pleasurable excitement. To make a good impression on the head of the
-family, she felt, would bring her half-way to the goal. Now, at the
-thought that she had been so near to disgracing herself, she could have
-bitten her tongue.
-
-Molly’s preoccupations were not shared by Alistair, who took it for
-granted that his brother had come to reproach him, and resented what
-seemed to him an impertinent intrusion. By this time he had drunk too
-much to care what he said or did, and the desire was strong upon him to
-wreak his bitter feelings on the head of his favoured elder.
-
-Staggering to his feet, and casting a disdainful look at the silent and
-annoyed Duke, he burst out:
-
-“I am a hooligan. I’ve been trying to disguise it ever since I was a
-boy, but I’m not going to try any more. I hate your law and order; I
-hate your respectability; I hate your civilization. Our forefathers
-were thieves and murderers, and I envy them. They lived a jolly life
-among the heather and the hills, and they were gentlemen. They didn’t
-cringe to cobblers and butchers for votes, and go to church on Sundays
-to please their grocer. They swore and drank and diced as much as
-they liked, and never asked what the Dissenters thought of them. I
-am sick of the strait-waistcoat; I am sick of swallow-tail coats and
-prayer-books. Why should I torture myself in the effort to lead your
-unnatural life? I protest against it all. Life is one long persecution
-of men like me, by men like you. Why can’t you leave me alone, as I
-leave you alone? I don’t force you to drink and gamble, and lead what
-you are pleased to call an immoral life. Why do you try to force me to
-lead a moral one?”
-
-He paused for a moment, and then, as if the overflow of his wrath had
-sobered him, went on in a more serious vein:
-
-“What is your ideal? Show me the man you honour, and I will show you
-the value of your morality. The hero of to-day is the successful cheat,
-the tradesman who has made a million by selling rotten food to the
-poor or to your own soldiers in South Africa; the bandit of the Stock
-Exchange; the monopolist who has broken the hearts and ruined the lives
-of a hundred struggling rivals, and who three hundred years ago would
-have been hanged as an engrosser. That is the man to whom you kneel,
-for whom all the doors of all the churches are thrown open, in whose
-name I am ordered to reform my ways.”
-
-The speaker seemed to feel the need of pointing his denunciation with a
-personal application.
-
-“I am your victim. I am the man whose life is ground out beneath the
-Juggernaut wheels of what you call your social system. Why? Because
-I cannot become hard and selfish and stupid like your model. It is
-monotony that you want; it is originality that you hate. Go to the
-tombs of your martyrs--most of them are buried in Westminster Abbey
-or St. Paul’s--Goldsmith the bankrupt, Nelson the adulterer, Pitt
-the drunkard, Shakespeare the debauchee. Those are the men whom you
-are trying to exterminate, and you have nearly succeeded. I--I had
-something here, perhaps”--he smote his forehead with his hand--“and
-I might have done something if I had ever had the chance. But you
-have killed me. All the bright instincts, all the golden wings that
-fluttered in the dawn, all the magic whispers, all the reveries and
-dreams--they are dead and still and silent now. Your work is done.”
-
-A slight shiver went round the room and touched even the Cabinet
-Minister, who had been more than once on the point of rising and taking
-his departure.
-
-Suddenly Alistair Stuart broke into a loud laugh.
-
-“Thank you, my Dishonourable friends--thank you for your support
-to-night. You see before you a bankrupt, but a merry one. You will hear
-of me again before long. I think of taking a house on the south side of
-the river, and turning hooligan. I invite you to become members of my
-band. I hope to give some trouble to the authorities. We are fortunate
-in having one of them here to-night. I invite you to drink his health,
-gentlemen--my brother, the Home Secretary, author of a Bill to punish
-the hooligans by flogging. In your name I defy him, and drink damnation
-to his Bill!”
-
-The thickness of his speech and the increasing wildness of his
-behaviour relieved Lord Alistair’s hearers from the necessity of
-treating this as anything but the utterance of an intoxicated man. But
-it was clearly necessary to put an end to the scene.
-
-Mendes and the Duke of Trent rose together, but the financier was the
-first to speak.
-
-“Gentlemen, it is time we were going. Stuart, sit down! You don’t know
-what you are doing!”
-
-He thrust Lord Alistair down into a chair and held him there, while the
-others made their hasty farewells and streamed out into the hall.
-
-“I am obliged to you, Mendes,” said the Duke. “Do you think,” he added
-in a whisper, “you could get that girl out of the way?”
-
-“It’s her house, I believe, but I’ll try to send her to bed,” was the
-answer.
-
-The Brazilian went up to Molly, who sat looking rather frightened at
-her end of the table. He said a few words in a low voice which appeared
-to produce the right effect. Molly Finucane glanced timidly at the
-Duke, and then came towards him with an evident desire to propitiate.
-
-“I’ll leave him with you, if you like,” she said, “but you won’t find
-it much good talking to him to-night, I expect. You’d better come again
-in the morning, if it’s any business.”
-
-Trent confined himself to bowing silently, and Mendes accompanied Miss
-Finucane out of the room, leaving the brothers together.
-
-Alistair had remained still, with his head resting in his hands, as
-though exhausted by his passion. Hearing the door close, he looked up
-sullenly.
-
-“Well, what do you want with me?” he asked.
-
-Faithful to his resolve to be gracious, in spite of the provocations he
-had received, the Duke made a mild answer.
-
-“I want you to come home, Alistair.”
-
-“This is home.”
-
-“My house is your home,” said James, not unkindly; and, with a tact of
-which he was not always capable, he added: “Our mother’s house is the
-home of both of us.”
-
-Alistair reddened.
-
-“How is she?” he muttered.
-
-“She is very anxious and unhappy about you. I have promised her to save
-you, if you will let me.”
-
-This time the elder brother’s words were not so well chosen. It always
-grated on Alistair to be reminded that he was dependent on James.
-
-“I can’t leave my friends,” he said stubbornly.
-
-Trent thought of the company he had just seen depart, and his
-indignation got the better of him.
-
-“Friends!” he repeated. “Friends who have landed you in the Bankruptcy
-Court!”
-
-“Well, you didn’t keep me out of it!”
-
-Trent made a strong effort to keep his temper.
-
-“I have seen my solicitor to-day with the object of preventing the
-adjudication. Alistair, I will do it, if you will only pull yourself
-together, and make it possible for your mother and me to help you. I
-will pay your debts once more, though I can ill afford it, and start
-you again with a clean sheet, if you will only take advantage of it.
-Come! I have got the brougham waiting outside. Why shouldn’t you get up
-now, and let me take you straight away with me?”
-
-He tried to speak cheerfully and confidently. But there was no
-encouragement in the bleared eyes that looked up at him.
-
-“What! and leave Molly after she’s stuck to me all this time? D’you
-think I’m a cad, Trent?”
-
-“You called yourself a hooligan just now.”
-
-Trent regretted the retort the moment it had passed his lips. But it
-was too late. Alistair started up angrily.
-
-“And, damn it! I’ll _be_ a hooligan before I will sell the little woman
-for a few miserable thousands, like that! Go to the devil, you and your
-clean sheet! I’m sorry for the old mater, if she feels it, but I can’t
-stand your patronage, and I won’t have your moralizing; so you can just
-leave me alone.”
-
-“I will leave you alone!” exclaimed his brother. “God forgive me, I
-sometimes wonder what I have done to deserve being cursed with such a
-brother as you!”
-
-He turned and strode out of the room, leaving Alistair to sway and sink
-down with his head upon the table among the ashes and wine-stains of
-the extinguished revel.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII
-
-A LEGITIMIST DEMONSTRATION
-
-
-THE carriage which brought the Duchess of Trent and Miss Vanbrugh to
-the Legitimist bazaar set them down at the door of a mean-looking,
-brick-built schoolroom, over the door of which was a niche containing
-the statue of a woman holding a babe in her arms.
-
-This woman was intended for a Jewish peasant, wife of the carpenter
-Joseph of Nazareth. This babe was her Divine Son, the second person of
-the Christian Triad.
-
-The woman wore an emblem of glory in the form of a crown on her
-head. The babe’s head was undecorated. The group was copied without
-alteration from the ancient pagan idols of the Great Mother and her
-Child, worshipped for countless ages in the Mediterranean zone.
-
-Beneath the niche four letters were cut. They were the four initials,
-A.M.D.G., of the Latin words, _Ad majorem Dei gloriam_--“To the greater
-glory of God.”
-
-It was the motto of the famous Society of Jesus, set up over a building
-in which the children of Protestant Churchmen were being educated.
-Only the Jesuit motto was not set out in full; it was merely hinted at
-by those cryptic letters. This was a touch that Ignatius Loyola would
-have admired.
-
-Neither of the two ladies observed the unobtrusive initials, nor,
-if they had done so, would they have understood their significance.
-But they could scarcely avoid seeing the idol in its niche; and
-just as they were stepping out of the carriage a bright little lad,
-attractively robed in a white gown with a red vest above, evidently a
-singing-boy from the church hard by, passed through the doorway, bowing
-reverently to the sacred image as he went up the steps.
-
-The Duchess of Trent was amazed. Her works of charity had never brought
-her into this part of the parish, and she had always kept herself from
-contact with the religious activities of St. Jermyn’s.
-
-“If that is not Popery, I should like to know what is?” she exclaimed
-bluntly to her young friend. “Did you see that boy bowing to the Virgin
-Mary? I have no doubt they are taught to pray to her as well.”
-
-This surmise was perfectly just. Such slight control as the episcopate,
-or at least the lay judges of the Privy Council, exercised over the
-services in St. Jermyn’s Church, appeared to cease altogether on the
-threshold of the school. Within that building Dr. Coles was supreme,
-and taught what religion he pleased. If it had suited him to set up
-an image of Siva for the adoration of his scholars, or to inculcate
-the most degrading beliefs of primitive savagery, no one would have
-interfered with his discretion. Thus, while the Vicar maintained
-some of the forms of Anglican worship in the parish church, in the
-schoolroom he had long laid them aside. The catechism taught to the
-boys was one prepared by a clerical secret society, and was carefully
-contrived to fill the learner’s mind with hatred for the Protestant
-heresy, and to turn it in the direction of Catholic Unity.
-
-A special liturgy, compiled by the same hands, was also provided
-for the use of the scholars. In it the Mother of God figured as the
-principal, though not the sole, object of worship, the Apostle Peter
-taking the second place. Among the prayers, precedence was given to
-one for the Patriarch of the West--“Thy servant Leo, that he may be
-inspired rightly to define and zealously to defend the faith once
-delivered to Thy saints.” After this came petitions on behalf of a
-personage discreetly referred to as “the lawful Sovereign of these
-realms,” the souls of the dead “now awaiting Thy judgment,” and the
-reunion, “under one visible Head on earth,” of all branches of the Holy
-Catholic Church. Dr. Coles himself was responsible for a supplementary
-prayer in which “our blessed patron, Saint Jermyn,” was complimented on
-his influence with the Mother of God, due to the continence of his life
-on earth, and implored to use that influence on behalf of the area for
-which he was, as it were, the spiritual County Councillor.
-
-It was a document breathing the spirit of the Dark Ages, when God
-figured in men’s minds as a sort of Byzantine Emperor, surrounded by a
-court of heavenly chamberlains and eunuchs, each dispensing favours to
-his own train of followers, and none incapable of being bribed.
-
-Miss Vanbrugh, regarding the symbolical sculpture with the indifference
-born of ignorance, smiled at her friend’s indignation.
-
-“Let us go in,” she said; “I don’t think it’s so bad inside.”
-
-The whitewashed walls of the room in which they found themselves
-offered a curious medley of science and religion, evidencing a painful
-struggle in the mind of Dr. Coles between proselytizing zeal and a
-desire to earn the grants of an heretical Government. A large crucifix
-over the teacher’s desk was flanked by a geological map of Great
-Britain, and a glass case containing silk in various stages from the
-cocoon to the finished skein. The Ten Commandments on one wall were
-faced by the two hemispheres on the other; and an illuminated calendar
-of Holy Days was half concealed by a chart depicting screws, wedges,
-levers, and other mechanical appliances. The cloven, or at least the
-clerical, hoof peeped out in a series of cartoons illustrative of
-English history, the scenes chosen being all in one category--the
-landing of Augustine, the martyrdom of Edmund, Thomas à Becket defying
-Henry II., and Langton, with a formidable crozier, extorting Magna
-Charta from King John apparently by the threat of physical violence,
-while the barons respectfully looked on.
-
-On this particular occasion the eye was quickly distracted from these
-mural decorations by the exhibition beneath. The room, which was
-large enough to contain one or two hundred people, was lined round
-three sides by stalls loaded with that extraordinary description of
-articles which are manufactured specially for sale at bazaars, and in
-which the greatest possible uselessness is combined with the greatest
-possible fragility. Children’s frocks, which no child could wear for
-an hour without damaging them, embroidered tobacco-pouches sufficient
-to dismay the most stout-hearted smoker, weird contrivances of paper
-and cheap ribbon described as toilet-tidies, ridiculous pin-cushions,
-and impossible patchwork quilts formed the staple of the display. In
-one corner a lottery was being conducted by the Rev. Aloysius Grimes,
-happy in that immunity from the law which newspaper editors cannot
-obtain; and pretty little choristers, in their sacred vestments, were
-passing to and fro among the ladies doing a roaring trade in the sale
-of tickets. But the great attraction of the afternoon was the theatre,
-which had been organized in an adjoining classroom, and in which it was
-announced that a Miracle Play would be produced at four o’clock, under
-the direction of Egerton Vane, Esq.
-
-As soon as Mr. Grimes caught sight of the Duchess of Trent and her
-companion, he handed over the care of the lottery to a young lady
-assistant, and hastened forward to greet them. He was just shaking
-hands, when a stir in the doorway announced the arrival of Dr. Coles.
-
-In appearance the Vicar of St. Jermyn’s contrasted very favourably
-with his curate. It was easy to see that he was a man of education and
-refinement, and his white hairs gave him a certain dignity. His face
-was that of a sensualist, but the benevolent smile, which had become
-almost stereotyped on his lips, produced an impression of cordiality
-and goodness of heart. The Doctor’s career had not been quite
-untroubled by the voice of scandal. But any bygone slips on the part of
-a saintly man had been forgotten or forgiven. The reverent murmur which
-welcomed his appearance among his flock was a striking testimony to the
-influence he had secured over those among whom he worked.
-
-The Rev. Aloysius, breaking away from the two ladies in the middle of a
-sentence, without apology, was the first to cast himself on both knees
-before his employer, and respectfully kiss a large ring on the Vicar’s
-extended forefinger.
-
-“What in the name of goodness does that mean?” the astonished Duchess
-asked of Hero.
-
-She spoke loudly enough to be heard by several persons in the throng,
-who turned and cast rebuking glances at her. Directly afterwards she
-saw a number of well-dressed women advance one after the other and
-salute the Vicar of St. Jermyn’s with the same ceremonial as that
-observed by Mr. Grimes.
-
-“Are they all mad, or what is it?” the Duchess whispered. “I have
-never seen such a thing before in my life, except when I was abroad,
-in Roman Catholic society. But even they don’t kneel to their priests,
-only to a Bishop.”
-
-Hero blushed guiltily. She was better informed than the Duchess,
-but she was not sure that her knowledge might not damage her in her
-friend’s eyes.
-
-“Perhaps these people regard Dr. Coles as a Bishop,” she suggested
-timidly. “Have you never heard it whispered that he had been secretly
-consecrated by--an Armenian Bishop, I think?”
-
-The Duchess stared at her in honest bewilderment.
-
-“How could that be? I don’t understand. Why should an English clergyman
-go to Armenia to be consecrated?”
-
-Hero saw that she must make her revelation complete.
-
-“I understand the object was to renew the Apostolical Succession in the
-Church of England.”
-
-“It has never been broken,” said the Duchess, with decision. She had
-been told so as a girl, and had never given the subject a second
-thought. To her devout mind, too candid to be taken in logical
-snares, the presence or absence of one or two or three Bishops at
-the consecration of another could not seem a matter of real concern.
-To attribute to such details the awful consequences they possess for
-Catholic minds would have seemed to her to attribute the technical
-instincts of a small attorney to the Maker of the sun and stars.
-
-“The Pope of Rome refuses to recognize Anglican Orders, you know,”
-Hero explained gently. “The application was made to him the other day
-by Lord Bargreave on behalf of a third of the clergy, and he told them
-that the English Church had no Bishops, no priests, and no Sacraments.”
-
-The Duchess flushed to the roots of her hair.
-
-“When I was a girl,” she said sternly, “the Church of England would
-have refused to recognize the Pope of Rome. I was brought up to believe
-that the Roman communion was a half-pagan, half-political body, which
-had corrupted the Gospel with idolatry and superstition, and forfeited
-its right to be called a Christian Church.”
-
-It was Hero’s turn to be astonished as she listened to the language
-of an extinct generation. Brought up in the age which had witnessed
-the triumph of the Ritualist propaganda, it was news to her that the
-national Church had ever occupied any attitude but one of envious
-imitation or suppliant apology towards that of Rome. And yet Hero
-Vanbrugh was a girl who had read a good deal, travelled much, and used
-her own powers of observation and reasoning. She had seen the ignorant
-priesthoods of Spain and Italy, and their brutish flocks, the most
-degraded element in the European population. The sight of the Rev.
-Aloysius Grimes cringing to Mike Finigan had roused her indignation.
-And yet the spectacle of a great society of Grimeses cringing to
-Mike Finigan’s master, in the name of Elizabeth’s and Cromwell’s
-countrymen, had scarcely moved her to a passing sigh.
-
-“Times have changed,” she murmured to the Duchess.
-
-And times had. Even the Duchess realized dimly that it had become
-unsafe to utter aloud her sentiments of loyalty to the English Church
-or to the English Throne in a Church of England schoolroom, while it
-had ceased to be unsafe for Dr. Coles to parade openly his treason
-to both. His episcopal character was no secret in the theological
-colleges from which a steady stream of young men like the Rev. Aloysius
-turned their steps to the obscure Lambeth Vicarage in search of those
-supernatural powers which they deemed the neighbouring Archbishop had
-no power to bestow. In this way the whole Church was being gradually
-leavened, so that the time was at hand when some portion of the
-mysterious virtue brought from Armenia would have found its way into
-all the channels of ordination, and obstinate Evangelicals would be
-receiving Armenian Orders unknown to themselves, and would be working
-the great Transubstantiation miracle in which they personally did not
-believe.
-
-For the sake of achieving this object Dr. Coles had put on one side the
-prospect of promotion in the English Church. With abilities sufficient
-to have raised him perhaps to the House of Lords, he had deliberately
-accepted the part of priest of an obscure parish, content if his
-underground revolution was allowed to proceed without interference.
-His motives were mixed, perhaps, but great revolutions are the result
-of mixed motives, and never of wholly small and base ones. The Vicar of
-St. Jermyn’s was blinded to the degrading character of his methods by
-the loftiness of his aims. He took the guilt of fraud and perjury on
-his conscience, and he did so contentedly, looking forward to the time
-when the Church he served would re-enter the Catholic unity, and the
-Body of Christ be made whole.
-
-As soon as he had finished receiving the homage of his peculiar
-adherents, the old priest went up to the Duchess of Trent, for whom
-he had a warm regard. In spite of the theological gulf that sundered
-them, she commanded his sympathy far more than the vain and hysterical
-women who grovelled in his confessional, and her simple and unselfish
-piety displayed in those good works which all religions enjoin had
-won his gratitude and respect. Had he been able to make a convert
-of the Duchess he would have felt it as great a triumph as when the
-State-appointed Bishop of Linchester, laying aside his jewelled crozier
-and mitre, came and knelt in the humble study of St. Jermyn’s Vicarage
-to receive them again at the hands of the “Bishop of Lambeth.”
-
-On her side the Duchess was not blind to the merits of Dr. Coles,
-his indefatigable zeal, unworldliness, and kindly temper. They met
-as friends meet, seated in different trains, and going in opposite
-directions, who exchange a brief word of greeting before they pass out
-of each other’s sight.
-
-The Duchess had never referred to the religious aberrations of the
-Doctor, but she thought she might safely challenge him on the subject
-of loyalty to the Throne.
-
-“I had no idea that you sympathized with the Legitimists,” she observed.
-
-The Vicar smiled indulgently.
-
-“This bazaar, I suppose you mean? It is more Father Grimes’s doing than
-mine. I hold entirely aloof from politics.”
-
-“But you have lent your schoolroom.”
-
-Dr. Coles frowned.
-
-“My schoolroom, as you call it, is a public building,” he said, with
-a touch of anger. “I find I am expected to lend it for the purposes
-of political meetings, even to the party which almost openly aims at
-Disestablishment. I sometimes wonder I don’t receive an application to
-lend it for an infidel lecture.”
-
-The Duchess was impressed. Dr. Coles had struck the one note which
-brought them into perfect accord, in his reference to infidelity.
-
-In the view of the Duchess this was the one thing worse than Popery.
-Her religious scale was made up of five degrees. At the very bottom
-came Infidelity, in which term she was disposed to include the
-Unitarian denomination and those divines of her own Church whose Hebrew
-studies had led them to take different views as to the authorship of
-the Old Testament books from those at one time prevalent. The second
-head, Popery, covered practically the whole Christian Church during the
-ages between the death of Paul and the conversion of Martin Luther, and
-two-thirds of existing Christendom. The third division, under the word
-Idolatry, embraced the religions of the rest of mankind, including the
-stern monotheists of Islam. The Jews formed a class apart; the Duchess
-was too good a Conservative to blame that ancient race severely for
-their stubbornness in resisting even a Divine reform; she regarded them
-as a species of embryo Christians, whose development had been arrested
-in the caterpillar stage. Her fifth division, Protestantism, applied to
-the sects dating from the Lutheran revolt, and to stray heretics of the
-past, such as the Socialist Lollards and the freethinking Albigeois,
-who possessed the merit of having been persecuted by Rome. Among these,
-of course, she distinguished between the converted Christian and the
-much larger class of sinners for whom she wished to take for granted a
-death-bed repentance.
-
-It was not an unimportant matter that the Duchess of Trent should
-have held these views. Money is always important, and the Duchess was
-one of a very large moneyed class who were always ready to open their
-purses on behalf of their favourite propaganda. The infidel and the
-sinner were supposed to be reached by the ordinary machinery of the
-Church, and the Papist and the Jew had been wellnigh abandoned as
-hopeless, though a few Englishmen of the lower class still prowled
-through countries like Spain and Portugal, distributing Protestant
-tracts and increasing the dislike felt for their nation. But the great
-field for missionary effort, of course, was that section of mankind
-labelled idolaters or heathen. In the spirit of the hymn which singles
-out the inoffensive Buddhists of Ceylon to brand them with the epithet
-vile, the good Duchess firmly believed that to thrust, not merely
-the theology, but the morals, social customs, marriage institutions,
-language, manners, and even clothing of her own age and country upon
-all the peoples of the earth was a Divine injunction to be neglected at
-her peril.
-
-This generous zeal had long been encouraged by the statesmen of the
-Raj, who saw its possessions widened without the expense of arms. The
-British Empire resembles no other that has ever existed in having come
-into existence unconsciously. England has sent forth her outlaws on
-the shores of distant continents, and they have come back soldiers for
-her. Her merchants have gone forth seeking merchandise, and realms
-Alexander sighed for have fallen like ripe fruit into their hands. Her
-missionaries have Anglicized where they should have Christianized;
-the bigoted worshippers of Allah and Vishnu imitate the language of
-Macaulay, and every new church in Africa gives a new cotton-mill to
-Lancashire.
-
-Dr. Coles had a more personal argument in store for the Duchess of
-Trent.
-
-“Surely you cannot be very bigoted against the Legitimists,” he urged.
-“I thought that all the old Scotch families were Jacobites at heart.
-And Lord Alistair Stuart is a member of the Guild.”
-
-“I have heard my mistress, the Queen, say: ‘I am the greatest Jacobite
-of them all,’” the Duchess responded. “But I don’t think she ever
-expected to hear of real Jacobites in the twentieth century. I don’t
-take your friends very seriously, Dr. Coles, and I dare say my son
-doesn’t either.”
-
-Before the discussion could be carried further Alistair himself came
-into view. His mother watched him anxiously, half afraid of seeing him
-accord the same homage to Dr. Coles as the others. But whether because
-he was wanting in reverence for Armenia, or because he was ashamed to
-show greater respect to a man than to his own mother, Stuart contented
-himself with shaking hands with the priest, after he had previously
-greeted his parent.
-
-He was surprised at first to see her at such a function. But the
-diplomacy of the Duchess was very transparent. She at once turned to
-Hero, and pronounced the formula which entitles two people in English
-society to know of each other’s existence.
-
-It was the first time Alistair had seen Miss Vanbrugh, but not the
-first time he had heard her name. The eyes of society are very keen
-where a man like the Duke of Trent and Colonsay is concerned, and its
-whispering-gallery is very wide. Although the Duke himself had never
-given any significance to his intercourse with Hero, the correct
-significance had already been given to it by others, and the rumour
-had reached Lord Alistair. For him the girl who stood before him was
-the girl who was on the point of becoming his brother’s betrothed.
-
-He raised his eyes to her face, and when he saw that picture of calm,
-sweet maidenhood, with all the bloom of youth and purity upon it, and
-those eyes radiant with high and happy thoughts, and when he recalled
-that other face he had just quitted, with the paint peeling off under
-the haggard eyes, and the cracked lips set in a querulous scowl because
-he had not dared to bring her into the company of reputable women, and
-when he compared his own lot, cast with that unhappy creature, with
-the life that lay before his brother, blest in so dear a wife, then
-his heart failed him, and he had to turn away his eyes to hide the
-unexpected smart.
-
-On her part Hero was not much less moved. She saw standing before her
-the figure around which her imagination had already woven its romance,
-and he was handsomer than the hero of her romance. The gracefully-knit
-form, with its statuesque neck and curling dark hair, breathed the
-very spirit of the lays of Oisin. The swish of the heather was still
-in his elastic tread, the sunlight of the rain-washed Hebrides was in
-his glance. She seemed to see him in his kilt and plaid, the eagle’s
-feather nodding in his bonnet, and the claymore by his side, a young
-chieftain of the glens, starting at daybreak from his bed among the
-fern, and setting forth perhaps to woo a maiden like herself with
-the immemorial charms of song and dance. In the strait garb of the
-decorous capital he seemed to her like a shorn Samson, and she thought
-of violets fading in a city garret, and skylarks caged in a dark cellar
-beating their wings in want of light and air.
-
-She, also, drew her comparison, and the cold and perfect courtier of
-Colonsay House suffered by it. For the first time she felt in its full
-strength that instinct of self-sacrifice which lies at the core of
-every noble nature. The task which Stuart’s mother had offered to her,
-and in which she had only taken a sentimental interest, now became a
-fascination. The longing to save this glorious soul, fallen among weeds
-and briars, to lift it up and wipe away its stains, and set it on its
-true path again, overcame her like the touch of love; the touch of
-love overcame her like the longing to save, and her hand trembled in
-Alistair Stuart’s.
-
-The two Vanes sidled up, anxious to be recognized by their chief.
-
-“So glad you have turned up, Stuart,” bleated the elder. “It’s quite a
-demonstration, isn’t it?”
-
-“Yes,” Wickham echoed, “it is a blow. I think we are striking a blow.”
-
-He meant at the hated middle classes. It was the only kind of a blow he
-was ever likely to strike against that or any other enemy.
-
-Stuart heard them with impatience. Somehow the presence of Hero made
-the two brothers look tawdry and ridiculous with their decadent cant,
-their untidy hair, and their silly, outlandish neckties. He answered
-with irony:
-
-“No doubt the middle classes will be frightened when they hear of this
-bazaar. But you must see that it gets into the papers, otherwise the
-effect will be lost. Are there any reporters here?”
-
-The brothers looked around a little nervously.
-
-“I hope so,” said Egerton, whose vanity was slightly greater than his
-cowardice.
-
-“It might vulgarize the thing,” suggested Wickham whose cowardice was
-slightly greater than his vanity.
-
-Stuart understood their fears, and played on them by way of distraction
-from his secret emotion.
-
-“I expect the place is crammed with detectives,” he observed. “I
-fancied I saw one or two suspicious-looking fellows with notebooks as I
-came in.”
-
-Hero grasped the situation, and smiled.
-
-“No; do you think so?” exclaimed the elder Vane in a tone of
-exultation, tempered by alarm. “But surely there is nothing they can
-take hold of--nothing illegal, I mean--in a bazaar?”
-
-“They may shadow us after this, though,” muttered the junior, in whom
-alarm had got the better of exultation.
-
-“They may treat the bazaar as evidence of a conspiracy,” Stuart
-suggested cheerfully. “But here comes St. Maur; you had better ask him.”
-
-He turned, and led Hero away through the crowd, to escape from the
-person he had indicated, leaving the brothers in a state of cruel
-apprehension.
-
-But Mr. St. Maur was not to be shaken off so easily. This gentleman,
-who had spelt his name “Maher” in his native city of “Dahblin”
-(as he was accustomed to pronounce it), was the son of a decent
-butter-merchant, who had put him to the Bar. Coming over to the Temple,
-in accordance with old custom to keep his terms, the ambitious youth
-was surprised and charmed to find that his membership of the Roman
-Church, which had stood somewhat in his light in the society of the
-Irish capital, was here a fashionable distinction. To drink the Roman
-Pontiff’s health before that of the British Sovereign appeared to be in
-some mysterious way a passport to Court favour, and a Roman missionary
-had just been given precedence over the heads of the English Church.
-The policy of the Primrose League had been adapted to the purposes of
-proselytism, and a club had been founded in the West End in which the
-middle-class aspirant could enjoy the privilege of lunching in the
-same room as a Roman Cabinet Minister and receiving the _Times_ fresh
-from the hands of a Roman Duke. Unfortunately the Duke and the Cabinet
-Minister failed to play their parts with sufficient zeal, or else there
-were not enough of them to go around, and St. Bridget’s Club gradually
-sunk from depth to depth till not merely Protestants, but Jews,
-profaned its portals, and it became a refuge for all the suspicious
-characters whom other clubs refused.
-
-Young Maher was not long in deciding to forsake the Irish Bar for the
-English, and a slight alteration in the spelling of his name enabled
-him to pose as an offshoot of one of the greatest families in Britain.
-The difficulty of an accent which clove obstinately to his tongue was
-met by a well-constructed legend of an Irish branch of the family in
-question, supposed to have settled in the Emerald Isle about the time
-of Strongbow. On the strength of this genealogy, which would have done
-credit to the Heralds’ College in its best remunerated moments, Mr. St.
-Maur was in the habit of referring to a nobleman of lofty rank as “the
-head of our house,” thereby causing intolerable anguish to his friends,
-the Vanes, who were only nephews of a baronet. Unfortunately they were
-prevented from questioning the genuineness of St. Maur’s pedigree,
-inasmuch as they had laid every stress upon it in introducing him to
-their acquaintance. But they had an uneasy sense that the Irishman was
-an impostor who had beaten them by mere bluff.
-
-On his part the barrister having, as he conceived, surpassed the Vanes,
-was seeking for loftier heights to scale. As soon as he met Lord
-Alistair Stuart in the brothers’ flat he promptly marked him out for
-attack. Undaunted by Stuart’s evident dislike for him, the Irishman
-persistently forced himself on his notice. With this object he had
-thrown himself heart and soul into the Legitimist cause, as he would
-have thrown himself into the Independent Labour Party the day after if
-the leaders of that movement had been members of the peerage.
-
-Having come to the bazaar chiefly in order to push his acquaintance
-with Lord Alistair, Mr. St. Maur was not the man to be balked of his
-prey.
-
-“Grand success, this, isn’t it, Stuart?” he bawled out from afar, as he
-hustled his way through the throng.
-
-Much as Stuart disliked his follower, he failed to give him credit
-for the naked singleness of his aims. Had he fully understood the
-Irishman’s character, he would have got rid of him before this by the
-easy expedient of introducing him to his brother. Once anchored to the
-coat-tails of a Duke, St. Maur would have left a mere younger brother
-severely alone. As it was, Lord Alistair saw no way of repelling the
-intruder except by a harshness which was not in his nature.
-
-Mr. St. Maur shook hands effusively, and then, finding he was not going
-to be introduced to Lord Alistair’s companion, began enlarging on the
-prospects of the movement.
-
-“I consider this affair will launch us as a serious party,” he
-declared. “The public will begin to reckon with us. It will soon be
-time to think of a Parliamentary candidature. What do you say, Stuart?”
-
-Alistair shrugged his shoulders.
-
-“I should think you would get about ten votes in any constituency in
-England.”
-
-“Ah, but what about Scotland? There is a feeling up there that might be
-appealed to. If a man like yourself, now, a member of an old Highland
-family, were to stand in your own part of the country, don’t you think
-the clansmen would rally round you?”
-
-“You forget that I should have my brother’s influence dead against me.
-He is a member of the Government.”
-
-“He would have to disavow you officially, of course. But privately, you
-know? Don’t you think the Duke might be brought to show some sympathy
-for the movement?”
-
-“He would simply laugh at it, I expect,” said Stuart.
-
-“The Duke of Gloucester does not laugh at it,” returned the other.
-
-Alistair’s face darkened at the name, and he cast down his eyes.
-
-“How do you know that?” he asked.
-
-St. Maur swelled with importance.
-
-“I happen to have private information that he watches the proceedings
-of the Guild with the closest attention. He has everything that appears
-in the press about us sent him by a press-cutting agency.”
-
-“I wish I had known that before,” said Alistair. And, turning to Hero,
-he explained: “I have let them have an autograph letter of the Prince’s
-to sell at one of the stalls.”
-
-The absurdity of this did not strike Hero so much as its ingratitude.
-
-“A letter from the Prince to you, do you mean?” she asked, with an
-accent of reproach.
-
-“Yes; I used to know him very well when we were boys. I came across it
-the other day among some old papers. But I shouldn’t like him to hear
-that I had let it be sold.”
-
-A purpose had swiftly formed in Hero’s mind.
-
-“Whereabouts is the stall?” she inquired.
-
-“Over here.”
-
-Turning his back on Mr. St. Maur with unwonted rudeness, he conducted
-Hero to a stall presided over by a pretty, overdressed little woman,
-who had been persuaded by Mr. Grimes in the confessional that she would
-thus atone for certain errors to which pretty, overdressed little women
-are prone. Prince Herbert’s autograph had been entrusted to her for
-sale, and by good luck it had not been disposed of when the two came up.
-
-“What is the price of this letter?” Miss Vanbrugh asked quickly.
-
-“One guinea,” the stallkeeper simpered. “It is from His Royal Highness
-the Duke of Gloucester to Lord Alistair Stuart,” she added in ignorance
-of who stood before her.
-
-“Let me buy it, and give it to you!” cried Alistair, guessing Hero’s
-design.
-
-She took up the letter. It was a short schoolboy’s note, and contained
-a misspelt word.
-
-  “DEAR ALISTAIR:
-
-  “I cannot meet you to-morrow, as the Crown Prince of Austria is
-  coming, but I will go out fishing on Saturday if you like. Come over
-  here at ten o’clock--mind, be punctual.
-
-                                         “Yours affectionately,
-                                                               “HERBERT.
-
-  “P.S.--Sorry to break my promise, but they made me. Mind, bring your
-  fishing-rod.”
-
-Hero handed the letter to her companion.
-
-“I would rather you let me buy it, and give it back to you,” she said.
-
-She handed the money to the lady of the stall, who was looking
-considerably astonished.
-
-Alistair understood the delicate rebuke. His glance took in the
-contents of the friendly, boyish note afresh, and he felt ashamed that
-he had parted with it.
-
-“I am very grateful to you, Miss Vanbrugh, believe me,” he said
-earnestly, as he slipped the letter into his pocket. “I ought not to
-have let it go into strange hands. But I hope I needn’t count you as a
-stranger. You are often at Colonsay House, aren’t you?”
-
-“I have never met you there,” said Hero pointedly.
-
-And Alistair was silent.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-The Miracle Play was a great success, though not, perhaps, in the way
-anticipated by Dr. Coles.
-
-The Vicar had understood that the text of the Ober-Ammergau
-performance was to furnish the basis of a version only slightly
-modified by Mr. Egerton Vane. But Mr. Vane, being deeply imbued with
-the spirit of Maeterlinck, had allowed his adaptation to become
-tinctured to an unforeseen extent by the vein of symbolism peculiar to
-the work of the Belgian master. The orthodox Christian interpretation
-being repugnant to his feelings as a Pagan, he had, moreover, boldly
-replaced it by something more congenial to his own sympathies.
-
-The result was somewhat as though a conscientious Buddhist should
-rewrite “Paradise Lost,” endeavouring to make it illustrate the
-doctrine of metempsychosis.
-
-In the opening scene Mary was introduced as the Spirit of Form,
-receiving the Annunciation from the Angel Gabriel as the representative
-of Creative Genius. The dialogue, which was fortunately unintelligible
-to nine-tenths of the audience, turned on the sterility of the Jewish
-nation in the department of the plastic arts. Mary was informed
-that her Son would remove the prohibition contained in the Second
-Commandment, thereby opening the way for the Christian school of
-statuary and painting.
-
-The whole of the sacred narrative was dealt with from the same
-standpoint. The Wise Men were presented as the exponents of the three
-arts of Poetry, Music, and Painting, whose respective merits were
-discussed at some length. The dispute of the child Christ in the Temple
-was made to turn on Keats’s famous identification of Truth with
-Beauty. Satan, in the scene of the Temptation, appeared as the genius
-of Utilitarianism and the middle classes, urging the Christ to abandon
-the principle of Art for Art’s sake. Towards the end of the drama
-Byron’s jest about Barabbas was almost literally incorporated, Barabbas
-being designed as a type of commercial success in literature--a Jewish
-Tennyson or Ruskin.
-
-Every allusion to the Jews as a people was barbed with the bitterest
-malignity. The Semitic spirit was branded, with some historical
-confusion, as that of Philistinism _par excellence_; and Isaiah and
-other prophets were ingeniously represented as having fallen martyrs to
-their literary excellence rather than to their reforming energy.
-
-The allegory was so vague and the dialogue so obscure that most of
-those present entirely failed to grasp the enormity of the author’s
-transgression. But it was otherwise with Dr. Coles. The Armenian
-proselyte was a learned and thorough-going medievalist, and he had
-taken it for granted that medieval traditions would be strictly adhered
-to. He had left the work of superintending the rehearsals to his
-curate, never deeming that Mr. Grimes was capable of betraying the
-trust. Nor was he, had he been sufficiently intelligent to perceive
-that he was being made a cat’s-paw by his pagan librettist. The actors
-in the piece, being the choir-boys, were even less capable of judging
-of the drift of the performance.
-
-The deeply mortified Vicar restrained his wrath till the moment when
-the High-Priest Caiaphas came upon the scene in the thinly-disguised
-character of the proprietor of a morning paper with an enormous
-circulation, when it became impossible to mistake the dramatist’s
-intentions. Rising from his seat in the front row of the audience, Dr.
-Coles gave a peremptory order for the curtain to be let down, and the
-thoroughly mystified spectators seized the opportunity to escape.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX
-
-MOLLY FINUCANE AT HOME
-
-
-AS he turned away from St. Jermyn’s schoolroom, after putting his
-mother and Miss Vanbrugh into their carriage, Lord Alistair Stuart made
-a curious discovery. Thrusting his hands into his pocket in the act of
-nodding to a cabdriver, he found that he had no money.
-
-The brother of the Duke of Trent and Colonsay had often known what it
-was to want a thousand pounds, but he had never been without sovereigns
-in his pocket, and it took him some moments to realize that this state
-of things was not accidental, but natural in his new circumstances.
-
-Much to his own surprise, he felt the first cold touch of poverty
-distinctly exhilarating, like a bather’s first plunge into the sea. It
-was not hardship so far; it was merely adventure. He apologized to the
-disappointed cabman, and set off to walk to Chelsea, with that sense of
-superiority to fortune which Aristippus may have felt when he bade his
-tired slave throw away the bag of gold.
-
-Voluntary suffering has always exercised a powerful charm over a
-certain order of mankind. The starvation, the confinement, and the
-self-torture of the Hindu fakir and the Catholic saint have not been
-practised solely with a business-like view to reward in a future life;
-they have satisfied a need--morbid, perhaps, but real, since it is
-found among races that have scarcely risen to the conception of another
-world. It is as if diseased human nature instinctively sought its own
-remedy, as the suffering animal seeks out the herb possessed of healing
-powers.
-
-As Alistair Stuart took his way through the mean streets of Lambeth
-and Vauxhall, with their narrow dirty pavements, their scanty shops
-at the street-corners and their taverns in which the only touches of
-brightness and prosperity seemed concentrated, he felt the temptation
-growing strong upon him.
-
-“After all, it would not be so bad to live this life,” he said
-to himself. “One might be very cosy in one of these small old
-houses, tucked up against some great dead wall, with unknown things
-taking place on the other side of it, or buried beneath some huge
-railway arch, with trains thundering overhead all night to unknown
-destinations. I seem to be an outlaw; why shouldn’t I live among
-outlaws? I could loaf about in flannel shirts and dressing-gowns all
-day long, and Molly would fetch me my beer from the public-house. I
-should smoke long clay pipes, and write an epic poem, like the ‘City of
-Dreadful Night.’”
-
-But the recollection of Thomson and his poem turned the current of his
-thoughts into a darker channel.
-
-“How many men of genius has London brained with her paving-stones!” he
-reflected bitterly. “The poet asks for nothing but liberty to sing, and
-the world will not give it to him. ‘Give me money’s worth for my bread
-and raiment and shelter’ is her harsh demand; and she drags the poet
-from his fountain in the wilderness to sweep the dust of the bazaar.”
-
-His fellow-feeling for the poor drunken schoolmaster rested on
-sentiment. In Alistair the seed of genius, delicate from the first,
-had been choked, not by the pressure of physical needs, but by a
-profound moral discouragement. During the years in which genius begins
-to recognize itself, to try its wings, and point its first shy flight
-towards the empyrean, he had found himself living the life of a
-criminal on a ticket-of-leave. He had been kept in a state of spiritual
-starvation, deprived of the food for which his nature pined, and choked
-with the dry bread of Calvinism. The budding tendrils of his mind had
-shrivelled, vainly searching for the air of sympathy and the warm sun
-of praise. He had been made to feel afraid of his own intelligence,
-his dreams and guesses after truth and beauty were imputed to him as
-iniquity; and if he ever sought to give them expression, he wrote as
-Crusoe might have written on his desert isle--for the ears of savages.
-
-His genius had emerged from this ordeal maimed for life. If he sang
-now, it was not as the birds sang, rejoicing in their Maker’s gift to
-them, but stealthily, as prisoners sing in dungeons, apprehensive of
-the passing warder’s tread. Even the desire for fame was now a broken
-spring. He had tasted too deeply of the bitter cup of disapproval to
-hope to cleanse his mouth with the honey of applause. He felt vaguely
-that he had been sent into the world to teach his fellow-men to rejoice
-with him in all its beauty and its wonder, and that they had struck
-him brutally across the lips, and bidden him become dull and timid and
-mean-hearted, like themselves.
-
-A whole generation in England had endured an experience more or less
-like Alistair’s, and the literature of the age still breathes a
-suppressed bitterness against the cruelties of Evangelicalism. The
-persecution was all the more oppressive because it was not sanctioned
-by any public authority, nor embodied in any law. It was carried on
-privately, around every hearth, and in every hour of family life,
-poisoning the springs of truthfulness and self-respect, and breaking
-the hearts of the young. It was the memory of such wrongs that had made
-easy the triumph of the Catholic reaction; the Protestant tyranny had
-fallen, as other tyrannies fall, more by its own abuses than by the
-strength of its assailants. The fires of Smithfield were forgotten,
-and the little pagan group who surrounded Alistair Stuart patronized
-the Roman Church as their most powerful ally against the Nonconformist
-conscience.
-
-But Alistair was beginning to look deeper. The play he had just
-witnessed, in spite of its absurdities, had embodied certain sentiments
-of his own. “There is no cure,” he reflected as he walked along. “There
-is no help for men like me; the crowd will always persecute us. They
-have set up the image of the Crucified One that they might crucify
-others in his name. The memory of Otway did not save Chatterton; the
-sufferings of Chatterton did not redeem Poe. Their flattery of the
-dead is only a deeper insult to the living. They kneel at the tomb of
-Shakespeare, and if Shakespeare rose again they would cast him into
-Reading Gaol.”
-
-It was Alistair Stuart’s misfortune to be only a half-hearted sinner.
-The world likes its men to be thorough-going. Confronted with a mixed
-individuality it is disconcerted and annoyed, like a reviewer called
-upon to judge a poem by a prose-writer, or a serious volume from a
-humorist’s pen. Alistair’s natural instincts had been cowed by his
-boyish experience. Without sharing the convictions of the righteous,
-he lacked the courage to despise them utterly. He would have had them
-pardon him, though he could not repent.
-
-His embittered mood lasted till he came in sight of the river below
-Battersea Park. The sunlight sparkling on the water, and the fresh
-breeze blowing over the trees of the park, refreshed him for the
-moment, and his thoughts turned to Hero Vanbrugh.
-
-A sigh rose to his lips.
-
-“If I had only met her a year ago!”
-
-The rebuke which Hero had administered so delicately in the matter of
-the royal autograph had moved him to the heart. It had been an appeal
-to his self-respect, a proof that she credited him with honourable
-instincts like her own, and at this crisis in his life the compliment
-was like the touch of balm upon a sore. With such a hand as Hero’s
-to restrain him, that plunge into the social underworld which he
-was contemplating lost its fascination. How was it that in all the
-years they had known him neither his mother nor his brother had ever
-been able to strike the chord which this girl’s finger had touched
-unerringly at their first meeting?
-
-In searching for the answer to this riddle, he recollected whither his
-steps were bound. The figure of Molly Finucane rose before him like a
-faded portrait over which a breath of discoloration had passed, leaving
-it tarnished and dingy, and he shivered slightly, and unconsciously
-relaxed the quickness of his pace.
-
-His heart sank within him as he ascended the familiar path, and let
-himself in with his latchkey. Missing the expected figure of the page,
-he hung up his hat himself, and passed into the drawing-room.
-
-“Where’s Tom?” he inquired, not without some foreboding of the reply he
-should receive.
-
-Molly was lying on the sofa in a low-necked dress, pulling a cigarette,
-and trying to amuse herself with an illustrated ladies’ paper, which
-did not amuse her at all--it was much too severe in its decorum. She
-sat up yawning at Stuart’s entrance, and frowned as he put his question.
-
-“I had to get rid of him for insolence,” she replied, with still
-smouldering wrath. “I told him my shoes hadn’t been cleaned this
-morning, and the young brat contradicted me to my face, and said he
-couldn’t do them any better. The lazy little wretch hadn’t touched
-them. I asked him if he knew who he was talking to, and he became
-insolent. So I just ordered him to pack up and leave the house.”
-
-Stuart listened without much interest to this story, the counterpart
-of which he had often heard before. Somehow Molly’s servants were
-perpetually incurring dismissal for similar behaviour. It was rare for
-her to keep them more than a couple of months, and it was not uncommon
-for them to be sent away the day after they arrived; and always for the
-same cause--disrespect to the mistress of the house.
-
-“I can’t think what’s the matter with the servants nowadays,” Molly
-complained. She was not the only mistress to whom it had never occurred
-that there could be, by any possibility, a servants’ side to the great
-question. “I had a Scotchwoman here to-day, applying for the cook’s
-place”--the cook had been under notice to leave for some time--“and she
-was most impertinent.”
-
-Molly stopped rather unexpectedly, as though she had been going to give
-particulars of the impertinence, but had suddenly thought better of it.
-The Scotchwoman, in fact, had presumed so far as to inquire into the
-character of the relationship between the lady of the house and the
-Lord Alistair Stuart who was indicated as its master, and had withdrawn
-her candidature for the situation on learning that the tie was merely
-one of friendship. Being told rather fiercely by Miss Finucane that
-this was not her business, the offender had replied uncompromisingly:
-“Excuse me, miss, I don’t set up to blame you, but I have my character
-to think of, and if it was known that I had taken a place in a house
-that wasn’t respectable, I might not be able to suit myself elsewhere.”
-
-It was no doubt the irritation caused by this plain speaking which had
-vented itself on the unlucky page. Alistair shrugged his shoulders as
-though in sympathy, but inwardly the question suggested itself whether
-Miss Vanbrugh ever had to encounter insolence on the part of servants.
-He did not think it likely.
-
-He had to go upstairs to dress for dinner, this being a point about
-which Miss Finucane was very particular. If ever a man ventured to
-present himself at her dinner-table in morning dress she was apt to
-take it as a carefully studied reflection on her character. Her own
-time hung so heavily on her hands that she spent half her day over
-her wardrobe. She breakfasted in a fur-lined dressing-gown, put on a
-walking-dress during the morning, lunched in a third costume, wore an
-æsthetic tea-gown in the afternoon, made a grand toilet for dinner,
-and exchanged it for a loose night-robe in which she drank whisky
-and water before going to bed. In all these changes of costume jewels
-played a great part. Diamonds and sapphires meant to Molly much what
-a table well covered with briefs means to a barrister, or the strips
-of ribbon on his breast to a soldier; they were the tangible tokens of
-success.
-
-When Stuart came downstairs there was no sign of dinner. He sat down
-and tried to talk to Molly about the bazaar, but she listened sulkily,
-offended because he had not ventured to take her with him.
-
-“There were lots of women there, I suppose?” she asked, in a grumbling
-voice.
-
-“Yes, a good many. Women belonging to the Church, most of them, I
-expect.”
-
-“Was there anyone you knew?”
-
-She fixed a shrewdly questioning glance on him, and noted the momentary
-hesitation that preceded his reply.
-
-“No, no one.”
-
-Molly gave a scornful smile.
-
-“That’s a lie, Alistair. Was your mother there?”
-
-“I prefer not to talk about my mother,” returned Alistair, who dreaded
-Molly’s coarse tongue.
-
-“Do you think I didn’t know why you wouldn’t take me?” Molly retorted.
-“Who else was there?”
-
-“No one I had ever met before.”
-
-Molly pounced on the concealed admission.
-
-“Your mother introduced you to someone. Who was it?”
-
-Stuart rose to his feet, beginning to get angry.
-
-“The only woman I spoke to the whole afternoon was a young lady who, I
-believe, is going to marry my brother.”
-
-“What’s her name?”
-
-“I decline to tell you.” He walked over to the bell and rang it
-impatiently. “What the deuce are they keeping dinner for?”
-
-Molly sat silent, watching him with all the cunning of a narrow
-intelligence concentrated on one point. No one in the world was more
-ignorant than Molly Finucane was of the things that are written about
-in books, but the keenest counsel who ever sifted the evidence of
-a lying witness could not have matched the sureness with which she
-detected anything in Alistair’s mind that threatened her supremacy over
-him. Her instinct now warned her that some danger had arisen for her,
-and her fear, overpowering her jealousy for the moment, made her hold
-her tongue.
-
-No notice was taken of Lord Alistair’s ring, but after another ten
-minutes or so an untidy parlour-maid put her head into the room and
-announced that dinner was ready.
-
-The dinner was badly cooked, and not appetising, and the parlour-maid
-had neglected to warm the claret. Molly called for champagne.
-
-“There’s none left, ma’am,” the maid retorted, speaking in that hostile
-tone which her servants generally assumed towards Miss Finucane.
-
-“Yes, there is, unless you’ve drunk it in the kitchen.”
-
-An altercation between mistress and maid followed, high words being
-used on both sides. Stuart went on with his dinner in silent disgust,
-trying not to listen. He had sat through similar scenes often enough
-before, but they had not made the same impression on him. It was as
-though his whole nature had been set throbbing like a bell with a
-certain note, with which his surroundings were all out of tune.
-
-The dinner was not only badly cooked, but it quickly appeared that
-there was not enough of it. On seeing a few slices of ham set before
-her in the place of a joint, the mistress of the house lost her temper.
-
-“Go and tell the cook to make an omelette,” she ordered angrily. “It’s
-disgraceful that we can’t have enough to eat.”
-
-The parlour-maid departed. A minute or two afterwards the door was
-flung open violently, and the cook advanced into the middle of the
-dining-room.
-
-“You can’t have an omelette. I’ve no eggs, and the fire’s gone out,”
-she remarked loudly and aggressively.
-
-“What do you mean, cook?” said Molly, evidently rather alarmed.
-
-The cook saw her mistress quailing, and raised her voice.
-
-“I mean that I’ve cooked as much as I mean to, and I’m not going to do
-any more. I’m tired of it.”
-
-“This is disgraceful!” exclaimed her mistress, appealing to Stuart.
-“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, to come in and talk like that,
-simply because I asked for an omelette.”
-
-“Well, you can’t have it, then,” the cook returned, with a ring of
-triumph.
-
-“Very well; that’s enough. Go downstairs!” commanded Molly.
-
-The cook tossed her head, and marched out of the room, slamming the
-door behind her.
-
-“Do you owe the woman any wages?” Stuart asked, as soon as she was
-gone. He knew by experience that it was useless to interfere in these
-periodical scenes between Molly and her household.
-
-“Not a farthing,” Molly protested. “And I’ve always treated her kindly,
-too. I can’t think what makes her presume like that.”
-
-The cook went down fuming and snorting into the kitchen, and gave the
-explanation to her sympathizing sisters.
-
-“I’ll teach her to send haughty messages out to me, and me a
-respectable woman whose father had a farm, and six men under him; and
-her out of the gutter, and no better than a street-walker, if you come
-to that, though she do ride in her carriage, and wear as many jewels as
-a Martinet.”
-
-“You mean a Marchioness, don’t you, Eleanor?” inquired the housemaid,
-who had moved in higher spheres.
-
-“I mean a lady, that’s what I mean,” said the cook, with grim emphasis.
-“Consequently I don’t mean Miss Finucane, as she calls herself, though
-her real name’s Finigan, and she’s low Irish down to her boot-soles.”
-She took a long breath, and concluded: “And so I’d have told her to
-her face if his lordship hadn’t been there; but he’s a gentleman, when
-all’s said and done, and I’m sorry for him.”
-
-The cook spoke for her sex. Most women were sorry for Lord Alistair
-Stuart.
-
-When Molly saw Alistair rise from the table immediately after the
-cook’s stormy exit, her face fell.
-
-“You’re not going out again?” she protested.
-
-“I’ve got to,” was the answer.
-
-“Take me with you, then,” Molly demanded.
-
-“Can’t. I’m going to see Des Louvres.”
-
-“You’re always going there. What do you want to see him for?”
-
-“It’s on business to do with the Legitimists.”
-
-“Bother the Legitimists!” Molly was not a politician. Beyond the vague
-notion that all these pretenders of whom she heard so much enjoyed
-the secret patronage of the Pope, and must therefore be in some way
-inimical to that Protestantism which it had been her first lesson as
-a child to abjure and abhor, she was completely indifferent to their
-cause.
-
-“I won’t have you go,” she continued. “You’ve been out all day, and
-left me alone with those wretched servants. I want you to take me to
-the theatre.”
-
-“I’ve no money,” said Stuart impatiently.
-
-“Can’t you borrow some?”
-
-“Who from?”
-
-A name rose to Molly’s lips, but she hesitated to pronounce it. She
-looked at Stuart, and as their eyes met each knew what the other was
-thinking of.
-
-“No,” he declared hastily. “I’m sorry, Molly, but I must go. I
-promised. There’s to be somebody there that I must meet.”
-
-“Who?”
-
-“Well, it’s a sort of secret. You won’t talk about it?”
-
-“Who have I got to talk to?”
-
-The retort struck painfully on Alistair. That compassion for Molly
-which lay at the root of his refusal to leave her was stirred by the
-reminder of the poor little woman’s loneliness. She had no friends,
-she could have no friends in their present circumstances, and she had
-no interests in life apart from him. He felt that he was ill-treating
-her by this second absence in one day, and his voice softened as he
-explained:
-
-“It’s Don Juan. Des Louvres told me he doesn’t want it to be known that
-he’s in England.”
-
-The name was not familiar to Molly.
-
-“Who is he?” she asked, more with the object of detaining Stuart than
-from any real curiosity on the subject.
-
-Don Juan, in fact, only ranked as an heir-apparent in the Legitimist
-almanac, his father being still alive. He represented one of those
-families of decrepit and priest-ridden despots which were everywhere
-driven from the thrones of the Mediterranean by the great Liberal
-flood of the nineteenth century. Now the flood was beginning to abate,
-the wrongs of the past were fading from men’s minds, and the figures of
-these discrowned Princes stood forth once more, surrounded by the halo
-of romantic misfortune.
-
-But all this did not concern Molly in the least. Don Juan’s only
-importance for her was as a new acquaintance for Stuart. She took a
-jealous interest in all Alistair’s friends, not as individuals, but as
-influences over him which might or might not tend to detach him from
-herself.
-
-“Why are you going to meet him?” she asked, hardly waiting for the
-answer to her first question.
-
-Alistair gave a half-ashamed smile.
-
-“Well, he is going to give me a decoration, I believe--the Order of the
-Holy Sepulchre.”
-
-Molly looked impressed. She was sensitive about Alistair’s social
-position, which she was conscious of having compromised, and this
-decoration, coming on the morrow of his bankruptcy, seemed a welcome
-rehabilitation.
-
-“Then he really is a Prince?” she asked, with floating recollections
-of police-court cases in which adventurers had obtained money by
-pretending to titles not really theirs.
-
-Stuart laughed good-naturedly.
-
-“Yes, he’s a Prince right enough; at least, he’s as good as the Comte
-de Rouen.”
-
-Molly had heard of the Comte de Rouen, whose party had just given
-proof of its vitality in a neighbouring country in one of the most
-extraordinary episodes recorded in history. A conflict, extending over
-years, and threatening at one time to assume the character of a civil
-war, had taken place between the heads of the army, on the one hand,
-and the civil Government on the other, over the body of an obscure
-Jewish officer. If the guilt or innocence of the victim of this famous
-persecution had not yet been placed beyond the reach of doubt, at least
-it was made clear that his enemies had steeped themselves in perjury,
-forgery, and every kind of subornation and conspiracy. It became
-equally evident that the motive of their action was rather religious
-than political; a chasm was revealed running through the nation, and
-sharply dividing the clerical persecutors from the anti-clerical
-defenders of the accused man. The army chiefs appeared as the tools of
-the priesthood, which was seen in full cry on the trail of a Semitic
-victim. The contagion spread to other countries, and prelates of the
-Roman Church in England proclaimed their sympathy with the crusade. A
-shock ran through Europe and America. It was as if the mask of saintly
-meekness under persecution worn so closely by the Roman Church for
-a century had been suddenly lifted for a moment, and modern men had
-obtained a glimpse of the Fury’s visage underneath, with its writhing
-snakes and its teeth gnashing for blood, the visage which they had
-almost come to think of as a fable of Protestant historians.
-
-The name of the Comte de Rouen silenced Molly, and Alistair was
-allowed to depart without further objection.
-
-As soon as he had left the house she went upstairs, took out his
-mother’s letter, and read it through again for the fourth or fifth
-time, with her lips tightly pinched and her forehead wrinkled in the
-effort to devise some reply calculated at once to teach the Duchess
-manners, and yet to neutralize her opposition.
-
-This was what she wrote:
-
-  “DEAR MADAM:
-
-  “Don’t worry about Alistair. You are about as likely to see me marry
-  him as you are to see”--she named a sacred personage--“riding down
-  Piccadilly on a bicycle.
-
-                                                   “Yours truly,
-                                                        “MARY FINUCANE.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X
-
-A SCIENTIFIC OPINION
-
-
-THE Duke of Trent and Colonsay sat at his great office table in his
-room at the Home Office thinking.
-
-The table was piled high with official papers. The permanent staff
-of a Government Department are quick to detect the weakness of each
-new chief put over their heads by the changing tide of parliamentary
-warfare. The weakness of the new Home Secretary was for details and
-statistics. A return of a hundred foolscap pages showing exactly how
-many pounds of beef and how many pounds of rice are consumed in the
-prisons of the country every year, or how many miles a policeman tramps
-over in the same period in the course of his beat, afforded a real
-satisfaction to his intellect. His staff catered for this taste as if
-they had been the conductors of a popular magazine. They kept their new
-chief busy and contented, and he let them alone.
-
-But it was not about his important functions in the State that the
-Minister was thinking at this moment, but about a more personal concern.
-
-His discovery of his mother’s project had left him for some time in a
-state of indecision, due partly to the fact that his desire was not
-so much to marry Hero Vanbrugh as to prevent his brother from marrying
-her. The appearance of a rival on the scene is generally sufficient to
-decide a hesitating wooer, but then the Duke had not been exactly a
-wooer, and this was another cause of embarrassment. Suddenly to begin
-paying the attentions of a lover to a girl whom he had been accustomed
-to treat familiarly as his mother’s friend seemed to a man of the
-Duke’s stiff habit of mind an awkward, and possibly a ridiculous,
-proceeding.
-
-On the other hand, he saw that his mother was actively pushing her
-design, and he could not shut his eyes to the fact that Alistair was a
-rival to be feared.
-
-It is difficult at all times for a man with a strong sense of his own
-dignity to make love, and for a man animated by the calm and temperate
-regard of the Duke of Trent to try to make love according to the
-accepted English convention struck even his imagination as dangerously
-foolish.
-
-He condemned in his own mind the national custom which requires the man
-to do his own love-making.
-
-“Now, in France,” he reflected, “there would be no trouble about the
-matter. I should tell my mother to send for Sir Bernard Vanbrugh, and
-they would settle it between them.”
-
-Sir Bernard’s name suggested an alternative which recommended itself
-the more the longer he considered it. He would carry his proposal to
-Hero’s father, and leave it to him to break the ice with Hero herself.
-
-His acquaintance with the great scientist and physician was of the
-slightest, but he could hardly distrust the reception such a son-in-law
-as himself was likely to receive, and he might count on the father’s
-influence with his daughter to overcome any possible hesitation on her
-part.
-
-Desirous to give every possible distinction to his overture, the Home
-Secretary drew towards him a sheet of the official notepaper, and
-wrote a few lines requesting the physician to name an hour at which he
-would receive him on a private matter. The note folded and sealed, he
-handed it to his private secretary, with injunctions to send it by a
-messenger, and bring back the reply.
-
-Sir Bernard Vanbrugh’s answer, which arrived within half an hour, was
-even more formal than the Duke’s request, simply stating that the
-physician would be at liberty that day at five o’clock.
-
-The Duke ordered his carriage, and alighted at Sir Bernard’s door in
-Stratford Place punctually at the hour named. Rather to his surprise,
-but even more to his relief, he was taken, not into the drawing-room,
-but into the physician’s consulting-room, and offered the patient’s
-chair.
-
-The man whose grey powerful eyes, under their square wall of forehead,
-were turned on him with something of the penetrative power of a
-searchlight, across a fragile-looking desk in some decorative wood,
-was a man with a remarkable history.
-
-There are some men of whom their friends are accustomed to say that
-they should like them better if they were not so clever. Vanbrugh had
-started in life with this handicap. He was an intellectual monster,
-a brain-giant whose understanding was to the understandings of those
-about him what the magnesium light is to a tallow candle.
-
-Those into whose company he was thrown suffered somewhat as they
-would have done in a strong light. Moreover, they were conscious that
-Vanbrugh silently looked through them and over them, and they resented
-the process in proportion to their conceit of themselves.
-
-Thus it happened that the ablest man of his time was the most unpopular.
-
-The unpopularity was the most marked among the members of his own
-profession. To Vanbrugh the usages and traditions of his class were
-so much rubbish. He saw in the etiquette of medicine nothing but the
-precautions of dunces to protect their incapacity from discovery. He
-was unable to make allowance for that infirmity of the human mind which
-clings to custom through sheer terror of the unknown. Where he ought to
-have imputed cowardice he imputed fraud.
-
-He was a revolutionist by sheer force of insight. His mind covered at
-a single bound the slow progress of years, and he was too impatient
-to wait for the laggards to catch him up. The stupid are in a great
-majority at all times, and in all situations, but some men, not less
-great than Vanbrugh, have possessed the art of coaxing them, and
-leading them on. It was just this art that Vanbrugh lacked. Unconscious
-of his own brutality, he trampled on folly and dullness with feet of
-iron, and the dull and foolish turned and rent him.
-
-Up to the age of forty Bernard Vanbrugh’s life had been one long record
-of disaster.
-
-As a student he had been deeply unpopular, even with his professors,
-who saw that they had in him a critic rather than a pupil. While
-still walking the hospitals, the young man had ventured to argue
-with the great lights of the profession whom he was there to watch
-reverently and believe implicitly. He had had the audacity to suggest
-to a celebrated gynecologist the use of ice at a critical stage of a
-well-known operation; and though the specialist found himself obliged
-to act on the advice, and subsequently enhanced his reputation by
-adopting the treatment in his private practice, he never forgave the
-young man’s presumption.
-
-The medical authorities treated Vanbrugh with strict justice, up to the
-point at which justice ceased to be obligatory; that is to say, they
-awarded him as examiners every prize for which he chose to enter, but
-they refused him a house-surgeoncy. When the astonished and mortified
-young man tried to learn the reason for this refusal, he was met by
-polite excuses and the recommendation that he should start in practice
-as a consultant.
-
-One old professor told him the truth.
-
-“Our honorary staff will not have you,” he said bluntly. “Not because
-they haven’t confidence in you, but because they think you haven’t
-confidence in them.”
-
-With a bitter smile Vanbrugh acknowledged the justice of the excuse.
-
-He made up his mind that he must accept a house-surgeoncy in the
-provinces. But when he came to apply for the usual testimonials from
-those who had superintended his education, he received documents so
-frigidly worded as to show clearly that they were given as a matter
-of obligation merely, and not with any good will. The local doctors
-in whose hands the appointments lay discerned the actual disapproval
-beneath the formal recommendation. Vanbrugh, the most distinguished
-student of his year, or for many years, was not even invited to present
-himself for a personal interview when he applied for a post of two
-hundred a year in a small country town.
-
-He abandoned this useless attempt without much regret. He knew well
-enough that London contained his destiny, and that he had been guilty
-of treason to his own powers in seeking to escape it.
-
-His enemies had advised him to become a consultant--that is to say, to
-take rooms in an expensive street in the West End, and wait for other
-doctors to send him patients as to a superior. Vanbrugh took this
-advice, and for fifteen years no patient ever crossed his threshold.
-
-A consultant depends absolutely on the support of his own profession,
-and in his own profession Vanbrugh was hated as few men are hated.
-There were men who, if they had heard of a patient intending to consult
-him, would have walked across London to prevent it.
-
-Vanbrugh was a poor man. The whole of the funds remaining from his
-scholarships, together with the remittances doled out grudgingly by his
-family, were set aside to pay the rent of the rooms in Brook Street.
-His brass-plate, once affixed to the doorpost there, became his flag,
-which he would not strike while life remained. In the meantime he had
-to live.
-
-After endless trials in all directions, Bernard Vanbrugh succeeded in
-getting employment on the staff of one of those bureaus which undertake
-to supply information on any subject. Vanbrugh’s was the medical
-department, and he was paid at the rate of half a crown an hour. The
-work had mostly to be done at the British Museum, and his weekly
-earnings averaged about two pounds.
-
-This, then, was the situation. The most brilliant follower of medicine
-in Europe, perhaps the keenest intellect of his time, was compelled to
-spend the best years of his life among broken-down journalists, and
-stranded governesses, and all the sad jetsam of the educated class,
-doing drudge’s work for the wages of a drudge. The celebrated Huxley
-had a narrow escape from the same fate. How many other Huxleys and
-Vanbrughs are to-day dreeing the same weird, while the millions of
-philanthropy roll about the gutters, and the billions of endowments
-pass into the pockets of the dunce?
-
-Vanbrugh divided his scanty earnings into two equal portions. Fifty
-pounds a year paid for his food and clothes and the rare holidays
-conceded to health, with the other fifty he bought books and scientific
-instruments.
-
-The subject he had chosen to investigate was the cells of the brain.
-
-At the age of forty he completed his work on the brain, and the
-fifteen years’ penal servitude to which he had been sentenced by human
-stupidity and spite approached its term.
-
-He carried the manuscript to an important publisher, and solicited a
-personal interview.
-
-Strange to say, the publisher granted it. Vanbrugh’s name was well
-known to him. Some hints of his researches had leaked out from time to
-time, and the hospitals were already trembling. The meteoric career of
-the student had not been forgotten. Every now and then his brethren
-spoke of Vanbrugh as of a man from whom the world was certain to hear
-sooner or later. While he was toiling in the dust he was already
-reluctantly recognized as the coming man.
-
-Vanbrugh placed his book in the publisher’s hands with something of
-his old arrogance, which half a lifetime of hardship had not been able
-to crush.
-
-“This is a book which will, directly it appears, supersede every other
-book on the brain. But if your reader sees my name on the title-page,
-he will tell you it is rubbish. I ask you to submit it to him without
-allowing him to know whom it is by, and then he may tell you the truth.”
-
-The publisher smiled. He glanced from his caller’s proud, harsh
-countenance to his shabby clothes and patched boots, and thought he
-could understand. “The man is a crank,” he said to himself. “His
-troubles have unhinged him.”
-
-Nevertheless, he gave the required promise. He even went beyond his
-word. Lest his English reader should suspect the authorship of the book
-and be prejudiced in consequence, he took the trouble to forward the
-manuscript to Vienna, to a renowned specialist in that capital, saying
-that his usual advisers differed as to the merit of the work, and
-requesting an impartial opinion. This was the first stroke of fortune
-in Vanbrugh’s favour.
-
-In less than a month the publisher was astonished by receiving back
-the manuscript with a letter in which the Viennese authority repeated
-Vanbrugh’s very words.
-
-“I cannot understand what you tell me about your advisers,” the
-Austrian wrote. “This is one of the greatest works I have ever had the
-good fortune to read. It will supersede every existing work on the
-brain. The author has done you a high honour in offering this book to
-your house.”
-
-The great publisher winced. It so happened that he had in the
-press a voluminous book on this very subject by a baronet and
-physician-in-ordinary to the Court, a book on whose preparation he had
-already spent a considerable sum. It was clear that one of these two
-books must kill the other. In either case he must be at a loss. On the
-other hand, if he were to refuse Vanbrugh’s work, it might be taken by
-the great rival house which divided the trade with his.
-
-In this uncertainty he decided to submit the manuscript to his reader
-in the ordinary way. Scarcely had he sent it off when he received a
-second call from Vanbrugh.
-
-The Austrian specialist, not dreaming that his opinion could be
-disregarded, and filled with enthusiasm for Vanbrugh’s achievement, had
-addressed a letter to him, congratulating him in the warmest terms. The
-letter did not elate Vanbrugh in the least, but it brought him round to
-the publisher to find out what was being done with his book.
-
-He came, taking it for granted that its acceptance was now out of
-doubt. The publisher, compelled to give a definite answer, made up his
-mind on the spot, and proposed terms which Vanbrugh accepted.
-
-Two days later his reader returned the manuscript with a brief note,
-dismissing it as the work of a charlatan. Vanbrugh had beaten this man
-in one of the hospital examinations.
-
-When the book came out, the medical reviewers were staggered. They
-dared not attack, and they would not praise it; it was therefore
-allowed to fall dead from the press. The distinguished baronet, whose
-book had been thrown over by the publisher, was furious. He threatened
-to have Vanbrugh’s name taken off the register as a quack.
-
-The publisher was wringing his hands, when suddenly an offer arrived
-from Leipzig for the German rights of the book, an offer larger in
-amount than what he had paid Vanbrugh for the copyright. Similar offers
-came tumbling in from Paris, from Rome, and from St. Petersburg. Rival
-editions appeared in New York and Chicago, the publishers of which,
-more honest than their legislators, sent considerable sums to the
-author. The scientific press on both sides of the Atlantic rang with
-the name of Bernard Vanbrugh, and the popular journals followed suit.
-
-As Vanbrugh had foretold, his book superseded every existing treatise
-on the brain.
-
-The first part of the work was a careful and exhaustive monograph
-on the brain-cells, their morphology and physiology. Vanbrugh had
-applied every available tool of scientific investigation in his
-experiments--chemical agents, electric discharges, the microscope, and
-the photograph. The reaction under the different rays of the spectrum
-had been tested separately and in combination, and results of the
-highest interest obtained. But the epoch-making character of the book
-was given to it by the second part.
-
-Here Vanbrugh had boldly essayed the feat of building a bridge between
-physiology and what is called psychology. He had explored what are
-known as mental phenomena in the light of his physical analysis. Into
-this dim and distrusted region of knowledge Vanbrugh had projected the
-searchlight of his merciless intellect, and had made it scientific
-ground.
-
-Even the lay reader could follow him here, and understand most of his
-conclusions. Vanbrugh disdained the hieroglyphic vocabulary of the new
-priesthood of science, and forced the words of daily life into the
-service. In this part of the book occurred his famous comparison of the
-brain to a biograph, with the process of thought carried on by a series
-of films, succeeding each other with inconceivable rapidity, but yet
-with a gap of pure annihilation after each.
-
-“Science is measured knowledge,” was the keynote of his triumphant
-peroration.
-
-“Science is measured knowledge, and the only measures we can apply are
-physical ones, and we can only apply them to physical phenomena. Slowly
-but surely, as we succeed in identifying these processes called mental
-with the processes of the brain-cells, we shall be enabled to reduce
-them to a plan, to evolve order out of confusion, and to regulate human
-passion and intelligence as we regulate the secretions of the stomach
-and the circulation of the blood, the alternation of the harvests, and
-the courses of the tides.”
-
-Such thorough-going materialism shocked and terrified not a few
-readers, but the day was gone by for any objection to be raised on that
-score in scientific circles. Before the book had been out a year it was
-the recognized authority on the subject with which it dealt in every
-civilized country, and the London colleges were obliged to give it a
-place upon their shelves.
-
-Honours and distinctions flowed in upon the author from abroad.
-Vienna was the first to offer him the honorary membership of her
-first learned society, and other capitals hastened to do the same. A
-great foreign ruler, who considered it a part of his own greatness to
-befriend greatness in others, sent his most coveted Order to the poor
-English doctor, of whom his Ambassador in London had never so much as
-heard till he was directed to call upon him with the decoration. Not
-content with that, the Emperor wrote privately to the English Court,
-remonstrating with it warmly on its neglect of so illustrious a subject.
-
-The English Court took the hint, and Sir Bernard Vanbrugh figured in
-the next list of birthday honours. Then at last the sullen opposition
-of the profession gave way. His brethren realized that they were
-compromising their own reputation in the eyes of the world, and on the
-next vacancy Vanbrugh was offered, and he accepted, the Presidency of
-his College.
-
-He was now sixty years of age; his appointment-book was filled up for
-weeks in advance, and his only child was an heiress.
-
-The Duke of Trent, with all the prestige of his rank and office,
-yielded to the same involuntary fear that Vanbrugh always inspired, and
-sat down like a schoolboy in the master’s presence.
-
-“I don’t think we have met very often,” he began, “but I dare say you
-know that Miss Vanbrugh is a great friend of my mother’s.”
-
-At the mention of his daughter the scientist moved slightly, and his
-expression became less severe.
-
-“I have had many opportunities of seeing her at Colonsay House,” the
-Minister pursued, his tone unconsciously betraying his intimate sense
-of a favour about to be conferred, “and, so far as I am able to judge,
-she is disposed to like me. I will come to the point at once, and say
-that the object of my visit is to ask you to give her to me. I don’t
-suppose it is necessary for me to say anything to you on the subject of
-my own feelings. I show them sufficiently by my proposal. I am not a
-sentimental schoolboy, but you may believe me when I say that, should
-your daughter honour me by becoming my wife, I shall do the utmost in
-my power to make her happy.”
-
-Sir Bernard listened without any further sign of emotion to this
-speech, the formality of which did the wooer less harm in his eyes than
-it might have done in Hero’s.
-
-“What does Hero say?” was his sole observation in reply.
-
-“I have not spoken to her yet. In fact, I have never given her any
-reason to expect this proposal. We have been friends, and nothing more,
-so far. I confess I have felt some difficulty about approaching her. I
-have had no experience in love-making, and it occurred to me that you
-might be willing to sound Miss Vanbrugh on my behalf.”
-
-The physician made no objection to this suggestion. He remained
-thinking for some little time, and then answered deliberately:
-
-“You have done me an honour, of which I am entirely sensible, in asking
-for my daughter’s hand. As your wife her position would be a very proud
-one, and perhaps most fathers in my place would accept your offer
-without a moment’s hesitation. But Hero is my only child, and I am a
-man who has always held strong views on the question of marriage. I
-trust you will not think me wanting in appreciation of your high claims
-to consideration if I put exactly the same questions to you which I
-have always intended to put to any man who came to me in the character
-of a future son-in-law.”
-
-The Secretary of State was a little surprised by this reception of his
-offer, but on the whole he was pleased by it. He told himself that few
-candidates for matrimony would be better able to withstand a father’s
-scrutiny than he.
-
-“I shall be very pleased to answer any questions you wish to put to me.
-You are most fully entitled to know everything I can tell, and I have
-nothing to conceal.”
-
-Sir Bernard Vanbrugh nodded. Opening a drawer in his desk, he took out
-a large printed form and spread it out in front of him.
-
-“I had better begin, perhaps,” the suitor suggested, “by giving you the
-names of my solicitor and banker. They will give you every information
-with regard to my financial circumstances.”
-
-The physician shook his head slightly.
-
-“I do not doubt that your means are ample, and my daughter will not be
-a portionless girl. I am the medical adviser to a number of insurance
-companies, and this paper contains the questions it is my duty to put
-to a person who desires to insure his life. In my view, I ought not to
-have to say, marriage is an infinitely more important step than the
-granting of a policy. Are you willing for me to examine you with the
-same care as if you were asking my employers to insure you for a few
-thousand pounds?”
-
-The Duke opened his eyes. Not even Sir Bernard Vanbrugh’s
-reputation for originality--eccentricity it is called in Government
-departments--had prepared him for such a proposition. But any momentary
-irritation was quickly swallowed up in the comforting reflection: What
-sort of reception would this man give to Alistair!
-
-“I am at your disposal, Sir Bernard!”
-
-The physician began his methodical examination exactly as if he were
-dealing with an ordinary patient. He weighed the Cabinet Minister, he
-measured him, he took his pulse and temperature, and sounded his heart
-and lungs. As test after test was applied the examiner did not conceal
-his interest and satisfaction, and at the close of the ordeal his
-manner became almost enthusiastic.
-
-“I can congratulate you,” he reported, “on being an almost perfect
-life--I may say, a remarkable life. Do you know that you are as nearly
-as possible a normal man?”
-
-The twelfth subject of the Queen looked ever so slightly disconcerted
-by the compliment.
-
-“You don’t understand, I see,” said Vanbrugh. “I must explain to you
-that scientific anthropologists have arrived at certain standards of
-bodily proportion, of the energy of the vital functions, and so on,
-which they have fixed as constituting the norm of humanity--that is
-to say, the perfect balance which ought to be found in every member
-of the species. The normal man is therefore a scientific abstraction:
-he is the imaginary type with which actual individuals are to be
-compared, and to which they should as far as possible conform. Now
-I find that you fulfil to an extraordinary degree every requirement
-which anthropological science has laid down for the species. You are,
-therefore, a normal man--the first I have ever been fortunate enough to
-come across.”
-
-The Duke of Trent tried to persuade himself that this was a flattering
-report, though in his ear the word “normal” sounded disagreeably like
-commonplace.
-
-“At all events, you are satisfied?” he asked.
-
-“I am more than satisfied so far. Now as to your family history----”
-
-For the first time a misgiving stole into the Duke’s mind, as he
-remembered Lord Alexander Stuart’s career. Surely this scientific
-inquisitor was not going to visit the sins of the father on the son, as
-his words foreboded?
-
-“Is your father living?”
-
-“No; I have the title,” the Duke reminded him.
-
-“True. At what age did he die?”
-
-“As far as I can recollect, at about thirty-eight or forty. I could
-easily ascertain.”
-
-“That may not be necessary. What did he die of?”
-
-The Duke’s cheeks burned. But he saw the folly of temporizing with a
-man like Vanbrugh. The story of Lord Alexander was perfectly well known
-in London.
-
-“Of _delirium tremens_, I am afraid.”
-
-Sir Bernard’s eyebrows lifted, and he shot a painful glance at the
-unfortunate son.
-
-“Your mother,” he hastened to say, “I know is alive. What is her state
-of health?”
-
-The Duke was glad to be able to reply altogether satisfactorily. He was
-beginning to breathe again when the scientist put the fatal question:
-
-“Have you any brothers or sisters?”
-
-“One brother.” As the admission escaped him all his old bitterness
-against his junior returned with ten-fold force.
-
-“Living?”
-
-“Yes, he is living.”
-
-“Surely I have heard something about him lately?” Sir Bernard said
-reflectively. “What is he called?”
-
-“Lord Alistair Stuart.”
-
-The words might have been red-hot coals on the Duke’s lips and not have
-given him a greater wrench to utter.
-
-Sir Bernard Vanbrugh laid down his paper and leant back in his chair.
-
-“I cannot congratulate you on your family history,” he said gravely.
-
-“Surely, sir, you will not hold me responsible because I had an
-unworthy father, and have a brother who takes after him? I am not like
-them. Ask anyone who has ever known me, and they will tell you that
-my life has been absolutely free from reproach. I neither drink nor
-gamble; I have never indulged in any kind of vice----”
-
-The physician interrupted him with a quiet gesture.
-
-“I am not a priest, Duke, but a scientist. I am not here to deal in
-moral blame or praise, but to decide whether you are a man whom I can
-welcome as the father of my grandchildren. Your family history is
-against you.”
-
-“Every family has its black sheep,” the unfortunate suitor urged.
-
-“Every existing family is the result of ill-assorted marriages,
-brought about by any consideration rather than the desire to have
-healthy offspring. You must forgive my saying that Lord Alistair Stuart
-is a very black sheep indeed.”
-
-“Alistair is not hopeless,” said the Duke, astonished to find himself
-defending his brother. “He is young yet, and he may settle down and
-marry some respectable woman.”
-
-“Heaven forbid!” Sir Bernard Vanbrugh noted his listener’s bewilderment
-at this unexpected rejoinder. “The greatest service a man like your
-brother can render to society is to lead the life he is leading. Nature
-understands these things better than we do. She takes a man like that
-and unites him with a woman like Molly Finucane in order that the
-vicious strain may die out. To take your brother away and marry him to
-a healthy woman, in order that they might have diseased children, would
-be the worst of crimes.”
-
-James Stuart shuddered as he listened to the voice of the new morality
-preaching its relentless gospel.
-
-“But you didn’t find any strain of disease in me?” he pleaded.
-
-“These things often pass over a generation. The law of heredity is
-still mysterious. It is the most important of all the problems awaiting
-scientific solution. You ask me to take a risk--a tremendous risk. I
-can only promise to consider it carefully.”
-
-Of his own accord Sir Bernard added:
-
-“As far as you are personally concerned, I could not hope to meet a
-man to whom I should give my daughter with greater confidence. Your
-temperament is exactly what she needs to correct her own tendency to
-emotionalism. You see, I am frank with you, Duke, as frank as you have
-been with me. I have watched over my daughter with all the powers of
-observation I possess from her earliest years, and I cannot shut my
-eyes to her weakness.”
-
-“Miss Vanbrugh is as near perfection as any girl I have seen!”
-exclaimed the wooer, with unwonted enthusiasm. “If she has a weakness
-it is in being too ready to sacrifice herself for others.”
-
-“That is the weakness I mean,” the scientist resumed calmly. “Her
-attraction towards Catholicism has given me some anxiety, and would
-give me more if I thought it went below the surface.”
-
-“But you are not a Protestant?”
-
-Sir Bernard Vanbrugh smiled at the old-fashioned word.
-
-“There are no more Protestants,” he pronounced. “There is Science
-and there is Superstition. Religion, as I understand it, is a form
-of hysteria, skilfully exploited in the interests of the clerical
-class. To me as a physician this Catholic revival is the symptom of
-a widespread cerebral disease which attacks individuals of morbid
-temperament. I have watched the class of persons who exhibit the
-symptom, and I have seldom failed to trace the disease. On the whole I
-am inclined to diagnose it as an obscure form of sexual perversion.
-A woman does not want to go to confession unless she has something to
-confess.”
-
-The Home Secretary shivered, as he listened to this brutal analysis,
-with the same sense of discomfort as a thinly-clad man exposed to a
-cold blast of air. He was not the first man who had experienced the
-same sensation in listening to Bernard Vanbrugh.
-
-A week later he received the scientist’s decision.
-
-“It gives me great pain,” Sir Bernard wrote, “not to be able to accept
-your proposal for my daughter’s hand, but your family history is too
-bad. Personally, you are everything that a father could desire, but
-my grandchildren must not have in their veins the same blood as Lord
-Alistair Stuart.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI
-
-THE PRETENDER
-
-
-THAT mood of deep dissatisfaction with his life which had been growing
-upon Alistair Stuart of late was strongly with him as he left the
-Underground Railway-station at Westminster, and walked across the
-bridge on his way to see Des Louvres.
-
-The night was misty, but not dark, the lamps were lit, and the Palace
-showed up grey and spectral beside the water, while farther on there
-stretched a dim line of river-shore unillumined by any spark of light,
-as though night and slumber had overcome and blotted out that quarter
-of the city, while the other parts were still awake with feverish life.
-
-As Alistair reached the southern foot of the bridge all the lights and
-sounds of Lambeth burst upon him with an effect of squalid but stirring
-energy.
-
-He plunged into the bustling thoroughfare, with its noisy
-street-stalls, its jostling tramcars, and its hurrying passengers,
-as a bather plunges into the sea, and took his way along the road
-which branches southwards in the direction of Kennington. The sense
-of bankruptcy and failure no longer affected him disagreeably as it
-still did in the region he had just quitted. Here his poverty seemed
-to bring him into touch with the life about him, and he looked at
-everything with pleased, expectant eyes, like a traveller wandering
-through the picturesque slums of some romantic town of Spain or Italy
-in which he thinks of settling for a time.
-
-He drew a deep breath of anticipation, like a man about to be released
-from prison, as he reflected that the poverty which he had been afraid
-of might become a glorious incognito, under which his nature would
-have freer play than it had ever had in the world which had held him
-hitherto. The thought of this new, strange freedom caused his blood to
-tingle. Strange, formless instincts and yearnings began to stir within
-him. He glanced curiously to right and left as he walked along, down
-dark, narrow turnings with narrower courts and alleys leading out of
-them, and the impulse grew upon him to throw off the ways and hampering
-conventions of his class, and mingle in the mysterious, half-naked life
-of this underground world of which he seemed to catch glimpses all
-around him.
-
-“There are adventures to be met with here!” he whispered to himself.
-“There are men who commit crimes!”
-
-All the old lawless blood of a hundred generations of highland
-manslayers and freebooters surged up into his brain, and he fidgeted
-in his civilized bonds as a boy on a hot summer’s day fidgets in his
-clothes before the splash and sparkle of the sea.
-
-For a moment he stopped in front of a house which was to let, but a
-glance at his watch caused him to move on at a quickened pace. He was
-amused with the idea that the watch, which he had bought in Paris,
-would pay for a year’s rent of the house.
-
-By this time the character of the thoroughfare had begun to change. He
-was passing by terraces of lodging-houses standing back behind long
-narrow strips that had once been gardens. In some of them the sickly
-grass still struggled for existence, in others it had frankly given up
-the ghost and been replaced by gravel. Decayed notice-boards behind
-the railings announced the various ways in which the tenants of these
-houses struggled for a livelihood; one aspired to be a coal-merchant,
-one deemed himself a dentist, others would have liked to give lessons
-in shorthand or book-keeping; none of them, it was to be feared, got
-much beyond the stage of expectation.
-
-Presently Stuart came to a street in which the houses seemed to be of a
-better class; it was a street which still preserved some features from
-the time when this neighbourhood had ranked as a residential suburb for
-the prosperous middle class, on a level with Dulwich or Finchley of
-to-day. The name painted on the side-wall was Chestnut-Tree Walk, and
-the first house in the street was detached, and surrounded by a high
-wall, over which a few straggling shoots of dirty ivy hung their heads,
-while at the side of the house rose up one or two trees which, if the
-thick black crust upon their limbs and stunted foliage could have been
-washed off, might have proved even to be chestnuts.
-
-This house was the end of Alistair’s walk. It was the residence of the
-Comte des Louvres.
-
-The situation was happily chosen for privacy. The neighbourhood was
-not quite poor enough for a well-dressed man to be conspicuous,
-and not quite respectable enough to possess an organized social
-vehmgericht, while it was altogether off the track of the ordinary
-foreign outlaw. Such of his neighbours as had noticed his existence
-at all supposed the tenant of Chestnut-Tree House, known simply as
-“Monsieur,” to be a teacher of the French language, who had seen better
-days. The last supposition was not very wide of the mark, but the
-better days were those of the Count’s ancestors, real and fictitious.
-His great-grandfather, a wealthy furniture-maker, had conferred the
-title on himself in the confusion of the great Revolution, after the
-last of the true Des Louvres had perished by the guillotine. Similar
-occupations of vacant honours were too common at the time for this one
-to attract much attention, and the furniture-maker’s son, by a great
-display of zeal for the Bourbons and for Holy Church, had succeeded in
-firmly establishing his position in the aristocratic sphere. It was the
-grandson who had dissipated the family fortune, leaving the present
-Count only the inheritance of a good name.
-
-The merits of his ancestors, or his own Legitimist zeal, had secured
-for Des Louvres the patronage of the Pretender who passed as the Comte
-de Rouen, but whom the Count invariably referred to in private as His
-Most Christian Majesty Louis XIX. In the service of this personage Des
-Louvres filled a position half-way between that of a press-agent and a
-chargé d’affaires, supplying the English newspapers with paragraphs in
-the Count’s interest, and generally watching the course of events on
-his behalf.
-
-Des Louvres had made no mystery of these functions, but a certain
-obscurity hung over whatever other transactions he was engaged in. Some
-persons believed him to be in the employment of a Government celebrated
-for its elaborate secret police organized in every capital of the
-world; others suspected the Count of rendering services even less
-creditable to a certain foreign potentate, and hinted that the house in
-Chestnut-Tree Walk, if it could speak, would be able to tell some very
-strange stories indeed.
-
-Among these activities of Des Louvres which he took less pains to hide
-was his connection with the English Legitimists. It was he who kept
-them in touch with the more important organizations abroad--in France,
-in Spain, in Italy, and in Portugal. He cheered their flagging spirits,
-oppressed by the sense of their insignificance at home, by making them
-feel that the Guild was taken seriously on the Continent, and that
-they themselves were persons of note in Paris and Madrid. It brought
-consolation and refreshment to Egerton and Wickham Vane to know that
-their toy conspiracy bulked largely in the columns of such trusted
-organs of the Papacy as the _Osservatore Romano_ or the _Paris Univers_.
-
-Des Louvres was one of those who know human nature only by its
-weaknesses. Such men seldom come to grief, though they never come
-to greatness. He had been the first to perceive that Lord Alistair
-Stuart’s bankruptcy would change his point of view in certain respects,
-and to lay his plans accordingly.
-
-As soon as Stuart touched the bell-knob of Chestnut-Tree House--the
-door abstained from the indiscretion of a knocker--he was admitted by
-the Count’s confidential servant, a fellow whom it did not require the
-science of M. Bertillon to identify as a hardened criminal. Leclerc,
-as this respectable felon was called, received Lord Alistair with an
-exaggeration of his customary deference, and ushered him towards what
-Des Louvres called his cabinet.
-
-On the way he observed respectfully:
-
-“You will find Monsieur le Comte alone. His Royal Highness has not yet
-arrived.”
-
-He spoke in a sort of church whisper, as though the coming princeling
-already cast a shadow of awe before.
-
-Des Louvres came out to receive his visitor, whom he greeted with
-enthusiasm.
-
-“I am delighted you have managed to get here. Don Juan is most anxious
-to make your acquaintance.”
-
-Stuart had come to keep the appointment with a certain feeling of
-interest in the romance of Don Juan’s exalted claims, tempered with
-an insular distrust of foreign royalties and foreign decorations. His
-prejudice softened insensibly under the Count’s blandishments.
-
-“Has his father much of a party left?” he asked.
-
-“Undoubtedly a very strong one. The priesthood has never taken kindly
-to the constitutional dynasty, and you know that in those countries the
-Church is still a power.”
-
-“I suppose there is no prospect of his taking the field?” Stuart said
-wistfully, as he thought of what a glorious escape it would be from the
-ruins of his present life to take part in a romantic expedition to a
-sunburnt land, to recover a lost crown.
-
-The watchful Frenchman caught the note of yearning in Alistair’s voice,
-and his answer was tuned in sympathy.
-
-“On the contrary, there is every prospect just now. Not the father
-himself, of course--he is too old--but Don Juan as his representative.
-His father intends to abdicate in his favour, I believe.”
-
-“And you think he has a real chance?” asked Alistair. His eyes lit
-up as he pictured himself lying out on the wild sierras, making the
-camp-fire under the cork-trees at night, and in the daytime taking part
-in that great game whose stakes are death and renown. Already he was
-marching, crowned with myrtle, through Gothic cities bedight in flags
-and flowers, his ears deafened with the clang of joy bells and the
-roar of exultant throngs, and his veins throbbing with the intoxication
-of victory.
-
-“If I did not think so I should not have asked you to meet him,”
-answered Des Louvres, following up the impression he had made. “The
-Prince has come to England in order to organize an expedition. All
-he requires are the necessary funds to arm his followers with modern
-weapons. As soon as he succeeds in landing the first shipload of
-magazine rifles and ammunition the country will be in flames--I ought
-to say that I mention this for your ear alone. You are the only person
-in England beside myself whom the Prince is willing to take into his
-confidence.”
-
-Alistair received this compliment with satisfaction not unmixed with
-surprise. Hitherto he had not been very serious in his support of
-the Legitimist cause, for Alistair was one of those who are wiser
-in judgment than in action, and it did not escape him that a party
-which rallied to it such adherents as the two Vanes contained no very
-formidable menace for existing institutions. To find himself thus
-singled out as the one English partisan whom Don Juan considered worthy
-of his confidence was therefore as unexpected as it was gratifying.
-
-“If Don Juan would care to have me, I should like to volunteer for the
-expedition,” he said eagerly.
-
-“I know that you could not please him more than by such an offer,” Des
-Louvres responded. “He will certainly invite you to serve as one of his
-aides-de-camp. This will make it especially appropriate for him to
-give you the Holy Sepulchre.”
-
-Alistair could not resist a slight grimace. He was unable to overcome
-the fear that by his acceptance of this doubtful honour he might be
-making himself ridiculous. He had recently been forced to contrast
-himself rather sharply with his elder brother; the contrast would be
-sharp indeed between the Garter which Trent expected soon to receive
-and this mock badge bestowed by a foreign adventurer.
-
-Des Louvres was aware of Stuart’s feeling, which he had manœuvred
-skilfully to overcome.
-
-“Of course, the Prince recognizes that in the present state of his
-affairs it is you who confer a favour on him by consenting to take this
-decoration,” he said. “You must not suppose that he does not understand
-the difference between you and a man like Egerton Vane.”
-
-Alistair smiled.
-
-“I shouldn’t think you would have much difficulty in persuading either
-of the Vanes to accept the Order of the Holy Sepulchre.”
-
-Des Louvres shrugged his shoulders.
-
-“I have promised them the second or third class, as a matter of fact.
-They are gentlemen, and it will make a good impression abroad if the
-Prince appears to have a strong connection in England.”
-
-He had scarcely finished his explanation when the faithful Leclerc
-opened the door to admit the two brothers.
-
-As Stuart had judged, Des Louvres had encountered no misgiving on their
-part. At the first mention of the Pretender and his decoration their
-flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes had betrayed the eagerness within.
-In fact, their feelings had been so unmistakable that Don Juan’s agent
-thought he might safely slip in an intimation that there were fees in
-connection with the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, as in the case of
-better known and more highly coveted distinctions. The fees payable
-by a Chevalier, he informed Egerton, amounted to sixty pounds in
-English money, while Wickham might compound for the lower dignity of a
-Companion with forty pounds. This disagreeable preliminary had caused
-much anguish to the brothers, who were both misers at heart; but after
-a severe struggle vanity triumphed over avarice, and they handed their
-cheques to the Count as Chancellor of the Order, on his assurance that
-the sums named represented little more than the actual cost of the
-jewels they would receive from His Royal Highness.
-
-The sight of Lord Alistair Stuart in the Count’s study came as a
-considerable shock to the Vanes, who had looked forward to patronizing
-Stuart on the strength of their new honour. “In foreign Courts they
-attach more importance to a decoration than to a mere courtesy title,”
-Egerton had already laid it down to his admiring brother. “I am not
-sure that, as a Chevalier of the Holy Sepulchre, I am not entitled to
-take precedence of Alistair Stuart.” The study of ancient tapestry
-not throwing any light on this important problem, Wickham received the
-observation with that soothing docility which his brother had been
-accustomed to exact from their nursery days.
-
-But a bitterer stroke awaited the Chevalier Vane, as Egerton had now
-instructed his servants to call him. For scarcely had the new-comers
-exchanged greetings with the rival they found before them when a
-confident ring at the front-door was followed by the entrance of the
-one man whom they had most wished to crush with their newly-acquired
-rank--in short, Mr. St. Maur.
-
-Neither of the Vanes could conceal his chagrin at this turn of affairs,
-and Des Louvres perceived that all his tact would be required to
-smooth them down. As soon as the intruder had planted himself, with
-his customary simple strategy, beside Lord Alistair as the person
-of highest rank present, their host put his lips to the ear of the
-Chevalier.
-
-“It is a thousand pities that we have no better Irishman among us
-than this fellow,” he whispered. “His Royal Highness insisted on my
-presenting some representative of Ireland to him; and what could I do?”
-
-“I think you should have declined,” the Chevalier Vane returned acidly.
-“I consider that the dignity of the Order will be lowered if the Prince
-bestows it on a man like that.”
-
-“His family is very ancient and illustrious,” Des Louvres suggested.
-
-The Chevalier Vane put on a pitying smile.
-
-“I am afraid his family doesn’t much appreciate the connection. I have
-never heard of St. Maur’s being asked to----” He named the ducal seat
-to which St. Maur was in the habit of referring as if it had been his
-childhood’s home.
-
-“I am a foreigner; I do not understand these things,” said the
-Frenchman. “But I have met this man in your flat, and I have heard you
-introduce him to others as a relative of the Duke’s.”
-
-The charge was a true one, and Egerton winced. The Count pursued
-pitilessly:
-
-“Besides, it is a very common thing in this country, is it not, for the
-elder branch to ignore the existence of the younger ones?”
-
-This was hitting Vane on a raw place. The abiding sorrow of the
-brothers’ lives was that their titled relative, a vulgar Philistine
-immersed in field-sports and such coarse pleasures, had never taken the
-slightest notice of a cousinship which should have been his pride.
-
-Further discussion was prevented by the sound of wheels outside. Des
-Louvres instantly excused himself to his guests, and went out to the
-front-door to receive his royal guest with fitting honour.
-
-The personage who now alighted from a hansom-cab, and walked up the
-steps to where the Count stood waiting with bowed head, was a tall,
-swarthy young man of a rather heavy type of face, and sombre eyes. The
-face and figure were not lacking in distinction, though they could
-scarcely be called handsome. Their chief defect, however, was an air of
-listlessness and lifelessness, as though the unfortunate bearer of a
-great name had been crushed beneath its weight from his birth.
-
-Life had, in fact, had nothing to offer Don Juan that he could accept
-as compensation for what his forefathers had possessed and lost. The
-misery of opposition, the misery of exile, and the misery of ruin
-had accumulated their shadows over his cradle. The secret of earthly
-happiness is to have found the work we are best fitted for, and to be
-doing it with all our might. The only work for which this young man had
-been formed by birth or circumstance was to saunter in black velvet
-beneath the shade of cedar-trees, in a park wide as a province, with
-a falcon on his wrist, and silk-clad favourites on each side of him,
-while behind a curtain a queen and a confessor played chess for his
-kingdom. It was thus that his ancestors had discharged their office for
-two centuries; it was thus that he himself would have discharged it had
-the kingdom been still to lose.
-
-It is unhappiness to gaze too long at the unattainable. The memory of
-the past had been to Don Juan what a glimpse of London is sometimes
-to a savage, unfitting him to take up his daily task, and rendering
-his life a dull ache of longings for the remote and unachieved. In
-understudying the great part he was never likely to play he had missed
-the chance of success in some humbler rôle.
-
-The poor Royal Highness mounted the steps of Chestnut-Tree House and
-greeted Des Louvres in a tone of intimacy.
-
-“I am not too soon, am I? Those gentlemen have come?” he asked, using
-the French language.
-
-“They are awaiting you, sir,” the Count returned with a nice mixture of
-cordiality and deference. “Leclerc, marshal His Royal Highness to the
-audience-room.”
-
-Leclerc, looking more like a gaolbird than ever, led the way upstairs,
-while his master walked respectfully in the visitor’s rear. They
-entered a large drawing-room in which the furniture had been disposed
-with some care, so that an armchair stood by itself against one wall in
-the manner of a throne.
-
-“This chair is for you, sir,” the Count said persuasively, as the
-Pretender stood hesitating. “If I may venture to advise, it will be
-better to rise to receive Lord Alistair Stuart, as he is the heir to
-a dukedom. The others are simply gentlemen, and you may receive them
-seated. It will do good to maintain a little reserve with them, but
-of course that does not apply to Lord Alistair, who is, or has been,
-intimate with the Royal Family in this country. In his case I have
-ventured to waive the question of fees.”
-
-Don Juan’s face fell slightly at this last intimation, the exchequer
-of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre being a not unimportant item in the
-princely civil list.
-
-“I have never given the Order to any one for nothing,” he objected.
-“The price of the Grand Cordon is two thousand francs.”
-
-Des Louvres put on his most conciliating air.
-
-“You remember, sir, that you are going to ask Lord Alistair to render
-you an important service. It is well to establish a claim on him
-beforehand.”
-
-“Still, Des Louvres, I think he should pay something. As a favour I am
-willing to let him have the collar for a thousand francs.”
-
-“I am afraid in that case he would decline it. I must tell Your Royal
-Highness frankly that there is a very strong prejudice amongst the
-British nobility against foreign decorations, no matter of what kind. I
-had almost to urge Lord Alistair to accept your Order.”
-
-The poor Pretender winced at this plain speaking.
-
-“I trust, Count, you have not degraded my family Order,” he said, with
-a flash of pride.
-
-“On the contrary, Prince, I have given it prestige in British eyes.
-Lord Alistair Stuart belongs to the highest nobility; his brother is
-Minister of the Interior. Permit me to assure you that the moment it
-becomes known that he has accepted the Order of the Holy Sepulchre its
-value will be greatly increased. You will be able to sell as many of
-the second and third classes as you like.”
-
-“Of course, if you tell me that”--muttered the disappointed Prince.
-
-“But I do tell you,” Des Louvres returned, with some impatience. He
-was used to dealing with these waifs and strays of royalty, and their
-airs and pretensions frequently tried his temper. “You have brought the
-jewels with you, I suppose?”
-
-Don Juan fished in his pockets, and brought out four small boxes
-covered with imitation leather, and lined with cheap plush.
-
-The boxes on being opened revealed small badges in different
-metals--gold, silver, and bronze--in the form of a cross enamelled with
-a Latin motto. The one intended for Lord Alistair was attached to a
-neck-ribbon, and the intrinsic value of the four together might have
-been about five pounds.
-
-As soon as Des Louvres had arranged these gimcracks on a small table
-beside the Prince he withdrew to summon the four candidates. On the way
-he passed into his dressing-room, and selected his own collar and badge
-from a number of other decorations more or less real.
-
-Entering the room where the others were waiting, he drew a paper from
-his pocket, from which he read aloud with perfect gravity, for though
-Des Louvres was a rascal he was a Frenchman, and perhaps took the
-proceedings more seriously than any of his English puppets.
-
-“This is the protocol approved by His Royal Highness,” he explained.
-“We shall enter the room in the following order: myself, as Chancellor;
-Lord Alistair Stuart; Mr. Vane; Mr. St. Maur; and Mr. Wickham Vane.
-I shall present you in the same order, and as I pronounce each name
-you will advance, bowing low, and kiss the Prince’s hand. As soon
-as the presentations are finished I shall recall you to receive your
-decorations. Each of you will then advance in turn, and go down on
-one knee, the Prince rising. His Royal Highness will throw the Collar
-of the Order over Lord Alistair’s neck, and kiss him on one cheek; he
-will fasten the Chevalier’s badge on Mr. Vane’s breast, and hand the
-Companion’s badges to the other two.”
-
-No one raising any objections to the ceremonial indicated, the Count
-led the way upstairs, where his man was waiting to throw open the door.
-
-As Stuart approached him, bearing himself with the dignity of one who
-was himself a descendant of kings, Don Juan rose instinctively, and,
-departing from the protocol, courteously shook hands. He sat down again
-to receive the other three in the manner prescribed. The Vanes showed
-their superior acquaintance with Court etiquette by merely approaching
-their lips to the royal hand; the Irishman’s smack betrayed the warmth
-of his nation.
-
-The bestowal of the decorations followed, causing a disagreeable
-surprise to the two brothers as they perceived the difference between
-the value of their jewels as bullion and the substantial sums they had
-paid for them.
-
-The formalities happily accomplished, Don Juan, who had played his part
-with a mixture of pride and uneasiness, at once put aside his state,
-and invited the company to treat him as a friend.
-
-St. Maur instantly clutched the chair nearest to the Prince’s, and drew
-it forward, cleverly cutting off the new-made Chevalier, while Des
-Louvres rang the bell for champagne and cigars.
-
-The Pretender at once began to talk about the prospects of his cause,
-not saying anything directly about the proposed expedition, but giving
-his listeners to understand that he hoped before very long to receive
-them more suitably in the palace of his ancestors.
-
-The Prince’s French being rather too fluent for some of his British
-hearers, and theirs not quite fluent enough, Des Louvres helped out the
-conversation with hints and explanations of his own, now throwing in a
-respectful question, and now reminding Don Juan of some point he had
-passed over.
-
-Alistair had suffered from a sense of awkwardness during the previous
-ritual, and he still felt half ashamed whenever he glanced at the
-gaudy ribbon on his shoulders. But as the conversation went forward
-his reserve melted away, his eyes began to sparkle, and he questioned
-the Pretender, as eagerly as good manners allowed, on the state of the
-country and the chances of a campaign.
-
-Don Juan noticed the interest he had aroused, and his tone towards Lord
-Alistair Stuart became evidently more friendly, while the Chevalier
-Vane as evidently bored him by disquisitions on the art and literature
-of the promised land.
-
-Finally, after throwing a look at Des Louvres, and receiving an
-imperceptible nod in return, the Prince rose to his feet, saying, as he
-did so:
-
-“I shall hope to receive you again before long, gentlemen. Will you
-remain behind a few minutes, Milord Stuart? I have something to ask
-you.”
-
-The others were obliged to take their leave, the Chevalier remarking
-with some bitterness to his brother on their way home that even royalty
-in these days is tainted with the Philistinism of the triumphant middle
-class.
-
-Another bottle of champagne was opened, and as soon as Stuart had
-emptied his glass, Des Louvres approached the real object of the
-conference.
-
-“The Prince wants to buy arms for his partisans, as I told you, and he
-is over here in order to raise the money. I have taken the liberty of
-saying that I think you may be willing to assist him.”
-
-“I!” exclaimed the astonished Alistair.
-
-The Frenchman bent forward, and murmured softly:
-
-“I ventured to tell His Royal Highness that you were on intimate terms
-with the head of the South American Bank.”
-
-“Mendes!”
-
-“Exactly. The suggestion is that you should sound Mendes on the
-Prince’s behalf.”
-
-Alistair sat as one dumbfounded, and for some moments the other two
-watched him without speaking a word.
-
-A repugnance, which he could hardly explain to himself, battled
-within him against yielding to the Pretender’s request. Mendes was his
-intimate acquaintance; Mendes sat at his table, and entertained him in
-return. He was a banker; it was his business to grant loans, and this
-was a loan for an object which Alistair heartily sympathized with. And
-yet he felt he would have gone to anyone rather than Mendes.
-
-Des Louvres understood the silent struggle better, perhaps, than
-Alistair himself. He also knew the way to end it.
-
-“You are not taking any champagne,” said the tempter, refilling his
-glass for him.
-
-Mechanically, weakly, Alistair lifted the glass to his lips, and
-drained it. As he set it down again a flush overspread his face, and he
-cried out thickly:
-
-“Why not? I’ll tackle old Mendes with pleasure. He’s not a bad sort; he
-would like to oblige me, I know.”
-
-An hour later the Frenchman and his servant were helping Lord Alistair
-Stuart into a cab, to the driver of which the Count gave the necessary
-directions, while the sober Prince looked on with a face of regretful
-dismay.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII
-
-THE POWERS THAT BE
-
-
-WHEN Alistair woke up on the morning after his promise to Don Juan, he
-did not feel happy.
-
-Apart from the headache left by his overnight excess, he suffered from
-the recollection of the pledge extorted from him. He owed nothing
-whatever to Mendes, and yet it put a strain upon his sense of honour to
-ask a favour of the Brazilian.
-
-Mendes and he had been friendly for a long time, without being friends.
-Their acquaintance had begun and continued, so to speak, along two
-parallel lines. Molly Finucane had brought them together. And Molly
-Finucane kept them apart.
-
-Molly had known the financier longer than she had known Alistair
-Stuart. When she gave way to that touch of real sentiment which united
-her to Stuart, Mendes had shown no resentment and made no unpleasant
-scenes. Perhaps it was partly for that reason, out of a kind of mild
-remorse, that Molly had continued to receive him as a friend, and even
-to encourage his visits; although with the new sense of honour which
-had been developed in her by her passion for Stuart, the little woman
-steadily refused to accept the smallest gift from the millionaire.
-Perhaps, also, she saw that the presence of Mendes, seated at their
-dinner-table day after day, bland, reserved, and calmly expectant, like
-a player whose turn to play has not yet come, acted as a talisman on
-Alistair, who was made to see that another was waiting to snatch the
-prize from him if he once loosened his grasp.
-
-It was noon by the time Alistair got down to the breakfast-table, and
-he sat picking at some tough, half-cold kidneys, and grumbling to
-Molly, who was in a dressing-gown pouring out his coffee.
-
-“These things are not fit to eat,” he complained crossly, pushing away
-his plate.
-
-Molly reminded him that the cook was under notice to leave.
-
-“Our servants generally are,” he retorted. “But we don’t seem to get
-any better ones in their place.”
-
-“I know I am a bad housekeeper,” was the meek response. Complaints
-of this kind on Alistair’s part were a new symptom, and Molly was
-frightened by it. “Good servants expect such high wages nowadays,” she
-added.
-
-“They expect their wages to be paid regularly, you mean. No wonder they
-won’t do their work properly when they don’t get paid for it.”
-
-“We have no money.”
-
-Alistair coloured up as he was again recalled to his position.
-
-“Well, we can’t get any now, at all events,” he said. “I don’t suppose
-Trent will be such a cad as to stop my allowance, but the next cheque
-won’t be due till Christmas, and we can’t very well borrow any more.
-What about Carter’s?”
-
-Carter’s was the establishment from which they were accustomed to get
-their household supplies, one of those huge bazaars which deal in
-everything from a landed estate to a packet of pins.
-
-“I paid them a hundred pounds the other day,” Molly answered. “I expect
-they’ll give us credit for a time.”
-
-Alistair said nothing, but sat tapping the table with his fork, and
-thinking.
-
-“I must sell some of my jewels, I suppose,” said Molly bravely, after a
-short silence.
-
-Alistair looked up and studied her face.
-
-“Why not sell the furniture and everything, and let’s clear out of this
-place? We can’t go on like this much longer, any way. What should you
-say to disappearing for a time?”
-
-“Where to?” asked Molly, startled.
-
-“Somewhere over on the south side. I thought of Lambeth. If we’re going
-to be poor, it’s best to live where everybody else is poor around us.”
-
-Molly stared at him in consternation. In her ears the proposal, if
-it were serious, sounded like the end of everything. Molly had been
-born and bred in Lambeth. She knew what life there was. The idea of
-returning to it, after her experience of luxury, struck her as a
-dismal form of suicide. And not being able to divine the curious,
-half-romantic attraction which the scheme had come to possess for
-Alistair, she credited him with her own feeling of repulsion. The
-suspicion quickly followed that this suggestion covered a design to
-give her up. Stuart meant to demonstrate that it was impossible for
-them to live together any longer, and on that pretext to accept the
-offers of his family to rescue him.
-
-The spectre of parting, never really laid, always peeping out at odd
-moments to grin at her, now showed its haunting features plainly, and
-she cried out with passion:
-
-“No, no! Don’t talk like that! Don’t talk like that, Alistair!”
-
-Alistair shrugged his shoulders as he rose from the table. He had not
-expected his proposition to be very eagerly welcomed at first, and he
-was content to let the idea rest in her mind.
-
-“Well, I’ve got to go into the City this morning,” he said.
-
-Molly glanced at him inquiringly, but thought it wiser not to ask whom
-he was going to see.
-
-He took a third-class ticket on the Underground Railway, in accordance
-with his resolution to experiment with poverty. But he had donned a
-frock-coat from Savile Row in order to give his mission a serious
-character, and he noticed that this incongruous dress seemed to be a
-cause of offence to his fellow-passengers. Two workmen with a roll of
-leaden piping, whom he found in his compartment, stared at him with
-resentful scorn, and made remarks to one another in an undertone which
-he could see were disparaging.
-
-Alistair had to discover that to be the outcast of the aristocracy does
-not of itself constitute one a member of the democracy. To acquire a
-low position in life something more is necessary than to have lost a
-high one.
-
-He got out at the Mansion House Station, and made his way towards the
-great whirlpool of traffic formed by the eight streets which debouch in
-front of the Royal Exchange.
-
-Here he could not resist the inclination to stand still for a minute on
-one of the small islets of pavement which divide the stream. He told
-himself that this was the centre of the world’s business, the heart
-of that vast invisible machine which steadily converts the labour of
-fifteen hundred millions of men into the wealth of a prosperous few.
-The low brown building, blackened with London grime, which faced him
-with such solid immovability, needed no letters on its front to tell
-that it was the Bank of England. It was here, surely, and not in that
-pretentious palace further west beside the river, that the true centre
-of gravity resided; this really was the core of that political and
-social system with whose genius his genius was at war; it was for the
-men whom that brown square of building sheltered, and not for anyone
-else, that the legislators travailed, and the police went their daily
-rounds, as the soldiers fought on far-off continents and the sailors
-adventured in uncharted seas. In the interest of wealth it was, in the
-last analysis, that the Raj had been built up, that the firm framework
-of society had been compacted, and that such outlaws as himself were
-held in check. Not Yahveh, and not Christ, neither Ormuzd nor Ahriman,
-but Mammon was the God of the Anglo-Roman Raj--Mammon, whom that Syrian
-Redeemer had so much hated; Mammon, who had built all the churches ever
-since unto this day.
-
-Alistair’s head drooped on his breast as he moved slowly on. He found
-himself presently in a narrow turning off Lombard Street, a sunless
-retreat giving no outward indication that the great spiders of finance
-set their webs within.
-
-It was the quarter of bankers’ bankers. A clerk from the head office of
-some limited company with branches in half the towns of England would
-walk in quickly through a swing-door, pass through an outer office
-without stopping, and approach a long table at which two or three men
-were seated side by side. A name would be mentioned, a bundle of bills
-exhibited, and some figure pronounced. The two or three heads would
-turn and exchange glances; one would give a nod across the table, and
-the clerk would walk out again. The nod had meant the loan of a million
-for twenty-four hours.
-
-It was the first time that Alistair had visited Mendes in his business
-quarters, and it took him a minute or two to discover the brass-plate
-which bore the name of the South American Bank. Even then he had to
-grope his way through what seemed to him a maze of stairs and passages
-before he reached a small wired counter, protecting a pale clerk who
-asked him his business.
-
-“I have called to see Mr. Mendes.”
-
-He handed in his card with a patronage of which he was quite
-unconscious. The clerk received it respectfully enough, and passed out
-of sight round a partition. A minute then elapsed before a man in sober
-livery came out from a side-door and asked his lordship to be good
-enough to follow him.
-
-He showed Lord Alistair into a small, comfortably-furnished room,
-in which a man of forty or thereabouts, well dressed and fully
-self-possessed, was seated at a writing-table.
-
-He rose politely as Alistair entered, and offered him a chair.
-
-“Mr. Mendes has someone with him at the moment,” he said, speaking
-courteously, but without any particular deference. “Perhaps it may save
-time if you can tell me what you wish to see him about.”
-
-“I am a personal friend of Mr. Mendes,” returned Stuart haughtily.
-
-The other did not seem to feel rebuked.
-
-“If you have not called on business it might be better for you to go to
-his private house,” he said quietly. “Mr. Mendes is a very busy man,
-and it is against his rule to receive his private friends here, except
-by appointment.”
-
-The last words seemed to be underlined with meaning. Was it possible
-that this courteous intermediary was already aware that Lord Alistair
-had no appointment, and was taking it on himself to refuse him an
-interview with the principal?
-
-“I have business of an important character with Mr. Mendes,” Stuart
-declared in a tone of resentment.
-
-“In that case I think you had better let me send in a message of some
-kind,” persisted his questioner.
-
-Alistair flushed up.
-
-“Does Mr. Mendes know I am here?” he demanded.
-
-The other shook his head slightly.
-
-“Mr. Mendes’ orders are very strict, and I am obliged to respect them.
-I am not authorized to send in a visitor’s card without some intimation
-of the business on which he has come.”
-
-Alistair sat dismayed. A sense of impotence stole over him, at the same
-time that the figure of the man with whom he had been familiar for so
-long began to grow larger and more formidable of outline before his
-awakened eyes. All these precautions interposed between him and the
-millionaire taught him a new estimate of their respective positions
-in the world. He, Alistair Stuart, might be called a lord, but which
-of the two really was lord? His courtesy title, his historic lineage,
-his royal friendships--all these things might give him a sentimental
-prestige in the eyes of women struggling on the fringe of society,
-and still cherishing the delusions of the snob. But in this grim
-City office, where only realities counted, what was he but a needy
-insolvent, regarded with suspicion as a probable would-be borrower?
-The feudal age was past, and the trappings of feudalism stood revealed
-for the worthless, threadbare frippery they were, as if a strong beam
-of daylight had suddenly fallen on the painted canvas of a theatrical
-scene. The feudal age was past, the old Viking race, whose stone keeps
-dot the English shires, had gone down, never to rise again, and to-day
-the barons of steel were being broken in pieces by the barons of gold.
-
-While these reflections were passing in one compartment of his brain in
-another the decision formed itself to accept the conditions.
-
-“My business is confidential,” he ventured first.
-
-The intermediary bowed.
-
-“I am in Mr. Mendes’ confidence.”
-
-“Well, I have come on behalf of Don Juan.” And seeing that the
-Pretender’s name made but a faint impression on the confidential
-secretary, or whatever he should be styled, Lord Alistair entered
-earnestly into the history of the Prince, his claims, his hopes, and
-his prospects of success, winding up with the explanation that Don Juan
-had authorized him to negotiate a loan.
-
-“Do you offer security?” was the confidential man’s sole comment on
-this appeal.
-
-The question dragged Alistair promptly down from the height of his
-enthusiasm.
-
-“The Prince would guarantee repayment out of the taxes, I suppose,”
-he said a little doubtfully. “Or couldn’t he give concessions for
-railways, or mines, or something? He would leave that to Mr. Mendes, I
-should think.”
-
-A very faint smile creased the mouth of the City man. He took a slip of
-cardboard from a stand in front of him, and wrote a few words on it:
-“Lord A. Stuart. Loan for Pretender. No security.”
-
-With this in his hand he rose and passed into an adjoining room.
-
-In less than a minute he returned, accompanied by a younger man, who
-bowed respectfully to Lord Alistair as he said:
-
-“Will you come to Mr. Mendes, my lord?”
-
-Alistair rose eagerly and followed him, feeling pretty sure that the
-banker had been disengaged the whole time. But the barriers he had
-had to surmount had considerably weakened his self-confidence, and he
-experienced a sensible relief when Mendes, rising at his entrance,
-shook hands with his accustomed friendliness, and offered him an
-easy-chair.
-
-“I hope my people haven’t bothered you too much,” the millionaire
-said. “But you find me here with my armour on, keeping guard over my
-money-bags. Who is your royal friend?”
-
-Alistair repeated the story he had just told in the other room, but in
-a distinctly lower key of enthusiasm.
-
-“You met him with Des Louvres?” remarked the Brazilian. “Why didn’t Des
-Louvres come here, or, better still, the Prince himself?”
-
-“He will come, I have no doubt, if you are willing to entertain his
-proposals.”
-
-“I can hardly say that till I have seen him.” Mendes touched a bell,
-and the young man who had introduced Alistair promptly appeared in the
-doorway.
-
-“Ascertain what is known in Rome about Prince Don Juan de Bourbon, and
-let me know when I come back from lunch.”
-
-The young man hesitated an instant.
-
-“The telephone does not go beyond Paris, sir,” he said, speaking with
-just perceptible hesitation.
-
-“Our agent there can telegraph on. Cipher.”
-
-Mendes spoke quietly. As soon as the door had closed on the young
-secretary, his employer made a mark upon a sheet of paper.
-
-“You won’t see that youth next time you come here,” he observed to
-Stuart. “That is the second time this week he has asked me to think for
-him.”
-
-Alistair shivered as he heard the ruthless sentence. A picture rose
-before him of a young man proud in his employer’s favour, and filled
-with ambitious dreams for the future, going home to an old mother, or
-perhaps a newly-married bride, in some pleasant little suburban home,
-and breaking the news that he was ruined. It was in this way that
-money-bags were guarded.
-
-Mendes sat considering for a moment.
-
-“You don’t know why Rothschilds refused them, I suppose?” he threw out.
-
-“I didn’t know they had applied to Rothschilds!” exclaimed Alistair in
-astonishment.
-
-“All these people do, as a rule. Rothschilds have the name, you know.
-Every financial scheme that gets floated in London goes there first. We
-smaller men have to subsist on their leavings.”
-
-He sat up to his desk, and wrote a short note, which he sealed up and
-addressed himself. Then he touched the bell again, and handed it to the
-doomed young man, whom Alistair gazed on with a fascinated interest.
-
-“Take it yourself. They may see you. Now,” he said, turning to Stuart,
-“come and have lunch.”
-
-Mendes conducted his guest to a big club-house behind the church at the
-corner of Lombard Street. In the hall he stopped and wrote down Lord
-Alistair’s name in the visitors’ book with satisfaction. Regard for
-race is a sentiment deeply rooted in the Semitic mind, and Mendes took
-a genuine pleasure in the thought that his companion was a descendant
-of Scottish Kings.
-
-They took their seats at a small table in the midst of a vast room
-filled with similar ones, nearly all of them inconveniently crowded.
-The lunchers were mostly middle-aged men of prosperous appearance, and
-their talk seemed to run chiefly on gambling as it is carried on at the
-legalized Monte Carlo in Chapel Court. They all spoke to each other
-without formality, and a man who came and sat down at the same table
-as Mendes and Stuart at once plunged into a story of some speculator
-who had been gambling in copper, and owing to an unexpected desertion
-of the market by other speculators found himself suddenly left with
-some hundreds of tons of ore on his hands, which were actually brought
-in waggons to his office in Billiter Buildings, where he had one small
-room and a boy. The idea that a buyer and seller of anything should be
-called upon actually to handle it evidently appealed to the narrator as
-a superb joke.
-
-Generally speaking the lunches were of a very substantial description,
-and champagne seemed to be the only wine in much demand. Mendes catered
-liberally for his guest, and over their coffee offered him a cigar
-which the Duke of Trent and Colonsay could not have afforded to smoke.
-But most of the men round them were smoking similar cigars. It was
-impossible to think that everyone in that crowd was as rich as Mendes.
-Alistair could only suppose that they represented the winners of the
-moment, who were spending their gains with a gambler’s recklessness in
-the belief that their luck would never turn.
-
-In this judgment he was not wholly right. The world of the Stock
-Exchange is as small as other worlds, and those who inhabit it have to
-consult the opinions of their neighbours. If anything, the keeping up
-of appearances was more important to these gold-hunters than it is to
-the village tradesman or the retired officer in his seaside villa. To
-have ordered a modest lunch or a cheap cigar would have been to hoist
-a signal of distress, perhaps to bring an unstable fortune tumbling to
-the ground.
-
-Among these earthen pots the solid vessels of wealth floated calmly,
-sure sooner or later to crush the greater part of their venturesome
-rivals. As they rose from the table, Mendes moved his head slightly in
-the direction of the story-teller.
-
-“That man will not last six months,” he whispered. “He has gone in for
-American rails.”
-
-“Are they going down, then?” asked the ignorant Stuart, attempting to
-adopt the jargon he had heard around him.
-
-Mendes smiled good-naturedly.
-
-“It doesn’t matter whether they go up or down. Dealing in American
-rails is playing roulette against a croupier who can make the ball roll
-where he likes.”
-
-The spectacle of all these men feverishly engaged in the hunt for gold
-had excited Alistair in sympathy. For a moment he felt a pale reflex
-of their passion, and wished that he too could be among the winners
-instead of the losers.
-
-“How do men make money?” he asked wistfully of the millionaire.
-
-“No one can make money,” the rich man replied grimly, “in this world.
-He can only take it. And the only way to take it is to be a little
-more greedy and cunning than the man you take it from.”
-
-It was the gospel of Mammon. And Alistair Stuart knew that here at
-least he could never find salvation.
-
-On their return to George Yard, Mendes was stopped in the outer office
-by the gentleman who had interviewed Alistair. He excused himself to
-Stuart for a few minutes, and nearly a quarter of an hour elapsed
-before Alistair again found himself in the financier’s room.
-
-“Well, I have heard something about your friend,” Mendes said grimly,
-as he sat down.
-
-Alistair’s heart sank at the Brazilian’s tone. He waited for him to
-speak.
-
-Mendes went on deliberately.
-
-“Perhaps I ought to say I have heard something about his father. I
-don’t suppose this young fellow is anything more than a tool.”
-
-“What have you heard?”
-
-“I have heard this: that the last time he got a quarter of a million
-out of a confiding Greek in order to make a descent on his kingdom,
-as he calls it, he spent the whole of the money on his own pleasures,
-without ever going within five hundred miles of the frontier.”
-
-“I don’t think Don Juan would do that,” Alistair protested.
-
-“He will not get the chance,” the other said brutally. “We are going
-to lend no more money to these kings of the hooligans.”
-
-“You think he has no chance of success?”
-
-“I don’t think those who are behind him want him to succeed, if you are
-speaking of Don Juan.”
-
-“But whom do you mean? Who are behind him?” asked the bewildered Stuart.
-
-The South American gave him a doubtful glance.
-
-“You’re a Catholic, aren’t you?”
-
-“No,” said Alistair.
-
-“Half a one, I suspect. All you people cling together, I notice.
-Decadents, Legitimists, or whatever you call yourselves, it comes to
-much the same thing. I haven’t watched you all this time for nothing.”
-
-“I am not a Christian at all,” said Alistair.
-
-“What has that got to do with it? That man Des Louvres is about as
-much of a Christian as this table, but he is a very good son of the
-Church--one of the best agents they have got, I fancy.”
-
-“I can assure you that you are mistaken if you think I have any
-Catholic sympathies,” Alistair protested emphatically. “I am a Pagan,
-pure and simple.”
-
-“So is the Roman Church, according to the Protestants,” sneered Mendes.
-“But I am quite ready to take your word for it. I don’t suppose Des
-Louvres has told you any more than he was obliged to.”
-
-Alistair remained silent, too much offended to reply.
-
-Mendes went on in a tone of quiet deliberation:
-
-“The day of these Pretenders is over. A King who has been driven from
-the throne by a rival or by a foreigner may have some chance of getting
-back again. But these Latin princelets were turned out because their
-own subjects were sick of their misgovernment, and no one wants to try
-them again. After all, people are not such fools as to prefer tyranny
-to freedom. The sort of abject superstition on which they rely is very
-strong, no doubt, till it is shaken, but after it has once been upset
-you can no more restore it than you can set up Humpty-Dumpty again.
-Legitimism, as you call it, is not a popular sentiment; it is only the
-fad of a clique of aristocrats who are played out themselves. Such men
-do not make revolutions.”
-
-Stuart made no attempt to resist this reasoning.
-
-“Then you consider that Don Juan would have no chance?”
-
-“I never thought he had a chance of making himself King, if that is
-what you mean. The only question I have to consider is whether it
-would pay me to give him a run.” And seeing Stuart’s bewilderment,
-the financier added: “I haven’t been thinking of the mines and the
-railways. An attempt of this kind, if it looked at all serious, would
-send down the price of every investment in the country, and if I knew
-of it beforehand, I should be able to make enough out of my knowledge
-to repay whatever I gave your friend. I should never expect to get it
-back from him.”
-
-“Then why won’t you give him the run?”
-
-“I will tell you why. Because those who are behind him, those from whom
-Des Louvres is pretty sure to have his instructions, are simply putting
-this poor young fellow forward to gain something for themselves, and
-they will push him on or call him back to suit their own purpose.”
-
-“Whom do you mean?”
-
-“I mean what Disraeli meant--and he was not altogether a fool--when
-he said there were only two powers at the bottom of everything that
-happened in Europe--the Church and the secret societies. In this case
-it is not the Freemasons.”
-
-“Then what do you suggest the Church has to gain?”
-
-“I don’t think it matters. Perhaps there is some quarrel on between
-the Pope and the reigning dynasty; perhaps there has been a movement
-to suppress the monasteries or to expel the Jesuits--I don’t know. I
-haven’t been following their recent history. But you may take it from
-me that the Vatican has some motive for putting pressure on somebody or
-some party in the country, and that Don Juan is to be used as the red
-light.”
-
-Alistair could not resist the conviction that Mendes was probably
-right. He did not feel any personal interest in the matter one way
-or the other, except as it affected the chance of his being able to
-take part in an interesting adventure. He had, perhaps, a slight
-friendliness left for the Church of Rome; at all events, he would have
-felt no reluctance to fight its battles as long as in so doing he was
-fighting against the social system for which Mendes stood.
-
-“Even if you are right,” he urged as a last appeal, “I don’t see what
-difference it need make to you, as long as the expedition takes place.”
-
-“I cannot be sure that it will take place.” The Brazilian paused a
-moment, and then added gravely: “You know that I am a Jew.”
-
-Alistair looked at him inquiringly.
-
-“I am not disposed to let myself be used as a puppet by the friends of
-Monsieur des Louvres. We have seen rather too much lately of the true
-feeling of the Roman Church towards our race. The Dreyfus case has been
-a revelation of more things than the innocence of Captain Dreyfus. We
-now know what treatment we have to expect from Rome if she ever does
-regain power, and no penny of my money shall ever be given to help her.”
-
-“Rome is not so bad as Russia,” said Stuart.
-
-“Russia’s turn is coming,” was the reply. “There is a curse on those
-who persecute our race.”
-
-And Alistair shivered again.
-
-Alistair went home feeling as though he had been in possession for a
-brief moment of the magic bell of northern folklore, which enables its
-wearer to descend into the bowels of the earth and see the gnomes at
-their work. He had a vision in which he seemed to have been walking
-below the surface of the great city among the foundations of palaces.
-On either hand the tremendous walls rose up, immovable, forbidding,
-and dank with the underground slime. These were the mighty bases of the
-powers of wealth, against which he had set his feeble shoulder in the
-foolish expectation that he could make them rock. And the puny effort
-had left him beating out his life down there in the subterranean mire
-at the foot of those sunless piles among the forgotten pauper rubbish
-of the world.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIII
-
-ROYAL PATRONAGE
-
-
-ON his arrival at the house, weighed down by this new and dreary sense
-of discomfiture, Alistair found Molly in a state of pleased excitement.
-
-“There’s a letter for you from Easterthorpe. It’s from the Duke of
-Gloucester!” was her greeting.
-
-Alistair flushed as he recognized Prince Herbert’s handwriting. He had
-not forgotten the bazaar, and he tore open the envelope with some fear
-of encountering a reproach.
-
-The Duke addressed him as “Dear Alistair,” just as in their boyish
-days, and begged him to come down to Gloucester Lodge for the week-end.
-
-“There will be no one here but my wife and children,” the royal note
-ended, “and we can talk about old times.”
-
-Left to himself, Alistair would have declined the invitation, in spite
-of the courtly theory that invitations from such a quarter are in the
-nature of commands. He was too much disgusted with the way in which
-life had dealt with him, and he with life, to have any more heart in
-the struggle. It would be simpler to go under, to efface himself, and
-cease to keep before the world.
-
-But he found that Molly was determined that he should go. She had made
-up her mind that the Prince’s invitation was a repudiation of the Duke
-of Trent, and an intimation that Stuart’s irregular connection with
-herself had not lowered him in the royal estimation.
-
-Alistair, of course, knew better. He saw perfectly well that Prince
-Herbert’s reference to his family was a delicate way of saying that the
-visit must be a private one. The _Court Circular_ would not know of
-Lord Alistair’s presence at Gloucester Lodge.
-
-For this reason his acceptance was a little stiffer than the Prince’s
-invitation. He began it “My dear Prince,” and signed himself “Yours
-ever.” The Prince had written “Yours affectionately.”
-
-Nevertheless, Alistair was a good deal more touched by the overture
-than he was willing to betray.
-
-He had not yet been adjudicated a bankrupt. But the Duke of Trent had
-suspended negotiations on his behalf, and he was to meet his creditors
-on the Monday to undergo the customary useless cross-examination as to
-how he had managed to get rid of the money.
-
-At the very moment of departure he was confronted with the new
-difficulty of cash. Neither he nor Molly found themselves in possession
-of the price of a first-class ticket, and Alistair was too proud to go
-on such a visit unless he could do so in the way befitting his rank.
-
-He solved the problem by ordering a cab to drive him to the
-railway-station, and making it stop at a famous pawnbroker’s on the
-way. It was his first visit to such an establishment, but the prospect
-of the journey put him in good spirits, and he tendered his French
-watch to the shopman with a certain enjoyment of the situation.
-
-“I am going down to stay with the Duke of Gloucester, and I haven’t got
-my railway-fare,” he said, with perfect self-possession.
-
-The shopman grinned at what appeared to him a lively witticism, and
-after examining the piece, offered ten pounds.
-
-“What name shall I put?” he inquired, as Alistair signified his
-consent, preparing to write “Jackson” or “Thompson,” at his customer’s
-pleasure.
-
-“Stuart--Lord Alistair Stuart,” came in the same assured tone.
-
-This time the pawnbroker laughed out.
-
-“You will have your joke, sir. I’ll put ‘Mr. Stuart.’”
-
-“But I have told you my name,” said Alistair. “You can see it on my
-coat if you like.”
-
-He slipped off the light overcoat he was wearing, and gravely exhibited
-to the eyes of the wondering shopman the tailor’s parchment label, on
-which his name and rank were clearly legible.
-
-“I beg your lordship’s pardon, I’m sure,” stammered the man. “It’s so
-seldom that our clients give us their real names that I thought your
-lordship was pretending. The address, please?”
-
-“Care of Miss Finucane, Elm Side, Chelsea.”
-
-The shopman, scarcely able to believe his ears, wrote down the address
-with an amazement which he made no attempt to conceal. As he handed
-over the ticket he asked:
-
-“Would your lordship like a cheap watch to wear while this is with us?”
-
-“Thanks, no,” said Alistair, with easy indifference. “Time is of no
-consequence to me just now--I am a bankrupt.”
-
-He strolled out of the shop, charmed with his victory over the hateful
-traditions of hypocrisy and self-shame embodied in the pawnbroker. In
-his exhilaration he could have challenged the whole middle class.
-
-His spirits rose steadily as he came to the terminus, and he lavished
-half a crown on the porter who carried his light dressing-case to the
-railway-carriage.
-
-He found himself intruding on the privacy of a stout, vulgar-looking
-man of sixty or thereabouts, whose name was too freely displayed over
-all his belongings, from a giant portmanteau down to a rug-strap, to
-leave the least observant fellow-passenger ignorant of his identity. It
-was the great Sir Gilbert Lawthorn, whose discovery that pickles could
-be sold three-halfpence a bottle cheaper than the prevailing price,
-and still be made to yield a profit, had earned him seven hundred
-thousand pounds and a baronetcy.
-
-This great personage scowled on the inspector who admitted Stuart
-into his compartment, and then, after a scornful glance at the modest
-dressing-case, he remarked rudely:
-
-“I generally have a carriage reserved for me, but this time I thought
-no one would be in the train. Are you going far?”
-
-“I am going to Easterthorpe,” said Alistair, lowering a window.
-
-The pickle-seller gazed at him in displeasure.
-
-“I live there,” he announced, with conscious superiority. “My place
-is close to the Prince’s. I don’t think I have seen you in the
-neighbourhood.”
-
-“I am going down to stay with friends,” said Stuart carelessly, as he
-took up a paper.
-
-“Do your friends know the Prince?” Sir Gilbert inquired, with
-patronage. “He called on me last week.”
-
-Alistair lowered his paper and looked at the fat baronet over with
-unfeigned surprise.
-
-“I have not the honour of your acquaintance, sir,” he said
-deliberately, beginning to read again.
-
-“I am Sir Gilbert Lawthorn!” burst out the indignant magnate.
-
-“Thank you. Your pickles are excellent,” replied Alistair. And this
-time he was allowed to read his paper in peace.
-
-When the train stopped at Easterthorpe a groom in neat black livery
-appeared at the door of the carriage, and touched his hat. Sir Gilbert,
-who evidently recognized him, took the salute to himself.
-
-“His Royal Highness is not in here,” he proclaimed pompously. “Did you
-expect him by this train?”
-
-The groom, without replying, took the case which Lord Alistair passed
-out to him.
-
-“This way, my lord, if you please,” he said deferentially, as Alistair
-prepared to follow his luggage.
-
-The baronet turned crimson.
-
-“I--I beg your pardon,” he stammered awkwardly, half holding out his
-hand. “I had no idea that you were going to stay with the Prince.”
-
-But Alistair was not in a merciful mood as far as the middle class was
-concerned.
-
-“Who the devil do you suppose cares what you think, or who you are, or
-anything about you? I wish I had come third class.”
-
-He followed the secretly delighted servant out to a smart dogcart, and
-Sir Gilbert Lawthorn’s fat coachman meekly drew a heavy barouche and
-two fat horses out of the way of the royal conveyance.
-
-It was with a slight sense of embarrassment that Alistair entered the
-pleasant dwelling in which the Duke of Gloucester and his wife were
-able to enjoy some of the pleasures of English home life. But his
-uneasiness was quickly dispelled by the reception he found waiting for
-him. The Prince himself sprang up from a lounge chair in the bright
-little hall, and grasped him cordially by the hand, exclaiming as he
-did so:
-
-“Ada, my dear, here is my old chum, Alistair Stuart.”
-
-A woman some years younger than her husband, with a face in which
-womanly grace and keen intelligence were harmoniously united, rose from
-the midst of a group of small children, and offered her hand with equal
-friendliness.
-
-“I am so glad you have come. I have heard so much about you from Bertie
-that I hope you will let me treat you as an old friend. Do you like
-children?”
-
-It was evident that children liked Alistair, for almost before he had
-sat down two youngsters of five or six, in white sailors’ suits, were
-romping round him, while a small girl of three, safely sheltered by her
-mother’s skirts, regarded him with grave but friendly curiosity.
-
-“I know something about you,” the elder boy said presently, with an
-amusing note of condescension in his voice. “You used to go fishing
-with father when he was a boy.”
-
-Alistair remembered the unfortunate letter he had sent to the
-Legitimist bazaar, and was ashamed.
-
-The tactful Princess gave him no time to indulge in such thoughts. She
-poured him out a cup of tea, and bade her eldest son carry a plate of
-toast to the visitor--an order which he obeyed with an evident sense
-that he was conferring a considerable favour.
-
-Lord Alistair was not long in awakening in the mind of the Duchess of
-Gloucester the same feeling that he awakened in most good women--a
-regret that such a life should be running to waste, and a desire to
-save him. It happened that the Duchess had literary tastes, she had
-heard of Stuart’s poems, and she engaged him in conversation on that
-ground.
-
-“Have you given up writing?” she asked. “I don’t think you have
-published anything for a long time.”
-
-“Everyone has given up writing,” Alistair returned with a bitterness
-that surprised himself. It had grown up in his mind unconsciously; his
-literary disappointments had become part of his general feud with the
-successful order of mankind.
-
-The look on the face of the Princess made him hasten to explain himself.
-
-“The English public will not tolerate literature; that is the simple
-truth. The publishers will not publish it, the booksellers will not
-sell it, the public will not read it, and the police have orders to
-suppress it. My old publisher told me plainly the other day that it was
-a waste of time to print anything but four-and-sixpenny novels. He said
-the booksellers have got used to making up their accounts in items of
-four-and-sixpence, and they consider it a nuisance to handle anything
-else. And even the novels are falling more and more into a stereotyped
-pattern; they must be exactly the same length--a hundred thousand
-words, I think he said--and be written well down to the level of the
-vulgar provincial mind.”
-
-“Surely things are not quite so bad as that?”
-
-“Very nearly. The worst of it is that the persecution of literature
-is purely for reasons of hypocrisy. The public likes what it calls
-immorality--will have it, in fact: no book that is really pure has
-much chance of success--but it insists on the writer pandering to
-the proprieties. Either he must slobber over his adulteress in the
-Nonconformist vein, or else he must tell the whole thing in an
-epigrammatic falsetto. It is a choice between ‘East Lynne’ and ‘The
-Innocence of Henrietta.’”
-
-“But are there no writers before the public now whom you look upon as
-on a higher level?” And the Princess suggested one or two names.
-
-Stuart shook his head.
-
-“What is their position?” he said. “Granted that they have genius, the
-conditions of the age give them no chance. Unless they go on producing,
-and keeping themselves constantly before the public, they are cast on
-one side. The greatest genius, as a rule, can only give the world one
-or two masterpieces. Coleridge wrote three short poems, Poe a dozen
-short stories. Dante and Cervantes each wrote one book--their other
-work is of no account. Everyone of them would have starved to-day,
-just as they starved in their own day, while the vulgar novelists
-made fortunes round them. Writers such as you speak of have to go on
-writing worse and worse, conscious of their own degradation, and freely
-reminded of it by the press, and by their publishers’ accounts. It is
-the torture of the damned.”
-
-“It seems to me there ought to be some remedy,” the Princess said
-thoughtfully. “I know so many rich men who seem to me only anxious to
-find some way of doing good with their money.”
-
-Alistair shrugged his shoulders.
-
-“A man of genius does not like to accept charity. The rich men would
-expect too much gratitude. They prefer building cathedrals--each
-poem of Coleridge is worth a cathedral--but you could not expect a
-millionaire to see that.”
-
-“There are pensions, and literary funds, are there not?”
-
-“Pensions, yes, for the bad writers who have fallen below the level of
-even the British public. And there are literary funds, yes. I was once
-asked to act as a steward at one of their annual dinners. The secretary
-sent me the rules, by which I saw that no grant was ever made to
-writers whose lives or whose works were open to objection on religious
-or moral grounds. I wrote back to say that I did not see my way to
-support a literary fund from whose benefits Shakespeare and Shelley
-would have been excluded.”
-
-The Princess saw that she was handling a sore. She sighed, and changed
-the conversation.
-
-After dinner Prince Herbert played billiards with his guest, and their
-talk ran on the past. Alistair was softened by the boyish memories
-recalled by his old playfellow, and when he went to bed it was with
-more peaceful and happier thoughts than had come to him for a long time.
-
-He was sipping his cup of tea in bed the next morning when he heard
-light footsteps, followed by excited whispering, outside his door. The
-next moment the handle was turned cautiously, and then the door was
-thrust open with a bang, and two small boys invaded the room.
-
-“May we come in?” demanded the elder. And satisfied with the expression
-on Lord Alistair’s face, he turned and beckoned through the doorway.
-
-“It’s all right; don’t be afraid, Tissy.”
-
-The apprehension felt by the unseen Tissy communicated itself to
-Alistair, who hastened to say:
-
-“Hadn’t you better go away till I’ve dressed?”
-
-“We want to stay and see you dress,” the leader responded.
-
-“I’m not worth seeing, I assure you,” said Alistair. “I dress very
-badly.”
-
-It seemed doubtful whether the excuse would be accepted, when
-fortunately a warning cry was heard from the doorway, and a voice as of
-one speaking with authority called out: “Come here directly!”
-
-The head of the invading party cast a hasty glance round the room, and
-only remarking regretfully to his brother: “I can’t _see_ his teeth,”
-withdrew in good order.
-
-Stuart did not offer to accompany his hosts to their little country
-church. But the sight of the family party setting out across the park,
-and the far-off sound of the bell, had a soothing effect upon his
-spirit. Contrast is the secret of all beauty, and perhaps the prodigal
-had never considered how much of their charm would depart from the
-rocks and valleys of Bohemia were there no Puritan plain without.
-
-In the afternoon he found himself left alone with the Princess, after
-they had taken tea in the garden. The scent of the roses was all about
-them, and the bees drummed restlessly as they went by. It was a perfect
-piece of English landscape, and the perfect type of English womanhood
-fitted into it like a picture in its natural frame.
-
-“Lord Alistair,” she said, with quiet seriousness, “I want to ask you
-if you will let the Prince help you. He has never forgotten your boyish
-friendship; he is attached to you still, and he only wants to see his
-way clear to do something for you.”
-
-Alistair murmured an expression of gratitude.
-
-“I hope you will look on me as a friend too,” the Duchess of Gloucester
-went on. “Will you let me speak to you frankly, and will you be frank
-with me in return?”
-
-“Will you pardon me if I am?” asked Alistair. “It is easy for some men
-to be frank; but when I am frank I find I only shock good people.”
-
-“But why should that be so? Are you sure that when you are shocking
-good people, as you put it, it is your true self that is speaking?”
-
-“Madam, I do not know what is my true self; or if I have got one any
-longer. I used to have one when I was a boy, but twenty years of
-enforced hypocrisy have pretty well knocked it out of me.”
-
-The Princess sighed, and paused for a moment.
-
-“Perhaps I can help you to find it. Do you really love the woman you
-are living with?”
-
-“No.” The truth came up from the depth of his consciousness, exploded
-by surprise.
-
-“Then why don’t you leave her?”
-
-It was Alistair’s turn to pause.
-
-“She has given up everything for me. Sometimes I think I ought to marry
-her.”
-
-“What had she to give up?”
-
-This question offered a new light to Alistair, and he took time to
-consider it. He might have answered superficially that Molly had, in
-fact, given up the offers of Mendes; and latterly she had given up a
-great many pleasures that almost ranked as necessities for her. But
-he saw the point of Princess Adelaide’s question. What Molly had done
-was to quit the life of a courtesan for that of a concubine, with some
-prospect of becoming a wife. Now, a swimmer who climbs on to a raft to
-save him from exhaustion can hardly be said to give up the sea.
-
-“Do you consider that she has a greater claim on you than your mother?”
-the Princess unfortunately added.
-
-This time Alistair answered deliberately.
-
-“Yes. I do not consider that my mother has any claim on me whatever.
-In my opinion the obligations of a child towards its parents are
-trifling beside those of the parent to the child. My mother has been
-the worst enemy I have had. She has been to me the ordinary type of the
-Christian persecutor, the race of the Inquisitors and Nonconformists
-and Churchmen of every church. I have forgiven her because she does
-not know how wicked she has been. Her crimes are the crimes of her
-creed. Her brain has been warped and maimed by the training she herself
-received, as much as the foot of a Chinese girl is warped and maimed
-by bandages to make it small. I forgive her, and I think I love her,
-but I should no more think of trying to shape my life according to
-her prejudices than if she were a cannibal and wanted me to eat human
-flesh.”
-
-The Duchess of Gloucester felt that she had bound herself in honour not
-to show any disapproval of these outspoken utterances. But she began to
-see what Lord Alistair meant by saying that it is not equally easy for
-all men to be frank.
-
-She returned to the subject of Molly Finucane.
-
-“It seems to me that you must leave this woman sooner or later, and
-that you will never have a better opportunity than now. If you really
-feel that you owe her anything, I don’t think you would find it
-impossible to get your friends to make some provision for her, if she
-needs it.”
-
-Alistair remembered Mendes and his empty house. He did not think Molly
-was likely to be in need if he left her.
-
-“And what should I do?” he asked.
-
-The unexpected question baffled the Princess for a moment. She had not
-heard of Hero Vanbrugh.
-
-“Return to your literary work,” she suggested. “You have not the excuse
-of being obliged to write something that will sell. Write to please
-yourself, and in time you will find your audience.”
-
-“If I were to write to please myself, the world and my own family
-in particular would think worse of me than they do at present.” And
-seeing that the Princess was not disposed to interrupt him, he went on:
-“The supreme sin in English eyes is truthfulness. Truthful thinking,
-truthful speaking, and truthful living are all equally under the ban.
-And the worst of it is that those who clamour most for freedom of
-thought are most severe on freedom of life, and those who live most
-freely are the least tolerant of free speech. The Dissenter persecutes
-the sportsman, and the sportsman persecutes the sage. All the racing
-men I have ever met have been bigoted High Churchmen, who would have
-cheerfully burnt Darwin and the late Mr. Spurgeon. And if they had
-begun with Darwin, they would have had Spurgeon’s help.”
-
-Princess Adelaide sat silent for some time. The task of rescuing
-Alistair Stuart seemed to be more difficult than she and her husband
-had foreseen.
-
-“I wish we could help you,” she said gently, at last.
-
-“I am afraid I am not to be helped,” Alistair confessed sadly. “When I
-look back over my life, it seems to me that ever since I was twelve
-years old I have been surrounded by people knocking me over the head,
-and saying to me: ‘Don’t be Alistair Stuart.’ I have tried not to be
-Alistair Stuart, but I have failed. And the worst of it is that I am no
-longer ashamed of being Alistair Stuart. It seems to me that all these
-complaints ought to be addressed to my Creator. I did not make myself:
-God made me; let Him repent, not me.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIV
-
-VIRTUE TRIUMPHANT
-
-
-THE Prince and Princess were obliged to confess to each other,
-when Lord Alistair was gone, that they had failed to find a way of
-unravelling the tangle of his life.
-
-In reality they had done more than they knew. Their kindly treatment of
-him, coming just at the moment when he felt himself a social Ishmael,
-rejected by all classes in turn, had given him back no small portion of
-his self-respect. He could not help contrasting the delicate attentions
-of Prince Herbert, the representative of the greatest House in Europe,
-and an English gentleman to boot, with the pretentious compliments of
-the poor waif of royalty from the Mediterranean whose bogus honours he
-had stooped to accept a day or two before.
-
-Nor could he resist the incense to his pride offered by the clumsy
-abasement of the pickle-selling baronet. It was something to feel that
-he still excited the envy of the Lawthorns and the Mendes. He might
-be a bankrupt, but he was still Lord Alistair Stuart, and heir to one
-of the greatest titles of Britain. The highest in the land still felt
-affection for him; the noblest women thought him worthy of their
-concern.
-
-These reflections accompanied him on the way up to town the next
-morning, and prepared him to face his public examination with a lighter
-heart. After all, bankruptcy was not fatal to a man in his position. He
-had nothing to lose. His creditors could not take the allowance made
-him by his brother. But for Molly, indeed, he need not be a bankrupt
-at all. But for her, and his quixotic refusal to abandon her, the
-proceedings against him would have been dropped already, and he himself
-would be enjoying the traditional honours of the returned prodigal.
-
-Why had he refused to leave Molly? After all, was it not true that he
-had exaggerated Molly’s claim on him? She had preferred him to Mendes,
-doubtless, but her choice had not been taken from any exalted motive
-of self-sacrifice. If it had been inspired by the hope that he would
-marry her, it was a selfish choice enough. She knew pretty well that
-Mendes would never do that. Yes, his refusal to leave her had been
-quixotic--that was the right word. For her own sake, since it was
-evident that she shrank from facing poverty with him, for her own sake
-it would have been better to say good-bye.
-
-The public examination did not turn out to be a very formidable ordeal.
-Lord Alistair, who was at his best when he was on his defence against
-the Philistines, came through it with flying colours. The advocate
-engaged by his creditors to bully him in the approved professional
-style bullied in vain. The bankrupt’s answers were in the lightest vein
-of good-natured irresponsibility. He declared that he kept no accounts,
-had no idea what he spent, only bought the things his tradesmen teased
-him to buy, and felt confident of his ability to pay for everything if
-these unwise proceedings had not been sprung upon him. The creditors
-present began to fear they were unwise, it being evident that they
-could not hope to recover from Lord Alistair even enough to pay
-their demolished barrister. In the end they were glad to adjourn the
-examination in the hope that the Duke of Trent might yet be induced to
-make an offer on his brother’s behalf.
-
-Before he went home Alistair had the gratification of seeing his name
-once more on the news-bills of the evening papers, but this time
-accompanied by editorial compliments, such as “Insolvent’s Witty
-Replies,” “Calls his Creditors Unwise,” and so on. It was a brilliant
-victory, and the middle class had never been made to look more
-ridiculous.
-
-Alistair got back to Chelsea sooner than he expected, and found the
-house empty. After letting himself in with his latchkey, he rang the
-bell to ask if the mistress of the house had left any message for him,
-but no one answered the summons.
-
-The household arrangements were so irregular that there was nothing
-very surprising in all the servants being out together. Nevertheless,
-one of those subtle sensations which we call presentiments warned
-Alistair that the emptiness of the house was a sign of crisis.
-
-He took the trouble to go down into the kitchens. There, as he had
-already foreboded, he found everything lying about in disorder. The
-dirty plates and dishes from lunch were heaped up in the sink, and the
-fire in the range had died out. He could find no shoes or umbrellas or
-other belongings of the servants, such as they would be likely to keep
-downstairs.
-
-Already convinced that the servants had deserted the house, or been
-dismissed in a body, he mounted to the top floor, and had his judgment
-confirmed by the state of the attics. All the trunks were gone. The
-beds had been made, no doubt in the forenoon, before the crash,
-but everything else wore an untidy and dismantled air. The homely
-dressing-tables looked bare without the presence of brushes, and there
-was dirty water in one of the wash-stand basins. Several drawers stood
-half out of the various chests, showing bits of paper, broken buttons,
-and an odd glove.
-
-It was the first time Lord Alistair had ever visited this part of the
-house, and the whole spectacle depressed him. He found himself pitying
-the departed servants who had had to occupy such mean and desolate
-quarters. Why should it be necessary for these fellow-creatures to pass
-their lives so shabbily? Why should one man be worse off than another?
-And that sensation of a spiritual kinship between himself and all the
-underlings of the world, which had first come to him as he stood on
-Westminster Bridge, returned like a wave of melancholy over his heart.
-
-Instead of going downstairs again, he went to the window of the attic
-in which he happened to find himself, and looked out. It was a glimpse
-of back-door London--that unknown London which hides behind the stately
-squares and fashionable terraces and busy rows of shops. At that hour
-a mist breathed on the roofs and gables of the houses, making them
-beautiful. Each particular chimney was invested with a romantic air,
-and had a character of its own. There were two, a tall one with a
-little one beside it, at the end of a long roof-comb, and the group
-suggested a stately lady leading her child by the hand. Behind them
-came a short squat chimney that might have been the maid carrying a
-bundle. Farther along a pair of slender, crooked chimney-pots bent
-towards each other, like two beaux of the eighteenth-century meeting
-and bowing on the Pantiles.
-
-Looking lower down, another world revealed itself. Here were small
-yards in which a little grass grew of its own accord, and tall, gaunt
-clothes-props were the substitutes for trees. Strange barrels that
-could have nothing in them were stacked against a wall to rot away.
-The backs of the next row of houses were divided from these yards by a
-mysterious lane that led nowhere. To the right there was just visible
-a little branch street, with houses on only one side of it. Such small
-houses they were, with a door and three windows to each, and yet in
-the ground-floor window of one of them there was actually a card, as if
-it had lodgings to let.
-
-More interesting than the houses in the side-street were those just
-opposite, across the mysterious lane. By looking closely it was
-possible to see something of the life that went on in them. People
-came out of their back-doors into the little yards which opened into
-the lane. Watching these people was like watching the inhabitants of
-another planet; they might live there for years, and you live in your
-house for years, and you might watch each other every day all that
-time, and yet you would never become anything to them, nor they to you.
-They might be born, and grow up, and marry, and die, and you would
-never know so much as their names.
-
-Compared with the commonplace sights of the front streets, this was
-like a peep into the wonder-world. The sky was turning from yellow
-to violet under the enchantment of sunset, and all the air seemed to
-be full of a deep sigh. Wicked faces began to peer from the bricks
-of the houses, and the chimneys, if they were looked at long enough,
-really moved and nodded to each other as if they were communicating
-secrets overhead. Even the clothes-props down below felt the influence,
-and came to life, and the clothes on the lines changed into ghostly
-people whispering to and nudging one another as the darkness gave them
-courage. It was impossible to believe that this was London, that the
-Underground Railway ran beneath, and that the hospital stood not far
-off. It was easier to think that you had strayed into the heart of some
-haunted town, thousands of years ago, wherein dwelt a mystic folk,
-worshipping strange gods, and going about the streets of their doomed
-city, noiseless and hushed.
-
-The sudden stopping of wheels outside, and the instant clamour of
-a bell, broke Alistair’s trance. With the dazed feeling of a man
-just recalled from sleep he stumbled down the stairs, and opened the
-front-door to Molly.
-
-She marched in, dressed in her most extravagant clothes, with a hat,
-which Alistair could not remember seeing before, on her head, and a
-more than usually profuse display of jewels on her arms and hands.
-Her cheeks were bright with rouge and powder, and there was a hard,
-metallic glint in her eyes which warned him that she had been drinking.
-
-“Well, old boy, how did you get on?” she burst out, in a voice tainted
-with huskiness. “I had a row with the servants while you were away,
-and sacked the whole lot of them, and a good thing too. Jump into my
-carriage, and we’ll go off and have a nice little dinner at the Savoy
-or wherever you like, and a box at the theatre after. Cheer up!”
-
-While she was rattling on with an evident anxiety not to give him time
-to think, Alistair was glancing from her painted face to her jewelled
-fingers, and from the new hat to the coupé which had brought her to the
-house.
-
-“Come in here,” he said, in a quiet tone of authority, at the same time
-closing the front-door.
-
-He led the way into the drawing-room, Molly following with reluctant
-steps, and a look of defiance.
-
-“Well, what is it? What do you want to say now?” she demanded.
-
-“Where have you come from?” asked Alistair.
-
-“Where have I come from? What business is that of yours? I can go where
-I like, can’t I? I’ve been shopping, if you want to know.”
-
-“Where did you get the money?”
-
-“Never mind! What money? Can’t I have a little money of my own? I’ve
-been giving you money lately.”
-
-“I know you have. And I’m very sorry I let you. But that was money you
-got on your jewels, and I gave you some of them myself. You have been
-getting some more since I went away, and I want to know where you got
-it.”
-
-“Suppose I borrowed it; what’s that to you?”
-
-“Who lent it to you?”
-
-“I shan’t tell you. You’ve no right to ask.”
-
-“No, I know I have no right over you. But I have the right to say I
-won’t eat a dinner without knowing who is paying for it.”
-
-“I shall pay for it; isn’t that enough?”
-
-“With whose money? You have just admitted that you had been borrowing.”
-
-“I borrowed it from Carter’s--there!”
-
-Stuart shrugged his shoulders disdainfully.
-
-“Where did you think I got it from, then?”
-
-“From Mendes. I don’t know anyone else who would be likely to lend you
-money.”
-
-For a moment Molly wavered between wrath and fear. Then something in
-Alistair’s face overcame her, and she broke down in a whimper.
-
-“Don’t be angry with me, Alistair! Don’t look like that. I didn’t know
-what to do. The servants all left me, I had nowhere to go, and we’ve
-been so hard up lately. I thought you wanted money badly. It was for
-you more than for myself, really. I was afraid you would get tired of
-living with me if we were poor. You threatened to give up the house and
-everything only the other day; you know you did. I didn’t think you
-would mind my borrowing a little from him--he’s your friend as well as
-mine. I didn’t go to his house, only to his office in the City; and he
-was awfully good, and gave me a hundred pounds at once, and told me to
-come again when I wanted more.”
-
-Alistair remembered his own reception in Mendes’ office.
-
-“He wouldn’t have given the hundred pounds to me,” was all he said.
-
-“No!--you’re not going!” Molly screamed, as she saw him turning from
-her. “Alistair! Alistair!”
-
-She cast herself on the ground before him and caught him by the foot,
-in a paroxysm of sobs and wails.
-
-“I’m very sorry for you, Molly. I’m not angry with you at all; I’ve
-no right to be; but I can’t live with you any longer; you must see
-that. I fancied it would come to this sooner or later. I don’t blame
-you; I dare say I ought to blame myself. But I can’t live on money that
-another man gives you; you must know that well enough.”
-
-“I’ll give it back to him. I haven’t spent half of it. I’ll take it all
-back to him to-morrow. I’ll sell something to make it up.”
-
-She began desperately tearing off bracelets and rings and dropping them
-on the floor.
-
-But Alistair’s mind was made up. He was surprised to find how perfectly
-easy it was for him to act now that the moment had come. He had not
-known that he should be so glad to be free.
-
-“Nothing that you could do now would alter the fact that you have taken
-money from Mendes,” he said. “We may as well make up our minds to what
-has happened. It was bound to come sooner or later. It is better to
-part like this than to drag on till we should be both sick of each
-other. It’s good-bye.”
-
-“I will never speak to Mendes again. I will never see him,” sobbed
-Molly.
-
-Stuart took a step towards the door of the room. She sprang to her feet
-and got in front of him, clinging round him to prevent his going. The
-scene became dreadful and ugly. He had to struggle step by step out of
-the room and into the hall. It was a fight to get his hat off the stand
-and put it on. He felt that it was imperative that he should get away
-there and then. Another hour spent with Molly would be irretrievable
-dishonour. At the front-door the miserable woman made a still more
-frantic struggle. He had to unclasp her fingers by main force, and to
-thrust her back with one hand while he turned the latch with the other.
-If he had not promptly slipped his foot in between door and doorpost
-she would have slammed the door to again before he could open it. And
-all the time she kept up an incessant wailing appeal to him for mercy.
-For the first time in his life Alistair felt that he was doing a cruel
-thing.
-
-He was still shuddering from the sound of Molly’s last moan as he got
-into a cab at the street-corner and gave the direction:
-
-“Colonsay House.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XV
-
-MAGIC CASEMENTS
-
-
-LORD ALISTAIR stood on the deck of a Channel steamer and watched the
-coast of England melt into the night.
-
-His mood was burthened with that indignant melancholy which swelled
-the heart of Byron and of Whistler, and many another exile whom the
-builders of the Raj have rejected from their midst. In the Tate Gallery
-hangs a painting which he had often gazed upon, a symbolic masterpiece
-of Watts’. It represents hard-heartedness sitting crowned with gold
-and robed in scarlet on the throne of the world. The painter has
-called his figure “Mammon”; it came before Alistair just then as the
-image of England--the England that stones her prophets and worships
-her swindlers; the England that made Burns a gauger and one Perceval
-Prime Minister; that chained the dying Napoleon on an ocean rock, and
-rejected the last prayer of Nelson; England, with her shop-keeper’s
-conscience, where art is a sin and generosity a crime.
-
-A sense of exultation and relief accompanied his thoughts. He was
-escaping from the Puritan prison against whose bars his spirit had
-so often bruised its wings. In the obtuse self-satisfaction, in the
-unctuous mercy, of its keepers he had felt something more merciless
-than in all the recorded cruelties of furious saints and frantic
-Emperors. Not the snow-peaks of Switzerland, he told himself, not
-the Shakespearean cadences of Venice, nor Rome with her memories and
-marbles, afforded that zest to wandering which greets us like a scent
-on foreign soil. It was the sense of freedom from that chain of custom
-and convention which we forge upon ourselves. The Mediterranean filled
-her coasts with pleasure cities which were cities of refuge from the
-middle class. The Niagara of gold that poured from England was the
-price the English tradesman pays for his vindictive respectability. It
-was the tax on spite.
-
-A moist wind thick with delicious sea-smells, that mounted in the
-brain like wine, lifted him out of his vexed meditation as the steamer
-drew clear of the tangled lights of Spithead and came out on the wide
-moonlit pavement of the sea. His mother joined him on the deck, and
-they sat and watched the broad moon sail aloft like a luminous balloon
-scattering glory.
-
-“I should like it to be like this always,” Alistair sighed in ecstasy.
-
-A sense of utter peace had fallen on his spirit, worn out with
-striving. The molten orb, lifting beyond the shadow of the earth,
-seemed to drag his soul upward as a spar is sucked in the wake of a
-great ship. He looked up and longed after that visible Elysium, that
-floating Island of the Blest on which the happy dead voyaged in light
-for ever across a sea buoyed with stars. That ship of souls, on what
-far coasts did it touch? within what magic roadsteads anchor? What
-wondrous cities went forth to greet the mariners of that immortal
-Odyssey?
-
-The yearnings of a thousand generations who have spelled in the heavens
-for some divine boding of the fates of men; the mystic soundings of
-devout astronomers in temple labyrinths beside old Nile; the vision
-conned upon the starlit terraces of Babylonian towers--all these
-forgotten intimations from his pre-natal life surged in upon him in
-waves of deep emotion, and floated his consciousness from its moorings
-among the things of every day.
-
-Caroline sat beside her son and did not break the silence. She, too,
-was happy. Her prayers had been granted; the prodigal had found his way
-home. Within the compass of her simple mind there was room for only one
-ending to the story. Conversion would follow on repentance, and a happy
-marriage would insure a regular and fortunate career.
-
-Her agitated joy over his return to Colonsay House had moved Alistair,
-if not to repentance, to a wish that he could change his nature in
-accordance with the life his mother wanted him to lead. In the first
-moments of united tenderness he even persuaded himself that this might
-be so. He was wearied and disheartened by his warfare with society, and
-he hoped that the truce might ripen into a peace.
-
-The Duke of Trent’s reception of his brother had been courteous,
-if not very cordial. He bade him welcome to the house, and on the
-following evening informed him in their mother’s presence that the
-family solicitor had taken charge of his affairs.
-
-Alistair saw that he was expected to be grateful, and he succeeded
-in appearing so, though in his heart he was half sorry to accept his
-brother’s favours for the sake of his creditors.
-
-“If it were not for you I would not let Trent give a penny to these
-people,” he told his mother when they were by themselves.
-
-“It is not only us you have to think of,” the Duchess seized the
-opportunity to suggest. “We hope you may find a wife who will make your
-life happy, and you would not like to go to her with any mark against
-your name.”
-
-The Home Secretary had never spoken of Sir Bernard Vanbrugh’s refusal.
-His repulse had mortified him deeply, but he took it sedately as he
-took most other things. He blamed himself for not having made sure of
-Hero in the first place, and with a certain obstinacy he still clung to
-the idea that she would sooner or later be his.
-
-Sir Bernard had been equally silent on his side. He did not know which
-way his daughter’s inclination went, and wanted to avoid a disagreement.
-
-The Duchess, whose diplomacy was of the simplest order, went on to say
-to Alistair:
-
-“Don’t you think you would like to come abroad for a little time? The
-Vanbrughs have a house at Dinard, and it would be very pleasant if you
-would take me over there.”
-
-Alistair gazed at his mother in doubt. He could hardly misunderstand
-her drift, and the light in his eyes was a sufficient revelation to her
-of his own wishes. But the gossip which had reached him concerning his
-brother and Hero Vanbrugh held him back.
-
-“What about Trent?” he said.
-
-“He can’t leave town till Parliament rises, of course. He may join us
-afterwards, perhaps.”
-
-Alistair was puzzled by his mother’s indifferent tone.
-
-“Will he like me to be there in his absence?” he asked.
-
-The Duchess was equally puzzled.
-
-“Why, what difference does it make to him?” she returned.
-
-“Isn’t there something? I thought--I heard that he and Miss
-Vanbrugh----”
-
-The Duchess looked at him in surprise.
-
-“Oh, no!” she declared with confidence. “There has never been any idea
-of that kind. He likes her very much as a friend, but he would not
-think of anything more. I know exactly what his views are; he has often
-told me. He means to marry a great fortune. Hero will have money, no
-doubt,” she was quick to add. “Her father is rich for a professional
-man, I believe. But, of course, he could not give her enough for
-Trent.”
-
-Alistair received the assurance with a throb of delight, as his
-mother’s project suddenly shone out to him in the bright light of
-hope. But a misgiving of another kind assailed him, and one which he
-found it more difficult to explain to her. He found himself ashamed
-to pass straight from the side of Molly Finucane to such a girl as
-Hero Vanbrugh. It would be almost an insult, he thought; it would be
-acting as though he sought Hero, not for her own sake, but as a sort of
-refuge, a substitute for the woman he had left.
-
-The sense of shame which Hero alone had been able to rouse in him
-returned in its full force at the idea of presenting himself before her
-with all the stains of his past life still showing, with Molly’s kisses
-fresh upon his lips. He felt a desire to go away first and purge his
-life in other scenes, to renew himself in some atmosphere of sweet and
-strong endeavour from which he could hope to emerge fitter for Hero’s
-love.
-
-Alistair wondered that his mother did not perceive the indelicacy of
-such a course as she had proposed, and Caroline on her part wondered at
-the strange embarrassment with which Alistair at last gave his consent
-to her plans. It was not easy for these two to understand each other.
-
-During the few days that elapsed before their departure the Duchess
-did succeed in getting a glimpse at what was weighing on Alistair’s
-mind. She saw with secret concern that he really did doubt if he
-were worthy of such a girl as Hero, and that this doubt might even
-prove an obstacle to the fulfilment of her desires. It was necessary
-to encourage him, and give him confidence in himself, and the
-conscientious mother was surprised to find herself in the strange
-part of an apologist, extenuating instead of aggravating her son’s
-misdoing. Her first faltering attempts in this direction brought about
-a beautiful change in the whole intercourse between the pair. Caroline
-was deeply touched to see how the prodigal son’s nature softened and
-expanded under this rare indulgence. They began to be happy together;
-the poor woman secretly feared that she must be doing wrong.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-When Alistair rose on the first morning in their new home, and stepped
-out of his bedroom window on to the little balcony that overlooked the
-Emerald Coast, he repeated to himself the two lines of Keats in which
-the essence of all poetry is distilled:
-
-  “Magic casements opening on the foam
-  Of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn,”
-
-The house, which had been Hero’s choice for them, stood on the far
-edge of a little headland dividing a sandy bay from the broad haven of
-the Rance. The surrounding sea was ringed with a crescent of rocks and
-islets in the midst of which green Cézembre glowed--
-
-  “The captain jewel in the carcanet.”
-
-Something, that seemed the mast of a wrecked ship, rose up in
-melancholy memorial from one seaweed-covered ledge on which the waves
-were now foaming softly, like a child that tries to kiss away the
-recollection of its passion. On his right hand, across the shallow
-glistening tides of the estuary, the tall spire of St. Malo lifted
-itself like a more stately mast above the white walls of the islet city
-of the corsairs. Far to the west the grey cape of Freher watched the
-Atlantic billows, like a grim warder of the Breton coast. And over all
-the summer haze lay like a spell of strong imagination, and conjured up
-a legendary world.
-
-It was a leaf of poetry that lay outspread before him, and he read it
-with a poet’s eye. The faculty of toil, the long labour of the midnight
-lamp, the fortunate strategy of words, had been denied to Alistair
-Stuart, and therefore he was not a poet. Remained the gift of wonder
-and of worship, and by that talisman he still had power to people the
-sweeping landscape with mysterious life; the Tritons rose and called
-each other from the waves, old Proteus lifted a slumbering head and
-listened from his cave, and on the rocks the Sirens sang.
-
-He had risen in that happy mood when every little thing becomes a
-spring of joy. The coffee foaming in its thick white cup, that woke
-him with its fragrance, and the shell-like bread, were delightful
-reminders that he had come to a lighter-hearted land. He dressed
-himself in pearl-grey flannels, and wandered out into the garden with
-a wide-rimmed panama over his brows, and drank the scent of roses and
-carnations, intoxicated by all the beauty round him, like a man risen
-from a sick-bed. His thoughts went back to the life he had just left,
-and he wondered that he could have lived it for so long. All the dark
-speculations, the impulses that had moved him to go down into sheol,
-seemed to have suddenly become as unreal as the imaginary dangers of
-the night forest are to the traveller coming out on the broad highway
-at dawn.
-
-When the Duchess joined him in the garden walk that overlooked the
-sea, she gazed on her boy with secret pride. As he stood there in the
-sunshine, the light breeze playing in his hair, and in his eyes the
-dawn of joy and hope, he seemed to her mother’s heart a Prince Charming
-who had only to stretch out his hand and pluck the fairest flower in
-the garden of love.
-
-Alistair found himself too much excited to remain at home waiting for
-the advent of the Princess. With a lover’s superstition he believed
-that the way to hasten her coming was to go out himself. He kissed
-his mother, and went down a rock-hewn stairway at the foot of which a
-wooden gate let him out on the sands.
-
-The little Plage, enclosed between the two headlands which Dinard
-thrusts out into the sea like a snail’s horns, was bustling like a
-fair. The French had made a miniature village of the beach, with
-streets of little huts in which they read, and sewed, and called upon
-each other, and carried on their family life. Children were burrowing
-in the sand like rabbits, and bathers clad in the bright hues of
-butterflies fluttered on the sea’s edge.
-
-“And I might live this life always!” Alistair murmured, with a sort
-of wonder at his own past blundering, as he stepped among this glad
-throng, as glad as they.
-
-Hero came towards him, walking beside her father, dressed in white with
-one blue flower at her throat and a red flower in her heart.
-
-“We were just coming to see you!” she cried gaily.
-
-“I could not wait for you, you see!” cried Alistair.
-
-And they two looked at each other through the magic casement of love.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVI
-
-NEW LAMPS FOR OLD
-
-
-DURING the next few days a thing happened that surprised everyone. Sir
-Bernard Vanbrugh and Lord Alistair became great friends.
-
-Alistair had motives that were plain enough to three members of the
-little party for his goodwill towards Hero’s father. But it puzzled the
-two women to account for the pleasure which Sir Bernard evidently found
-in the society of the young man.
-
-To the Duchess the development did not bring unmixed satisfaction.
-Her own acquaintance with the scientist had begun with some secret
-trepidation on her part. She knew that Vanbrugh held opinions which
-she had been accustomed to hear described in the venomous language of
-her creed as infidelity, and which she had been taught to attribute to
-moral perversity rather than to mental aberration. Such a man was not
-the father-in-law she would have chosen for her son, though she had
-resigned herself to the relationship as an inevitable evil, the flaw
-inseparable from all human arrangements. While it pleased her to see
-that he liked Alistair, she watched with secret uneasiness Alistair’s
-unaffected liking for him.
-
-To Vanbrugh the young man presented himself as an intelligent
-companion, a rare exception among the crowd of contemporary youths with
-minds ranging from bridge to polo, and from horses to ballet-girls. It
-could not have occurred to him in any case that the Duke of Trent’s
-brother was a probable aspirant to the prize which the Duke had failed
-to gain, and, in fact, his mind was so thoroughly armed against the
-possibility of Lord Alistair as a son-in-law that he never thought of
-him in any such connection.
-
-He spoke of him freely to Hero, as he might have spoken of a character
-in some play which they had both seen.
-
-“I like that scapegrace because he is so sincere,” he confided to
-her one evening after Stuart had left them. “He never seems to have
-acquired the habit of hypocrisy. I suppose it is because he has always
-had the world at his feet. If he had ever had to earn his living he
-would have had to pretend like the rest.”
-
-Vanbrugh’s brow contracted as he added:
-
-“The Queen said to me once: ‘I like you, Sir Bernard, because you
-always tell me the exact truth.’ I replied to her: ‘That is the reason,
-Madam, why it has taken me forty years to come into your presence.’”
-
-The physician’s long and stern fight with society, as represented
-by his own profession, had qualified him to sympathize with another
-Ishmael, though one of a very different order. His indulgence for Lord
-Alistair did not spring from any flexibility in his own standard of
-conduct; but for the shams of European morality, for the decorum which
-consists in keeping one’s wife in London, and one’s concubines in
-Paris, he had as strong a contempt as Alistair’s own. The proprieties
-of the cupboard-door were equally loathsome to both; the hackneyed
-dance of society, for ever whirling giddily round on the skirts of the
-Divorce Court maelstrom, was equally repellent.
-
-The attitude of the scientist contained an enigma for Alistair, whose
-intellect, wavering and searching like a flame in the wind, contrasted
-with Vanbrugh’s as the strength of fire contrasts with the strength of
-steel. To him there appeared something stubborn and unreasonable in the
-scientist’s morality, which substituted collective Teutonic instinct
-for the voice of God. The Haeckelian vision of a world of Unitarian
-ministers and their wives leading uniform lives in a Prussian barrack
-struck cold on his imagination. In the new ethics he found the Puritan
-prison-house without the window.
-
-There was one difference, however, for which he could only be grateful.
-His new friend appeared to reverse the common practice, and to be
-strict with himself only that he might be merciful with others. His
-programme did not include the conversion of the sinner, and for the
-first time in his life Alistair found himself associating with a
-righteous man who did not want to do him good.
-
-This unique toleration would have refreshed him under any other
-circumstances. But at such a moment, and in such a quarter, it
-disconcerted him. When, with some idea of softening the judgment of
-Hero’s father, Alistair attempted a plea that he had sown his wild
-oats, he was taken aback by the answer:
-
-“The evil is sometimes not in sowing wild oats, but in sowing tame oats
-among them. Mixed oatmeal is good for neither horse nor man.”
-
-“I am not sure that I understand you,” Stuart faltered.
-
-“I mean that it is a dangerous idea that the really diseased can become
-good members of society. In my experience a man who tries to change his
-nature often changes it for the worse. The reformed drunkard is apt to
-become an insane teetotaller, and the reformed rake makes the worst
-possible father.”
-
-Alistair dared not pursue the subject. He had some ground for hoping
-that Sir Bernard’s practice might be less inexorable than his
-principles.
-
-Soon after their meeting, the Duchess, overcoming her dread of the
-scientist for Alistair’s sake, ventured to ask him what he thought of
-her boy. Vanbrugh, with his habitual bluntness, had terrified her by
-responding:
-
-“I think he drinks too much. You ought to try to stop him.”
-
-The poor mother had already noticed, and tried to shut her eyes to,
-this weakness of Alistair’s, new in her experience of him. It was due,
-she told herself, to the influence of Molly Finucane, and would pass
-away now that he had escaped from that evil atmosphere.
-
-Something of this she tried to plead to Sir Bernard.
-
-“He never used to take too much,” she said. “But he is easily
-influenced by his companions. He needs someone to watch over and
-strengthen him.”
-
-“Yes.” Even Vanbrugh shrank from speaking his whole mind about Lord
-Alistair to the trembling mother. “If you can persuade him to stay with
-you it may check him.”
-
-The Duchess was afraid to carry her soundings further. For the first
-time it dawned upon her that Sir Bernard was capable of taking a
-critical view of such a son-in-law.
-
-She had conveyed the physician’s judgment to Alistair, and Alistair
-had rejoiced her by a promise of amendment which had so far been kept.
-To help him, the Duchess had insisted on sacrificing her own glass of
-wine, and as both the Vanbrughs were water-drinkers, all intoxicants
-had silently disappeared from the tables of both households.
-
-Alistair was touched by his mother’s self-denial on his behalf, and
-cheered by Hero’s delicate sympathy. In the first flush of his new
-resolution, amid the distractions of his changed life, and buoyed up by
-the inspiration of his love, the path of reformation was made smooth
-for him. The gloomy feelings that had haunted him in London returned
-into the remote recesses of consciousness. The bright constellation of
-Ormuzd rose beckoning before him, and the dark Sign of the Suffering
-One sank below the horizon of life.
-
-The only reminders he had of the past were the letters that reached him
-from Molly Finucane.
-
-At first the letters had come every day, passionate, reproachful,
-entreating him to return to her. Molly protested that she had seen
-no more of Mendes; that she was selling everything in the house
-at Chelsea; that they would still have enough to go on with till
-Alistair’s allowance from his brother became due; that she would follow
-him and live with him where and how he would. When Alistair wrote back
-what he intended for a final farewell, and sent a banknote given him by
-his mother, Molly returned the note torn into a dozen pieces. Then the
-letters became fewer and more pleading and pitiful. At last there came
-one telling him that Molly had taken refuge with her brother, whose
-address she gave him, in some Lambeth slum. After that there were no
-more letters. The little woman had sunk in despair.
-
-Alistair tried hard to forget Molly Finucane, and for a time it seemed
-to him that he had succeeded. His love, if the passion she had aroused
-in him deserved that name, had died out of itself, his compassion had
-been put to sleep by the influences brought to bear upon him. If these
-good women, if one so filled with the spirit of Christian charity
-as his mother, could see nothing blameworthy in his desertion of
-Molly--indeed, nothing that was not wholly praiseworthy--surely it was
-absurd for him, the prodigal and the bankrupt, the unbeliever and the
-misanthrope, to let himself be tormented by misgivings. To ruin what
-was left of his own life for the sake of one whom no human sacrifice
-could redeem--surely this were madness rather than heroism.
-
-In this mood he became a ready listener to the philosophy of Sir
-Bernard Vanbrugh; and Sir Bernard expounded his philosophy with some of
-that proselytizing zeal which marked the last generation of scientists,
-the Huxleys and the Tyndalls, before Science had laid down her arms
-at the feet of the great Sphynx, and confessed that she had found no
-better symbol to replace the old.
-
-It would have surprised and alarmed the Duchess if she had been told
-that the topic most frequently discussed between Sir Bernard Vanbrugh
-and her son was religion. It would have more than surprised her, it
-would have found her utterly incredulous, if anyone had told her that
-Alistair had an intensely religious nature.
-
-To her unnaturally stunted mind the word “religion” had only one
-meaning, and unbelief only one excuse. Alistair had heard the Gospel.
-In his boyhood he had shown signs of yielding to its influence; it
-followed, therefore, that his later rejection of it was a deliberate
-surrender to Satan. Everything in his troubled life that had resulted
-from his having been violently robbed of his own religion she
-attributed to his wilful and wicked refusal to embrace hers.
-
-In reality, ever since the evangelical tutors employed by the Duchess
-had succeeded in convincing Alistair that the Catholic creed was false,
-without convincing him that their own creed was true, he had been
-groping in a spiritual twilight. The religious instinct, though wounded
-and defaced, was not dead.
-
-He still cherished a more kindly feeling for the Roman Church than
-for any other, as the one which he had found most indulgent to the
-sinner, or, at all events, most intelligent and tactful in dealing
-with himself. To his intellect the language of both creeds sounded
-incredible. But whereas the teachers of his mother’s confession
-seemed to share the darkness of their most ignorant disciples, he had
-found among the priests of Rome some whom he could listen to without
-impatience.
-
-“Our Church,” they declared, “has never claimed that her formulas
-should be taken literally like mathematical propositions. The Catholic
-word for ‘creed’ is ‘symbol.’ We offer our dogma, not as the truth
-itself, but as a symbol of the truth--an allegory, if you will. It is
-the best statement of the relations between the Unseen and man that the
-human mind is capable of receiving, and we offer it as nothing more.”
-
-This comfortable language would have gone far to satisfy Alistair
-if he had not observed on the part of his Catholic friends a
-certain reticence and subservience to authority which alarmed his
-liberty-loving instincts.
-
-The answer to his demand for freedom was the answer of all priesthoods.
-
-“Only a few minds are strong enough to stand alone. Our Church does
-not forbid inquiry. She does not punish freethought. What she forbids
-and punishes is the attempt to disturb the ignorant, to rob them of
-the faith which is the best for them, without giving them anything
-in exchange. You may persuade the peasant-woman to give up her
-Christian Catechism, but you will not persuade her to replace it by the
-Synthetical Philosophy.”
-
-Alistair felt that this was still the old situation. He was to be
-silenced lest others might be shocked. He was to be bound that they
-might be free--to suffer that they might be strong.
-
-While he thus found himself cut off from the communion of the orthodox,
-the Christian religion continued to fascinate him. His spirit felt the
-presence of a living truth concealed in these formulas which his mind
-could not accommodate, like a beautiful face hidden beneath an ugly
-mask.
-
-Sir Bernard Vanbrugh’s theology was of the new scientific kind which
-calls itself anthropology. The analysis of myths and the genesis of
-beliefs had formed his favourite study, outside the range of his
-profession, and he found a missionary’s satisfaction in imparting his
-lore to Alistair Stuart.
-
-“Christianity,” Vanbrugh proclaimed, “is a synthesis of all the ancient
-beliefs of the Mediterranean, some of them comparatively enlightened,
-others purely barbarous. We are now able to trace every one of its
-rites and dogmas to an origin in some older state of society. Its
-evolution has been as entirely natural as that of man himself.”
-
-“Is not that rather in its favour than against it?” Alistair suggested.
-“Is it not possible to view the primitive beliefs as the gradual
-unfolding of a great truth?”
-
-Vanbrugh frowned. This was not language that he liked to hear.
-
-“That is what the orthodox would say, no doubt. But I am not concerned
-with apologetics. No serious thinker will ever again waste his time in
-controversy with that class of person.”
-
-“I am afraid the orthodox would not think one view any better than
-the other,” replied Alistair, thinking of his mother. “Isn’t it the
-orthodox view that all the resemblances to Christianity found in other
-religions are blasphemous parodies contrived by the devil in order to
-discredit the true faith?”
-
-Sir Bernard smiled, reassured of his pupil.
-
-“Yes, I suppose that is the sound explanation. But there is a school
-of reconcilers abroad, men who want to retain positions in the Church
-without wholly forfeiting the respect of educated men, and their
-favourite cry just now is the evolution of religion.”
-
-“But the religious instinct itself? How do you account for that?”
-
-“In the beginning it was nothing but the savage’s fear of
-Nature, as Lucretius observed. In our days it is an atavistic
-survival--practically a disease.”
-
-Alistair trembled.
-
-“Is it a disease that can be cured?”
-
-“Every disease can be cured as soon as it is understood, or if not
-cured in the individual it can be eliminated in the race. Where
-religion is due to a mere obstruction in the brain, we shall in time be
-able to remove it by trepanning; but where it is a hysterical symptom,
-the only remedy will be to isolate the sufferers, as we now isolate the
-insane, and allow them to die out.”
-
-A strange light broke on Alistair.
-
-“Is not that what the Catholic Church does?” he said eagerly. “Her
-monks and nuns--are they not really hysterical patients who are
-voluntarily adopting the very course that science would prescribe for
-them?”
-
-The scientist grudgingly conceded that this was so.
-
-“Unfortunately the convents soon became mere refuges for the idle,” he
-observed. “And healthy girls were forced into them by selfish parents
-in order to save their dower. Still, no doubt the Protestants made
-a mistake in shutting up the monasteries altogether and condemning
-celibacy as a vice. There are plenty of cases in which it ought to be
-compulsory.”
-
-“Why compulsory?” Alistair pleaded. “Surely it is far better that they
-should take a vow of their own accord, inspired by the thought that
-they are helping to save the race?”
-
-The scientist shrugged his shoulders.
-
-“All that is sentiment,” he said--“one of the things for which the
-healthy have no use.”
-
-Alistair sighed.
-
-“How monotonous the world will be when everyone is perfect! You will
-have to preserve a few criminals as curiosities, like the lions and
-tigers in the Zoological Gardens.”
-
-Sir Bernard smiled good-humouredly.
-
-“That won’t be necessary. We shall preserve some of the savage tribes
-instead. They are documents of priceless value to the anthropologist.”
-
-“When does a man cease to be a priceless document, and become a
-criminal?” Stuart asked, with secret bitterness.
-
-The other reflected for a moment.
-
-“I suppose the answer is given by Johnson’s definition of dirt: When he
-is in the wrong place.”
-
-It was the answer which Alistair had given to himself that night on
-Westminster Bridge. He was in the wrong place. But was there any right
-place in the world for him?
-
-He lifted his eyes and looked away. They were sitting on the verandah
-of Vanbrugh’s house in the Malounine, facing eastward. The sun was just
-leaving the sky, and the red glow of the western horizon, caught full
-on the white walls and windows of St. Malo, bathed the city in fire.
-Alistair’s heart beat painfully as he strained his eyes on the flaming
-town. There was his world, there the vision that called to his soul.
-O, not in dingy lanes, not on the cold, grey pavements of reality, but
-amid those vermilion glories, his spirit should have dwelt and burned
-itself away.
-
-He was an exile. Not from the Island of Oig, nor any other island of an
-earthly sea, but from that far-off sphere of which the sunset-smitten
-town reminded him. He was an exile from some world of which love, and
-not hate, was the keynote, banished for what fault he could not tell,
-condemned to mortal life as to a penance, but tormented and consoled by
-intimations from that happier state.
-
-The soul has her imperial moments when she exercises a prerogative that
-reason cannot take away; when the toilsome knowledge gathered together
-by the senses falls into shards under her feet, and she enters into
-possession of herself, freed from the bonds and trammels cast about her
-by the material brain. In that moment Alistair did not think--he knew,
-knew well, more surely than if a voice from the beyond had spoken it in
-his ear, that he was an immortal spirit inhabiting eternity.
-
-When his attention returned to the voice beside him, he found that the
-agnostic was expounding the folklore of the crucifixion.
-
-“The whole subject has been illuminated by Dr. Frazer’s book ‘The
-Golden Bough,’” he was saying. “The sacrifice of a human victim in the
-spring, at the time of the seed-sowing, is one of the oldest rites in
-the world. The victim was originally conceived of as the corn-god, and
-was put to death in order that his spirit might enter into the seed.
-His body was buried in the field, and he was supposed to rise again in
-the form of the harvest. In that way the dogma of Transubstantiation
-had once a reasonable meaning--the bread was the flesh of the slain god
-in his new avatar.”
-
-Alistair listened like one awakening from sleep who has not yet caught
-the sense of what is going on around him.
-
-“Christianity, in short, is the old Adonis worship, adapted according
-to Jewish ideas. The Old Testament is full of allusions to this
-cult--‘women weeping for Tammuz,’ and so on.”
-
-“You were speaking of a human victim,” murmured Alistair.
-
-“Yes; it was customary to select a man at Easter, usually in later
-times a condemned criminal, who was sacrificed as a scapegoat for the
-sins of the people. The Jewish mob appear to have claimed a victim
-in accordance with this custom. Two were released, in fact, one to
-be sacrificed, and the other to be honoured as the representative of
-spring.”
-
-Alistair felt there was some confusion in this statement.
-
-“For the sins of the people,” he repeated thoughtfully. “You say the
-victim was sacrificed for the sins of the people?”
-
-“That was one form of the cult,” the scientist assented. “The idea of
-the sin-bearer is a very ancient superstition. Even the details of the
-New Testament narrative follow the lines of what we know to have been
-the customary ceremonial in Babylon and elsewhere. The scourging and
-the crown of thorns were both familiar practices. They are alluded to
-in Isaiah--‘He was wounded for our transgressions.’”
-
-“‘With his stripes we are healed.’” Alistair finished the sentence with
-a start of surprise. They were the words he had tried and failed to
-remember on the night of his disgrace.
-
-“At an earlier stage in the history of the cult the king of the tribe
-had been sacrificed,” Vanbrugh went on, “So, when a criminal was
-substituted, he was still called the king for the occasion.”
-
-“It was a fine end for the criminal,” was Alistair’s comment.
-
-His mind presented him with two contrasted pictures--the felon of
-civilization, in his dreadful garb, numbered and branded like a
-chattel, drudging in the stone quarries under the warder’s eye; and
-that sufferer of the antique world, drawn out of some fetid Eastern
-gaol, clad in the royal robe and crown, and marched in solemn
-priest-led procession to the top of a Syrian hill to be put to death
-for the salvation of the people. The sin-bearer, the redeemer--surely
-every criminal was such! “Don’t you see,” he said suddenly to the
-astonished anthropologist, “that they were right? They were simply
-saying what modern science is saying, only they said it far more
-beautifully. The criminal is the sin-bearer; he _is_ crucified for the
-good of the people even to-day. He is imprisoned and hanged that our
-lives and purses may be safe. By his stripes we are healed.”
-
-Sir Bernard Vanbrugh told his daughter that night that he was a little
-disappointed in Lord Alistair.
-
-“He is brilliant enough in his own way,” was the scientist’s verdict,
-“but not practical. I am afraid he is a dreamer.”
-
-It was the dreamer that Hero loved.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVII
-
-A SPOKE IN THE WHEEL
-
-
-THE assurance that Hero loved him was not conveyed to Alistair in
-words. It stole in upon him like faint scents rising from the earth
-after a shower, and thrilled him almost unawares.
-
-The note of passion was overlaid by higher and more intricate
-harmonies. In Hero’s thoughts of Alistair there was a protecting
-tenderness, like a mother’s for a child that has suffered some hurt;
-and in Alistair’s thoughts of her there was a reverence and spiritual
-yearning that made it seem profane to offer her the common coin of love.
-
-When he sat beside her on some lonely stretch of sand or grass-clad
-promontory, and saw the sea reflected in her eyes, like the star in the
-wine-cup of Hafiz, he shrank instinctively from the thoughts that other
-women had roused in him. For the first time he saw into the mind of the
-ascetic, and shared its rebellion against Nature--Nature that roots
-the flower of life in earth. A silence often fell on him in Hero’s
-presence. He dreaded certain stages on the way in front of them, and
-wished that they could have fallen asleep together, and waked up man
-and wife.
-
-The marriage of true minds, so rare and so desirable, made formal
-marriage vulgar. There was something impossible in that astounding
-ceremony by which society revealed its strain of primitive savagery.
-How could a man and woman, sensitive to beautiful things, their hearts
-vibrating with the awful music of creation, prank themselves out like
-negroes at a fair, and march into a public building to advertise
-mankind of what they were about to do? The marriage of true minds did
-not admit impediments like these.
-
-The thorns of life pressed less roughly against his spirit as he talked
-with Hero. He opened his heart to her, and the bitterness within seemed
-to be changed and softened under the tender light of sympathy. A
-process of reconciliation went on without his understanding whither he
-was being led.
-
-And Hero found in Alistair that which her life had lacked hitherto--a
-motive and an aim. For in the view of life in which she had been
-trained there was, as Alistair told himself, no window; and Hero had
-missed the window. She had sought it at St. Jermyn’s, and found only
-the pale altar-lights of a past age guttering in their sockets. For
-a brave, truthful heart like hers that was not enough. In Alistair’s
-discontent, in his revolt against the social order that had condemned
-him, she discerned his latent faith in a more beautiful order, of which
-this triumphant one was the enemy.
-
-Her woman’s instinct told her that every man’s life depends for
-one-half of its happiness or its misery on the women he meets with.
-The man who has met the right woman for him cannot be utterly cast
-down. And so, as Alistair’s mother had foreseen, Hero’s love was
-strengthened by the idea of devotion. She had the power to help this
-wounded soldier, perhaps to nurse him back to strength again, and such
-a mission was the best thing that life had yet offered her.
-
-All this became part of their mutual consciousness as the days
-stretched into weeks of happy summer, and Alistair still lingered, in
-wayward mood, unwilling to exchange delicious expectation for dull
-security. For the poet waking life has nothing that can quite match the
-exquisite texture of his dream. And when at last he spoke he did so
-rather sorrowfully, like one who says farewell.
-
-Without having made any compact with each other, the lovers kept their
-secret for a time.
-
-Even Alistair’s mother, though she was watching and praying for the
-end, could not feel sure that it had been reached. But there is one eye
-keener than a mother’s, and that is a rival’s. The Home Secretary had
-read with angry jealousy the letters in which the Duchess described the
-growing intimacy between Alistair and Hero, and innocently indulged
-her hopeful anticipations. He sought and obtained the Prime Minister’s
-permission, and on the day that Parliament was prorogued he left
-England for France.
-
-Alistair went across to St. Malo to meet the English boat, and the
-moment he saw him the Duke guessed the truth. The brothers had not been
-really cordial for many years, though for their mother’s sake both
-tried to keep up a conventional friendliness. But on this occasion
-Alistair greeted his brother with an unaffected kindliness which sprang
-from the new happiness in his heart. He was at peace with the world;
-he wished to be at peace with Trent as well. He wanted to forget past
-grudges, and to view his brother’s character and conduct towards him in
-the most favourable light.
-
-“I am so glad you have come, Trent,” he said heartily. “This place is
-fairyland itself, without the ogres.”
-
-“What about Sir Bernard Vanbrugh?”
-
-“He is quite well. Do you mean, is he an ogre?”
-
-Trent nodded. He knew something about the scientist.
-
-“I have not found him very formidable so far,” Alistair said cheerfully.
-
-His brother’s hint had made an impression on him nevertheless. He had
-suspected for some time that it would not be all plain sailing with
-Sir Bernard Vanbrugh, and this confirmation of his fears from another
-quarter depressed him considerably.
-
-Trent was satisfied. He saw that his brother had not yet spoken to
-Hero’s father, although he might have spoken to Hero.
-
-The Duchess was waiting at the villa to welcome her eldest son. Almost
-the first thing she said to him was:
-
-“I have asked the Vanbrughs to dine here to-night. I thought you would
-like to see your old friend Hero.”
-
-“Yes, I should like to see her,” the Home Secretary replied impassively.
-
-The suspicious glance which Alistair darted at him was met and repelled
-by the Minister’s reserve.
-
-“I shouldn’t wonder if you liked Sir Bernard too,” the Duchess added.
-“He is an extraordinary man. He seems to know almost all about
-everything.”
-
-“I have met him,” Trent said, with the same cold indifference. “He
-impressed me as an extremely able man--a man of strong character.”
-
-The Duchess waited till she and Trent were alone to broach the topic
-that was engrossing her thoughts.
-
-“I think all is going well,” she said. “They seem quite wrapped up in
-each other. But I am still a little anxious about Alistair. The poor
-boy seems to be so much ashamed of his disgrace; he has told me that he
-does not think he is good enough for a girl like Hero Vanbrugh.”
-
-“The question is what she thinks, isn’t it?”
-
-“Yes; that is what I want you to tell him. You can put it better than I
-can. A little encouragement from you just now might turn the scale. We
-can save him--and you will help me, dear?”
-
-“You haven’t said anything to her father, I suppose?”
-
-“No.” The Duchess looked a little troubled. “He is not a man I should
-find it easy to be confidential with. I think I am a little afraid of
-him.”
-
-“I think you are right,” pronounced the rejected suitor.
-
-All the old bitterness had welled up again as his mother spoke. He, the
-eldest son, the credit to the family, was welcomed by his mother simply
-as an ally in the salvation of the young prodigal who had brought
-disgrace upon their house. He was to encourage this ne’er-do-weel, who
-at last showed some slight sense of his own worthlessness--to pat him
-on the back, and bid him go forward and win the bride whom he, Trent,
-had been refused.
-
-“I wish you would sound Sir Bernard,” said the innocent Duchess.
-
-Trent started. The suggestion chimed in so exactly with certain
-dark suggestions of his own secret mind that he nearly betrayed his
-exultation.
-
-“I will do so if you wish,” he said, measuring out his words carefully,
-so as to give his conscience no possible excuse thereafter for
-reproaching him with treachery to his brother.
-
-The Vanbrughs had not been in the house five minutes that night before
-the Duke saw more than anyone else had seen. Every look that passed
-across the table between Alistair and Hero told him that they had
-nothing more to tell each other. He saw also that the physician had as
-little suspicion of what had happened as if he had been a thousand
-miles off all the time.
-
-After dinner was over the lovers wandered down the garden paths and
-the Duchess retired to her drawing-room. The Duke and Vanbrugh were
-left sitting on the verandah over the coffee and cigars, of which only
-Trent partook. The physician dealt as severely with himself as with his
-patients, and the abstemious habits so long enforced by poverty had not
-been departed from in prosperity.
-
-The Home Secretary considered how he could make his attack most
-crushing. An ingenious idea suggested itself.
-
-“Do you think you have treated me quite fairly, Sir Bernard?” he asked
-in an accent of mild reproach.
-
-The physician turned and stared at him.
-
-“In what way do you mean, Duke?”
-
-“Am I not correct in saying that you declined me for a son-in-law
-principally on the ground that I had the misfortune to be the brother
-of Lord Alistair Stuart?”
-
-“That was one of my strongest reasons, certainly--perhaps the
-strongest. Well?”
-
-“Well!”
-
-The Duke waved his hand in the direction in which the lovers had
-disappeared.
-
-“I never said anything implying that I should object to make a friend
-of your brother,” protested Sir Bernard hastily, trying to ward off the
-unwelcome suggestion.
-
-The Minister treated this evasion with contempt.
-
-“My brother has been wiser than I, it appears. He has made sure of Miss
-Vanbrugh’s consent before asking for yours.”
-
-“I hope you are mistaken!” cried the father, now seriously alarmed. “I
-am sure you must be. I know every thought in my daughter’s mind.”
-
-“Is it possible that you, a wise man, can believe that?”
-
-“I am certain that she has never had a secret from me before.”
-
-“Then it is serious indeed.”
-
-The justice of the remark silenced Vanbrugh. He struggled in vain to
-resist the conviction that the Duke of Trent was right. A hundred
-trifling indications of the understanding between the lovers returned
-upon his mind, like water pouring in through a leak.
-
-“Damn the young blackguard!” he growled. “He is just the sort that
-attracts good women. They think that they can ‘save’ him. I ought to
-have remembered that.”
-
-Trent listened, anxious for some assurance that his warning would not
-be thrown away.
-
-“If I have made a mistake in speaking to you----” He spoke slowly, to
-let the other interrupt him.
-
-“You could not have done me a greater service, Duke. Even if you are
-mistaken in thinking there is anything in it, I shan’t be the less
-obliged to you for the warning.”
-
-“I should not like Miss Vanbrugh or my brother to know that I had
-interfered.”
-
-“No one shall know. It is a matter entirely between ourselves.” The
-Home Secretary breathed easily again. “After all, it was a mere
-accident. You naturally thought I had seen as much as you.”
-
-“I am afraid I spoke under the influence of jealousy,” Trent said,
-determined to do the handsome thing by his conscience, now that all was
-safe. “My mother had actually asked me to sound you as to the match.”
-
-The word stung Sir Bernard.
-
-“There will be no match,” he said decisively. “I will see to that.”
-
-And Trent was satisfied.
-
-When the Vanbrughs were leaving, an hour later, Sir Bernard declined,
-a little curtly, Lord Alistair’s offer to walk round with them. He
-watched the parting between Hero and Alistair, and made up his mind
-that he must interfere at once.
-
-In order to give greater weight to his action he formally told his
-daughter before going to bed that he desired to speak to her before she
-went out the next morning. Hero’s start and blush at the request showed
-that she guessed its meaning.
-
-The boast which the scientist had made, that he knew every thought
-in his daughter’s mind, might have been made with more truth by Hero
-about her father. She had never deluded herself about the view which
-he would take of such a suitor as Lord Alistair Stuart. Now she spent
-a restless night revolving in her mind how best to defend the man she
-loved.
-
-Sir Bernard passed a restless night also. The task of a father whose
-daughter is motherless is a responsible and delicate one; and though
-the physician had accustomed himself to speak more plainly to Hero than
-most fathers speak to their daughters, he would have given a great deal
-to have had a woman’s aid at this crisis.
-
-Their conversation took place the next morning in the drawing-room of
-the villa. The scientist missed his study, but the French seaside house
-is built on the principle of parsimony in living-rooms and extravagance
-in bedrooms. The villa contained sleeping accommodation for upwards of
-twenty persons and a dining-room comfortably seating six.
-
-“We have seen a great deal lately of Lord Alistair,” the father began
-gravely, “and I am afraid I have been to blame in not noticing how much
-you and he were together. I will not ask you whether you have seen his
-evident admiration for you, but I hope it is not too late to caution
-you against any serious inclination for him.”
-
-“Who has been speaking to you about us?” demanded Hero, with a bright
-spot on her cheeks.
-
-Sir Bernard had not allowed for womanly intuition when he promised to
-keep the Duke’s interference a secret.
-
-He shook his head gravely as he answered:
-
-“I see no good in discussing that. It is for you to tell me how matters
-stand.”
-
-“It was the Duke, of course,” Hero returned. “Paragons are always mean.
-There was a time when I might have accepted him if he had asked me to.
-But he is like the dog in the manger: he would not ask me himself, and
-yet he grudges me to his brother.”
-
-The scientist was weak enough to accept the gambit offered by his
-adversary.
-
-“You are doing the Duke an injustice,” he said. “As a matter of fact he
-called on me some time ago in London, and asked me for your hand.”
-
-Hero opened her eyes. It was a shock, and it could not be a
-disagreeable one, to know that she had had such a suitor. In the light
-of this revelation the tale-bearer was less harshly judged.
-
-“What did you say to him? Why didn’t you tell me?” she exclaimed.
-
-“I declined his proposal on medical grounds,” her father answered. “The
-family stock is unsound.”
-
-Hero began to see what she had to face, and her heart sank.
-
-“I think you might have told me,” she said reproachfully.
-
-“He came to ask my consent, not yours, and I told him I would not give
-it. There was no reason that I could see for telling you.”
-
-Hero looked her father in the face.
-
-“Suppose he had come to me first, and I had accepted him?” she said.
-
-The physician answered gravely:
-
-“I should have had to ask you to choose between him and me.”
-
-The clash of these two strong wills had come at last, and both were
-silent for a time.
-
-Vanbrugh was the first to resume.
-
-“Every objection I had against the Duke of Trent, of course, applies
-with ten-fold force to his brother. The Duke is physically sound;
-he has personally escaped the taint of his family stock, and it is
-possible that it may disappear in his descendants. But Lord Alistair
-has inherited his father’s vices. He is an idler, a profligate, and I
-might say a drunkard.”
-
-“He has ceased to drink,” Hero protested. “I do not believe the life he
-has been leading is his natural one. I am sure that if he were to marry
-a woman who understood him he would become a changed man.”
-
-“I do not believe in changed men,” her father answered. “But that is
-not the point. I am not condemning Lord Alistair for the life he has
-led up to the present. On the contrary, from my point of view of an
-enlightened sociology, the sooner such a man exhausts his vital energy
-the better.”
-
-“You would have him commit suicide!” Hero exclaimed, with flashing eyes.
-
-“I would have him commit suicide rather than marry, yes,” the scientist
-responded firmly.
-
-“I have promised to marry him.” Hero said the words with a calmness
-which alarmed her father.
-
-“Even if such a man could reform his conduct, he could not reform his
-physical constitution,” the physician said, turning his eyes away from
-his daughter’s face. “His children would be doomed, before their birth,
-to disease and insanity. To bring such beings into the world is a crime
-worse than murder, and will be dealt with as such as soon as society
-has escaped from the thraldom of the priests.”
-
-It was not the first time that Hero had heard her father express
-similar sentiments. It was the personal application that was new--and
-terrifying.
-
-“If I do not marry Alistair I shall never marry anyone else,” she said,
-after a tragic pause.
-
-Sir Bernard glanced at her face, and saw it pale with resolution. He
-became afraid.
-
-“That would be a crime on your part. It is the duty of the sound to
-marry, as much as it is the duty of the unsound to refrain.”
-
-“Duty to whom?” asked Hero.
-
-The question opened Vanbrugh’s eyes to the gulf that had come into
-existence during the past few weeks between him and his daughter.
-Hitherto Hero had been his child, and had looked at the world through
-his eyes. Now she loved another better than him, and had learned to
-look at the world through the eyes of the man she loved.
-
-His answer was given without confidence.
-
-“To society. To the order of Nature of which you are a part.”
-
-“Society!” Hero’s tone breathed some of that scorn which she had caught
-from Alistair in their intimate communion with one another. “Society!
-that is the man in the street, isn’t it? Or is it the public?--the
-British public expects every man to do his duty!” Some of the bitter
-expressions that she had heard Alistair use came back to her with
-unexpected force, and half unconsciously she defended him in his own
-language. “The whole duty of man is to be one of a horde of drudges
-toiling to make a millionaire. That is civilization, isn’t it?--the
-social order to which we are all expected to conform. And the new
-religion is that we are to marry and have healthy children, that this
-great organized stupidity may go on for ever.”
-
-Sir Bernard Vanbrugh recognized Lord Alistair’s voice, and bowed his
-head in despair. “My daughter is lost to me,” he told himself. “I have
-lost my daughter.”
-
-Aloud he said:
-
-“And your father? I have tried to be a good father to you, my dear.”
-
-Hero was smitten to the heart. She went over to where her father sat,
-and put an arm round his neck.
-
-“I love you just the same,” was all she found it in her heart to say.
-“I love you just the same.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVIII
-
-THE LAST WORD OF SCIENCE
-
-
-SIR BERNARD VANBRUGH knew that he had failed to shake his daughter’s
-resolution.
-
-He did not believe that Hero would marry Lord Alistair Stuart while he
-forbade her to. But what he feared was that she would refuse to give
-him up. He was getting on in years, he had not spared himself, and
-sooner or later Hero must be free. In the meanwhile he saw before him
-the prospect of her celibacy, a state abhorrent to his feelings whether
-as father or as physician.
-
-In his own mind he had a husband chosen for Hero--an engineer; one of
-that class to whom the future seems to be assigned; sane, strong, and
-self-reliant; a water-drinker, like himself; a man of orderly life and
-wholesome instincts; an ideal father, for whom what science calls the
-mechanism of life was really mechanism, and nothing more; a man in
-whose eyes poetry-books and prayer-books were alike contemptible; one
-who found no weakness in himself, and tolerated none in others.
-
-Vanbrugh compared the husband whom he had chosen for his daughter
-with the husband she had chosen for herself, and was bewildered and
-impatient.
-
-In those days a certain obscure writer of Jewish blood, who had tried,
-and failed, to write poems, plays, and novels, had taken vengeance on
-his more successful brethren by publishing a malignant libel in which
-he pried with some pruriency into their private lives, and proved for
-his own consolation that genius is a form of vice, if not a positive
-crime. Some scraps of scientific language picked out of the works of
-Professor Lombroso had served to disguise the critic’s rancour, and
-the mixture had proved more palatable to the public than the author’s
-literary efforts. The sentiment coarsely vented in this work was that
-which inspired Sir Bernard Vanbrugh when he thought of Lord Alistair as
-a husband for his only child.
-
-From the envy and more or less feigned Pharisaism of the libeller
-Vanbrugh’s mind, of course, was free. He had liked Lord Alistair, and
-been interested by him. In the life that he had led hitherto he had
-been harmless in the scientist’s view, or, at all events, not harmful
-enough to call for harsh measures. But now everything was changed. If
-by the lifting of a finger Sir Bernard could have terminated the young
-man’s existence, and with it the spell which he had flung over Hero,
-he would have lifted the finger without an instant’s hesitation or an
-instant’s remorse.
-
-And yet he judged better of Lord Alistair than of some of those
-splendid types of healthy manhood whom the modern world goes forth
-to worship, as they practise foul play against each other for a few
-pounds upon the football field. For he decided to appeal from Hero to
-her betrothed. He was going to ask the young man to give up voluntarily
-the prize within his grasp; and somehow he did not think that he should
-ask in vain.
-
-He left the house about the time Lord Alistair usually came round, and
-met him strolling up the road.
-
-“My daughter is at home,” he said, in answer to Stuart’s inquiry. “But
-before you see her I should like to speak to you. Is there anywhere
-where we can go and have a quiet talk?”
-
-The request was ominous enough in itself, and the physician’s manner
-made it more so. Alistair’s heart sank as he answered:
-
-“I expect the club would be the best place. We should not find anyone
-in the card-room at this hour.”
-
-He turned and walked silently side by side with the arbiter of his
-happiness, past the crowd that bustled in front of the Plage, and up
-the short street that conducted them to the club door.
-
-As he went a great despondency settled on him. Without knowing what
-Sir Bernard meant to say to him, he felt that there was little that he
-could say for himself. What account of himself could he give that would
-be considered satisfactory by the father of an only daughter? It was
-only his mother who had encouraged him to lift his eyes to Hero. He
-ought to have asked his mother to plead his cause with Hero’s father.
-
-Even in his most buoyant moments during the past few weeks he had never
-felt quite sure of his happiness. A sense of unreality came upon him
-ever and anon; he had felt like a man dreaming a delicious dream, and
-dreading the awakening he knows must come.
-
-Now the awakening had come, and could not be put off.
-
-He found himself seated in the deserted card-room facing Hero’s father
-across a small green table, on which two packs of used cards and three
-or four scoring-blocks awaited the return of the bridge-players.
-
-The sight of the soiled packs affected him painfully. He knew that
-this economy was due to the exorbitant French tax, but yet it struck
-upon him as a note of squalor. The cards themselves were small and
-badly made, like most things made by Governments. He drew one of the
-packs towards him, and began shuffling it nervously while he waited for
-Vanbrugh to speak.
-
-Vanbrugh noted the action with a physician’s eye.
-
-“I expect you have guessed what I want to speak to you about,” he said
-quietly.
-
-Alistair lifted his eyes from the cards and stole a glance at his
-questioner, a glance not free from the cunning of his Pictish blood.
-But he said nothing.
-
-“My daughter tells me that you have asked her to become your wife.”
-
-For a moment Alistair made no response. Keeping his head down he cut
-four cards in rapid succession--a club, a spade, a diamond, and then
-another diamond. He took it as a bad omen.
-
-“Has she told you anything more?” he asked.
-
-“Only that she had given you her consent.” Vanbrugh hesitated; he found
-it harder than he had expected to tell this young man the truth about
-himself.
-
-“You will understand naturally,” he began again, “that Hero is my chief
-interest in life. Her happiness is dearer to me than anything else in
-the world.”
-
-“And to me, too,” Alistair put in swiftly, raising his head and looking
-Sir Bernard in the face.
-
-“That is what I hoped you would say,” Sir Bernard answered gravely. “I
-want to discuss the matter with you from that point of view.”
-
-Alistair lowered his head again.
-
-“I am not good enough for her--you need not tell me that. But if she
-loves me?” He spoke in low tones, which only just reached the father’s
-ears.
-
-“You must let me speak plainly, Lord Alistair, as plainly as I spoke to
-your brother when he came to me with the same request.”
-
-“Trent! Did he come to you on my behalf?” cried Alistair in
-astonishment.
-
-“He came on his own. He has known Hero longer than you have.”
-
-It took Alistair a moment or two to grasp the situation.
-
-“Did you refuse Trent?” he exclaimed.
-
-“Yes.” In his own mind Vanbrugh was beginning to doubt the wisdom of
-that refusal. Had he not been over cautious? His objection to the Duke
-of Trent had been more or less hypothetical: the Duke himself was
-sound; it was possible that he might not transmit the family taint. He
-might have done well to consider the danger of leaving his daughter to
-follow her own fancy. When there were so few perfect husbands, and so
-many undesirables, it would have been wiser, perhaps, to close with one
-who had so much in his favour.
-
-“Why, in the name of Heaven, did you object to him?”
-
-“Partly because he was your brother. I told him I could not let my
-daughter marry a man of diseased stock.”
-
-The words stunned Alistair. He had been prepared to have his own
-misdeeds brought up against him; to be told, perhaps, that it was too
-late for him to reform; or at least that he must give proofs that the
-reformation was thorough and lasting, before he could be trusted with
-Hero. But this was cutting away the very foundations.
-
-“I never heard of such a thing!” he stammered, letting the cards fall
-from his fingers. “Do you condemn us for the sins of our ancestors?”
-
-“It is not I who condemn you. Nature does that, and I am only her
-student and interpreter.”
-
-Alistair put his hand to his head.
-
-“And is that the latest gospel of science?” he said bitterly. “The
-fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on
-edge.”
-
-“It is not a very recent gospel, and you are not quoting from a
-scientific work,” Sir Bernard reminded him. “All that science does is
-to add the corollary that those who have eaten sour grapes ought not to
-become fathers.”
-
-Alistair made no answer for a time. He sat toying with the cards,
-cutting them at random and speculating vaguely as to who were the
-Argine and the Hogier after whom certain picture cards were named. It
-struck him that men were like cards; the gods must have created them of
-different values for their own amusement, and be playing some Olympian
-game among themselves, in the chances of which it was his, Alistair’s,
-destiny to fall a loser of the trick.
-
-Sir Bernard watched him with a pity he did not try to quench. He liked
-this young man very much--so much that he could have wished for his
-sake that Nature was less inexorable.
-
-“How merciless science is!” Alistair observed presently.
-
-“Science is not so merciless as the old religion,” the scientist was
-not sorry to respond. “At least, it does not reproach you for what
-you cannot help. Its sentence is not pronounced vindictively, like
-a bad-tempered judge denouncing crimes which he himself was never
-tempted to commit. And when it forbids you to pass on your evil
-inheritance to the unborn, it is acting, not without mercy for you, but
-with greater mercy for them.”
-
-And then, while Alistair remained quiet, listening dully without the
-power of resistance, the other went on to draw the picture of tainted
-life passing from generation to generation, the terrible theme of
-the dramatists from Æschylus to Ibsen, figured by superstition as a
-curse from the gods, traced by science to the cruel thoughtlessness
-of men. He described the great army of the victims, as he himself
-had reviewed it in his medical practice. In addition to those whose
-misfortunes were the subject of public notice and public charity,
-there were the innumerable secret sufferers, the cause and meaning of
-whose sufferings was most often unknown to themselves. There were the
-drunkards, the gamblers, the adulterers, with whom the world dealt so
-much more harshly than with its cripples and consumptives. There were
-the neuropaths and hysterical subjects, little better than maniacs,
-yet struggling to keep their place among the sane, endowed with the
-gift of reason, held responsible as reasonable beings, and yet tortured
-with the consciousness that their infirmity betrayed them at every
-moment into conduct which only madness could excuse. He touched on
-the terrible case of those who go through life with the dark shadow
-of paralysis hanging over them, never knowing at what day or hour it
-will strike them down. And all these evils, and the lesser ones, as
-they are called, though it may be doubted if they are really lesser,
-the infirmities of temper, of idleness, of defective memory--in short,
-every human frailty and affliction, except the insignificant damage of
-war and accident and pestilence--truly insignificant in comparison--he
-traced to the one cause. And in a world of healthy, rational men
-there would be no war and no pestilence, and very few accidents. So
-that true religion and true science, the religion of Humanity and the
-science of Nature, were at one in denouncing as the greatest of all
-crimes--indeed, the only real crime--the bringing of unhealthy children
-into the world.
-
-When he had finished the listener gave him a questioning look.
-
-“But if there are no children?”
-
-Vanbrugh frowned for the first time, and his voice hardened.
-
-“I have lived a hard and abstemious life,” he said; “I have been
-stricter with myself than with anyone else. My reward is to have
-a child in whom I have never detected a weak spot. I have a right
-that she shall make a happy marriage, and receive a woman’s crown of
-honour--a happy motherhood.”
-
-Alistair bowed his head again, and scattered the cards from his hand.
-
-“And what is to become of me?”
-
-The mournful question deeply moved Sir Bernard. He was asking this
-young man to surrender the sweetest form of earthly happiness; what
-could he offer him in exchange?
-
-“Has science nothing else to say to me? You are a physician; if I am
-diseased, cannot you cure me?”
-
-Vanbrugh was disconcerted.
-
-“We are only groping our way as yet,” he answered mildly. “Remember
-that all knowledge was forbidden by the priesthood for a thousand
-years. We are only in the beginning of a better age.”
-
-“The age in which there will be no men like me!” Alistair commented.
-“And in the meantime science has no gospel for me.”
-
-“It is your father whom you have to blame,” Sir Bernard said
-reluctantly.
-
-Alistair trembled.
-
-“You mean that I ought not to have been born?”
-
-The physician was silent.
-
-“I am a waste product, for which science has no use. O, why not? You
-have found beautiful dyes in coal-tar; can you find nothing in me?”
-
-Vanbrugh was a father fighting for his child, a zealot fighting for his
-faith. But he was touched by this appeal.
-
-“I have not said that. I have only told you that you ought not to
-become a father. It is not your fault if you have received an evil
-inheritance, but it will be your fault if you pass it on.”
-
-Alistair hid his face in his hands for a time.
-
-“Be honest with me, Sir Bernard,” he said presently, in a husky voice,
-without lifting his head. “You are the priest of science, and I am in
-the confessional. You think I ought to commit suicide?”
-
-The scientist was profoundly moved. He held his breath for an instant,
-and his forehead grew damp. He found his resolution failing him.
-
-“No,” he said, in faltering tones--“no, don’t think that. I have told
-you science is still groping her way. I believe it would be happier for
-some of the poor victims of heredity--the hopelessly insane, the deaf
-and dumb, and perhaps the criminal and paralytic--if a painless death
-were provided for them. But a man with your gifts should find something
-worth living for.”
-
-Alistair looked at him earnestly.
-
-“I want to live,” he said simply. “I don’t want to die. I can’t feel
-that I have any less right to live than you. Perhaps the criminals and
-paralytics can’t feel that either. I never feel unfit; I never knew
-that there was anything wrong about me till other people told me so.
-When I was a boy the world was a beautiful place to me; it would be
-so still if there were no good people in it. It is they who will not
-let me live. You are only saying to me in more honest language what
-they have been saying to me, what my own mother has been saying to me,
-ever since I can remember. I don’t know why I am condemned. Ever since
-I was a boy I have loved beautiful things as other men love gold; I
-have walked through life with my eyes fixed on the stars, and my feet
-tripped up by every ditch. My mother thinks that I am wicked, and
-you say that I am diseased. And to me--yes, to me--you all seem blind
-people burrowing in the earth and refusing to be happy.”
-
-Vanbrugh shook his head.
-
-“I am not responsible for what others have said to you. In my eyes you
-are simply a victim of heredity. I do not want my daughter’s children
-to be victims in their turn; that is all. If you love her----”
-
-“I do love her,” Alistair interrupted fiercely. “I thought you
-understood. I only want now to know what I can do for her sake. If I
-were a Catholic, I would go into a monastery, so as to leave her free.
-That is the last word of Christianity for a man like me. The last word
-of science is the lethal chamber.”
-
-Sir Bernard had an inspiration.
-
-“Why don’t you go back to Molly Finucane?”
-
-Alistair fell back in his chair as if he had received a blow. He woke
-out of his dream. Sir Bernard was right, and his mother had been wrong.
-He had no business to unite his wrecked career with such a life as
-Hero Vanbrugh’s. Molly Finucane was the true match for him. She was a
-scapegoat like himself. The figure of the poor little painted creature
-had haunted his memory even during these last days of courtship, and he
-had never felt quite satisfied that he had acted honourably in leaving
-her.
-
-He rose to his feet.
-
-“Yes,” he said, “I can do that. That will set Hero free. Good-bye, Sir
-Bernard. I am going back to London to marry Molly Finucane.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIX
-
-POETS’ CORNER
-
-
-THE September sun was shining on Beers Cooperage, shining as brightly
-on the dingy London yard as on the glittering emerald seas of France.
-
-The inhabitants of the Cooperage were rejoicing in the light and
-warmth. The cripple had brought out a rocking-chair, with its cane seat
-patched up with string, and was swinging himself with half-shut eyes in
-front of the little row of flowers which assiduous watering had kept
-alive during the summer drouth. A new canary in the mended cage of its
-predecessor chirruped gaily from the open window of one of the tiny row
-of cottages; the window of another revealed a trophy of travel, a box
-bearing on its lid a photograph of Southend Pier, framed in polished
-mussel-shells, which its owner, with an altruism not often found in the
-denizens of lordlier neighbourhoods, had disposed so that its beauty
-could be enjoyed by the passer-by at the expense of the inmates of the
-house themselves.
-
-Over the whole of the Cooperage there was an atmosphere of freshness
-and content. The little gates and palings on the window-sills were
-newly painted in artistic green and white. Many of them now revealed
-their inner utility by guarding pots of musk or mignonette, with here
-and there a bright red geranium. The pavement of the yard was clean
-beyond its former wont, and the refuse heap that had once marked the
-abode of Mike Finigan had disappeared.
-
-It was over Mike Finigan’s house that the greatest change of all had
-come. Not a single broken window was any longer to be seen in the
-front of the dwelling. The door had been painted green to match the
-five-barred gates, and decorated with a handsome old brass knocker that
-shone like an imitation sun. The window of the ground-floor was open,
-and through it could be seen a perfectly æsthetic kitchen--a kitchen
-after the heart of South Kensington, with a high-backed settle, a
-Cromwellian table and armchairs, all of the finest black oak, a dresser
-lined with willow-pattern plates of deepest blue, and a mantelshelf
-glorious with copper saucepans scoured to the grain.
-
-The transformation had extended to, or rather it had begun with, the
-inhabitants of the regenerated hovel. The bewildered dwellers in the
-Cooperage dated their present era of peacefulness and brightness from
-the appearance of a remarkable announcement in the _Times_:
-
-  “On Monday, the 14th instant, at the registry office, Lambeth, Lord
-  Alistair Fingal Stuart Campbell-Stuart, brother of the Duke of Trent
-  and Colonsay, to Miss Molly Finucane, daughter of the late Jeremiah
-  Finucane, of Beers Cooperage, Lambeth, S. W.”
-
-Following on the step thus disclosed to the world Lord and Lady
-Alistair had taken up their residence in what might have been
-described with truthfulness as the home of her ladyship’s family,
-vacated beforehand by her brother.
-
-Stuart had not attempted to reform Mike Finigan. He had adopted the
-easier and simpler plan of reforming Mike Finigan’s surroundings by
-obtaining him a post as water-bailiff to a friend who rented some
-fishing in the heart of the Finigan country. Mike was now living his
-natural life among his own people, breaking their heads and getting his
-own broken to their mutual contentment, and earning the character of
-the best water-bailiff in green Connacht.
-
-Alistair would have been glad to adjust his own life as successfully as
-he had adjusted his brother-in-law’s.
-
-In the first flush of her joy at his return, and gratitude for the rank
-he had given her, he had found it easy to persuade Molly to try the
-experiment of life in Beers Cooperage. He allowed the little woman to
-consider the scheme as a sort of practical joke, one of those slaps in
-the face to the hated middle class which she had learned to relish as a
-proof of aristocratic feeling.
-
-To their humble neighbours the invasion of such a spot as the Cooperage
-by such a figure as Lord Alistair--Mr. Stuart, he called himself to
-them--could only be understood in the light of those settlements and
-missions by which the well-disposed had recently striven to irradiate
-the gloom of darkest London. One of the great public schools had
-planted a hall in adjacent Battersea, the Wesleyans had a settlement
-somewhere Walworth way, the Church of England was bestirring itself in
-Southwark. The Cooperites were convinced that the new resident had come
-amongst them on evangelizing thoughts intent. They accepted the green
-paint and the flowers as a preliminary sop, and awaited with stolid
-resignation the tracts and the lectures on wireless telegraphy and the
-Andaman Islands that would surely follow.
-
-Alistair himself was surprised to find how little was changed in
-his life by the transmigration. The brief episode which lay behind
-him at Dinard took its place as a dream from which he had awakened.
-Respectable society, as represented by the Secretary of State for
-the Home Department, had dropped him once more, and his old friends
-had welcomed him back. The marriage announcement had been hailed in
-the circle of which he was the acknowledged chief as a masterpiece,
-reflecting more glory on him even than the bankruptcy which was now
-formally complete. If Alistair Stuart had gone under he had proved
-himself, like Samson, most formidable to the Philistines in his end.
-
-He was able to estimate the greatness of his triumph when he found that
-his first visitor was the Chevalier Vane.
-
-It was true that the Chevalier came as to the house of mourning, to
-condole and patronize rather than to congratulate, but Stuart knew him
-well enough to be sure that he would not have come at all unless he
-considered that there was still some distinction to be drawn from the
-association.
-
-Vane’s restless vanity had just stimulated him to make a bid for
-notoriety on his own account, on lines more congenial to his cautious
-temper. Inspired by the example of certain distinguished writers of
-the French decadent school who had exchanged the Bacchic ivy for the
-Christian palm with evident benefit to their reputations, he had
-conceived the felicitous idea of publicly entering the Church of Rome.
-He had already in the press a volume of hymns composed in honour of
-various medieval saints, collectively entitled “A Rosary of Twilight,”
-and he trusted that the contrast between its mystic piety and the
-erotic breathings of his unregenerate muse would at last stir the
-reviewers out of their apathy.
-
-He had cherished the hope that a man of his importance would be deemed
-a proper subject for conversion by a Bishop. But the Roman authorities
-had taken, as usual, a severely practical view of the situation, and
-had intimated that the reception of a convert, however illustrious, was
-a matter to be regulated, like other ecclesiastical ceremonies, by the
-mundane consideration of fees. The cost of an episcopal welcome proved
-too severe a wrench for the mercenary instincts of the poet, but after
-a good deal of haggling he secured a monsignor, whose violet stockings
-made the function a moderate success in the dearth of by-elections and
-divorce suits.
-
-Wickham Vane, after a severe internal struggle, revolted on this
-occasion from his allegiance, and struck out a line of his own by
-embracing the tenets of the Theosophists. But the two brothers
-continued to live together in the same harmony as before, and it was
-remarkable that the priests who came from time to time to confirm
-the new Catholic in his faith found Wickham a much more interested
-listener, while the yogis and mahatmas who visited Wickham went away
-under the firm impression that it was his brother who was their
-disciple.
-
-The author of “A Rosary of Twilight” brought with him a presentation
-copy as an inexpensive form of wedding-present. Molly received it with
-gratification as a homage offered to her in the serious character of a
-Christian matron. But the page containing the inscription to Lord and
-Lady Alistair was the one that she read with most pleasure; indeed, it
-was the only one that she could understand.
-
-Her promotion had not wrought much change in Molly’s manners; there
-was no reason why it should, having regard to the tone of the
-most fashionable circles; but it had infused a distinct shade of
-condescension into her treatment of such of her acquaintance as were
-commoners. To the Chevalier Vane she accorded the courtesy due to his
-rank, but the untitled Wickham found himself almost snubbed.
-
-Stuart showed the brothers over his new dwelling. The front-door
-opened directly into the art kitchen, behind which there was a tiny
-wash-house, where real cooking could be accomplished on a gas-stove.
-Lady Alistair volunteered the information that they usually dined out,
-and that the household work was attended to by a plebeian neighbour.
-Overhead there were two small bedrooms, one of which Alistair had had
-fitted up as a dressing-room and study for himself.
-
-The Vanes were charmed with the whole establishment, Egerton merely
-advising a cuckoo clock for the foot of the stairs as a finishing
-touch, and Wickham inclining to think old tapestry more suitable than
-wallpapers for the rooms upstairs. In his enthusiasm the Chevalier even
-expressed himself as seriously disposed to install himself in the house
-adjoining.
-
-“We might set a fashion,” he declared, with that naïve vanity by which
-Alistair hardly knew whether he was more amused or annoyed. “In time
-we might draw other men of letters round us, and have the whole court
-occupied.”
-
-“Then it would have to be called Poet’s Corner,” Alistair observed.
-
-“That is just what I was going to say,” Vane snapped back, becoming
-almost rude in his greediness to appropriate the suggestion. “Such a
-settlement would be like a lighthouse of civilization.”
-
-“I hope not,” Stuart retorted. “We have had too many attempts to
-civilize the slums. I have come here to barbarize them.”
-
-This time the Chevalier was compelled to acknowledge the master’s
-superiority.
-
-“You are right,” he heroically confessed. “But I am certain my idea is
-a good one. It will make a sensation. We shall have pilgrims coming to
-visit us from all parts of Europe and America.”
-
-And already in his egoistic fancy he pictured himself receiving a
-stream of reporters in his own cottage, seated in state in some exotic
-garb, and dictating interviews on the subject of the poetry of the
-Catholic renascence, which would be wired to the ends of the earth.
-
-Stuart read his thoughts, and smiled rather sadly. Vane’s proposal had
-pleased him at first, corresponding as it did more or less with the
-project dimly shaping in his own mind. He had always had a soft corner
-in his heart for the two brothers. He knew his own need of intellectual
-fellowship, and both the Vanes, under their absurd affectations,
-possessed some real taste. Egerton could be a pleasant enough companion
-on those too rare occasions when he was not iterating the tedious
-personal note, and Wickham shone as a mildly agreeable moon. Stuart
-was not blind to their faults, but, then, no master has ever found
-faultless disciples. If the disciple were equal to the master there
-would be no masterhood.
-
-As it is natural for a leader to crave for followers, so it is natural
-that he should bear much from those who seem disposed to follow him.
-Stuart, without analyzing his motives, had made many efforts to attach
-the Vanes to himself. He had tried to melt the adamantine selfishness
-of the elder by generous praise of all in him that was possible to
-praise. He had tried to fan what little sparks of individuality he
-had detected in the younger. He had shut his eyes as much as he could
-to their humiliating vanity and meanness, vices which he hoped might
-exhale in the sunshine of a little success.
-
-Now he was moved to despair of them. It was evident that the real
-attraction for Egerton in the project he had embraced so feverishly was
-not the companionship of congenial minds, but the notoriety conferred
-by reporters. His soul thirsted not after the praise of the judicious,
-but after the paragraphs of Fleet Street. Regretfully Alistair made up
-his mind to abandon the half-formed scheme, unless the two brothers
-could be persuaded to abandon him. The participation of such a man
-as Egerton Vane would degrade any movement in which he played a part
-to the level of his own vanity. It did not deserve even to be called
-vanity--it was vulgarity. Instead of the vanity of genius, it was the
-vulgarity of the charlatan.
-
-Happily unconscious of the reflections passing through Lord Alistair’s
-mind, the Chevalier Vane was occupying his mind with the problem of
-his neglected volume, which Lady Alistair had laid aside. The poet
-of the Catholic renascence was anxious to read some of his work to
-the company, unworthy though they seemed to feel themselves of such a
-privilege, and he began forcibly turning the conversation towards the
-end in view.
-
-“The new poetry will be distinguished from the old by its form not
-less than its spirit,” he proclaimed magisterially. “I have come to the
-conclusion to discard the sonnet in favor of the acrostic.” (There was
-an acrostic in the “Rosary of Twilight.”) “Form is the essence of art,
-and the acrostic represents form in its severest limitations.”
-
-“Form _is_ art,” flashed Alistair, who saw through the visitor’s
-strategy, and felt maliciously disposed to balk him. It had always
-been an honourable understanding among the Decadents that they were
-to listen to each other’s poems and look at each other’s pictures, as
-some slight mutual compensation for the deafness and blindness of the
-middle class. But it seemed scarcely fair to extend the benefit of this
-arrangement to the poetry of the Catholic renascence.
-
-Vane blinked, but recovered himself promptly.
-
-“That is what I said. Form is art or its essence. For that reason it
-ought not to be concealed. In the acrostic form takes its right place
-as the governing condition of the whole.”
-
-Wickham dutifully came to his brother’s reinforcement.
-
-“That is why I find tapestry so far superior to painting,” he murmured.
-“The limitations of the needle are so much severer than those of the
-brush; their influence over the composition is so much more obvious.
-There is something vulgar in dexterity.”
-
-“Is there not something vulgar in expression itself?” Stuart put in.
-“Surely the unexpressed is always higher than the expressed?”
-
-This was a wedge driven between the opposing forces. Wickham, whose
-claims to consideration rested entirely on the meditations in which he
-was believed to indulge, could not reject the principle which justified
-his existence. Egerton, fretting with impatience, began to fear that he
-should be reduced to the coarse manœuvre of openly seizing his book and
-reading unasked.
-
-But even this was not to be permitted him.
-
-“For my part,” Stuart said, “I consider that as the first word of
-literature was the riddle, so it must be the last. Poetry is falsehood,
-and we should never be allowed to tell the truth. Remember that when
-Shakespeare ventured to talk poetry to Ben Jonson in the Mermaid
-Tavern, he ‘had to be stopped.’ The poet will always be stopped by
-respectable people when he talks prose, and that is why he has to
-talk poetry, which they can’t understand. Take my advice, throw your
-acrostics overboard, and write riddles. Write them in Sanskrit if
-possible, and use a cipher. That will give you all the limitations
-you want. And the middle class will form a Vane Society, as they have
-formed a Shakespeare Society and a Browning Society, to interpret you;
-and when you are dead they will write biographies to prove that you
-were fairly orthodox and perfectly respectable.”
-
-The author of the “Rosary of Twilight,” as he walked home in dudgeon,
-observed to the fraternal satellite:
-
-“I am afraid Stuart is deteriorating. He seems to be incapable of high
-seriousness.”
-
-“He needs to surround himself with pale green tapestry,” was the
-melancholy response.
-
-Others of Alistair’s old circle came round him in his new home, and
-rejoiced in this fresh defiance to the Victorian proprieties. But there
-was one notable absentee. The figure of the Brazilian banker was never
-seen in the little high-art kitchen. Since Molly Finucane had become
-Lady Alistair, Mendes had been struck off her visiting-list.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XX
-
-LADY ALISTAIR
-
-
-SIR BERNARD VANBRUGH kept his own counsel about his conversation with
-Lord Alistair, as he had done about the Duke of Trent’s proposal.
-
-In a brief letter from London Alistair told Hero the truth.
-
-  “If I am a scapegoat of others” (he wrote), “I cannot let you be my
-  scapegoat. My life, I am told, must be a cul-de-sac, and you must
-  not think of walking down it with me. I ought to have seen this all
-  along; perhaps I did suspect it; but I was forlorn and you made me
-  happy. Now I can only do my best not to make you miserable. Forgive
-  my mother for her share in the mischief that has been done, and try
-  to forgive and forget.
-
-                                                      “ALISTAIR STUART.”
-
-This letter made no difference to Hero whatever. She guessed that her
-father had influenced Alistair to write it, but she forbore to speak to
-him on the subject. Her mind was made up, and so was his, and further
-discussion between them would only make them both unhappy.
-
-She carried the letter to Alistair’s mother, who had been left
-wondering and dismayed by his unexplained departure, and the two women
-who loved Alistair embraced and shed some tears over it.
-
-“He will come back to you if you will wait for him,” the mother
-pleaded. The language of the letter was outside her comprehension, but
-she thought she knew what was in Alistair’s heart. “He has drawn back
-because he is afraid he cannot make you a good husband. But he has not
-really given you up.”
-
-“I have not given him up, at all events,” Hero said quietly.
-
-The Duchess felt greatly comforted. Only her old misgiving came back to
-her.
-
-“Suppose he means to marry that woman?” she whispered.
-
-“Then I shall look upon his wife as my sister. I shall try to make a
-friend of her for his sake, and I think I shall succeed. After all,
-perhaps I have no right to take her place.”
-
-The mother was daunted by this answer. She could not bear to admit that
-Molly Finucane had any rights where Alistair was concerned. She would
-have liked to see Hero more jealous.
-
-The news of the marriage reached them only through the newspaper.
-Alistair had thought it would be affectation to try to soften the blow.
-
-It was a dreadful blow to the Duchess, though she had seen it coming.
-She sank under it, and aged visibly. Hero tried in vain to administer
-consolation.
-
-“I think Alistair has acted nobly,” she declared. “I am proud of him.
-And I should be proud of myself if I thought he had done it to please
-me.”
-
-The poor Duchess began to fear that Hero, instead of an ally, was going
-to prove a traitor. She could see in her son’s action nothing but
-desperation. She had her own settled view as to what would constitute
-happiness for her boy, and she wanted to see him happy.
-
-Hero wrote in the same courageous strain to Alistair himself. And she
-enclosed a short note to Molly, asking permission as a cordial friend
-of Lord Alistair’s to congratulate her on a step which she believed and
-hoped would be for the happiness of them both.
-
-When Molly got the letter, she was puzzled and rather alarmed.
-
-“Is Miss Vanbrugh the girl your mother wanted you to marry?” she asked
-her husband.
-
-“Yes. But you see I married you instead,” was all Alistair said in
-reply.
-
-And Molly did not dare to question him further. She answered Hero’s
-letter as ungraciously as she could, though her new sense of dignity
-kept her within the bounds of formal civility. She hoped that this
-would be the end of all intercourse in that quarter.
-
-Neither Alistair nor his wife had any suspicion that their new
-residence was within the charitable rounds of the Duchess of Trent.
-The dwellers in Beers Cooperage were equally ignorant that their new
-neighbour was her Grace’s son. They had soon given up the notion
-that he was among them as a social or religious missionary, and now
-cherished the exciting belief that he was in hiding from the police,
-who would presently appear on the scene, and drag him off with all
-dramatic circumstance.
-
-Alistair had concealed his address from nobody; on the contrary, he had
-taken pains to transmit it to the editor of every directory in which
-his name was included. The ratification of his bankruptcy had left him
-with a pleasing sense of freedom, and the sale of Molly’s furniture had
-provided for present needs.
-
-When the Duchess returned to Colonsay House, her first thought was for
-Beers Cooperage. She dreaded a meeting with her daughter-in-law so
-much that she was tempted to relinquish her visits to the little yard.
-But a sense that it would be cowardly to make her poor friends suffer
-on this account co-operated with some human curiosity to overcome her
-repugnance. She decided to go to the Cooperage as usual, and take her
-chance of meeting its new inmates.
-
-Hero disappointed her friend by refusing to accompany her. She made it
-her excuse that she intended to call on Lady Alistair, and did not wish
-the compliment to be lessened by association with charitable visits.
-
-She had another reason which she did not tell the Duchess. She feared
-that Alistair’s mother was incapable of dealing tactfully with such
-a woman as Molly Finucane. Indeed, she had shown herself little able
-to deal with her own son. Hero was determined to be the friend of
-both, and in order to be so she saw that she must not let herself be
-identified with the Duchess.
-
-Caroline delayed so long that it was Miss Vanbrugh who first made Lady
-Alistair’s acquaintance.
-
-She drove to the Cooperage in her father’s carriage at the fashionable
-hour of the afternoon, walked up the yard without noticing its inmates,
-except by a nod in passing, and knocked at the bright green door.
-
-It was opened by Alistair himself, who could not restrain an
-exclamation of pleasure.
-
-“Is Lady Alistair at home?” Hero asked smilingly.
-
-“You have come to call on her? That is good of you! She is upstairs; I
-will fetch her down.”
-
-Hero detained him by a gesture, as she whispered swiftly:
-
-“Don’t tell her that it is good of me. Don’t praise me to her at all.
-And leave us together.”
-
-Alistair understood. He placed Hero in one of the Cromwellian
-armchairs, and went upstairs wearing a look of indifference.
-
-He found Molly seated on her bed, looking very fierce and flushed. Her
-ladyship had inspected the visitor from overhead through the window,
-and immediately prepared for battle.
-
-“Who is she?” she demanded.
-
-Alistair shrugged his shoulders with well-assumed carelessness.
-
-“It’s Miss Vanbrugh, the girl who wrote to you, you know.”
-
-“What has she come here for?”
-
-“I suppose it’s a call. She asked if you were at home.”
-
-“And what did you say?”
-
-“I said yes. You hadn’t told me that you didn’t want to receive
-callers.”
-
-Molly felt herself baffled. She bit her lip, and looked hard at
-Alistair.
-
-“Our marriage was announced in the paper,” he said, pushing his
-advantage. “That entitles my friends to call on you, I suppose. In
-fact, it would be rather marked if they did not.”
-
-“Your mother hasn’t called.”
-
-“No. That is rather marked.”
-
-Molly saw she was in a dilemma. She would have been glad to cut off all
-further acquaintance between her husband and this girl, of whom she
-had such good reason to be jealous. But Miss Vanbrugh’s visit offered
-an opening into society, that respectable society which had been the
-object of her ambition for so long. It was the first opening that had
-presented itself, and it might very easily be the last.
-
-Lady Alistair decided to sacrifice jealousy to ambition, and, like
-other wives, to make her husband suffer for the sacrifice.
-
-“You know that she has only come to see you,” she said.
-
-“If you think so you can stay up here. I will go down and tell her that
-you have a headache.”
-
-“Yes, you would like that, wouldn’t you? Me to stay up here by myself,
-while you and her enjoy yourselves without me! I shall come down.”
-
-“You may do as you please. But if you imagine that Miss Vanbrugh or any
-other lady would consent to stay and talk with the master of the house
-while the mistress keeps out of the room, you have a good deal to pick
-up.”
-
-This speech produced an effect on Lady Alistair. She did not resent
-receiving lessons in social etiquette.
-
-“You want me as a chaperon, I suppose,” she grumbled, hastily touching
-up her toilet and complexion.
-
-“What nonsense! I doubt if I shall stay in the room. You must learn to
-entertain your own visitors.”
-
-Incredulous, but silenced, Molly descended and faced the enemy with a
-warlike front.
-
-At the first sight and speech of Hero she felt herself half disarmed.
-The perfect sincerity, the clear nobility of nature, that shone in
-Hero’s face, put every thought of vulgar jealousy instantly to shame.
-This woman might be a rival, and a formidable one, in the sense that
-a mother or a bachelor friend is the rival of a selfish wife, but she
-would never be a rival in any other sense.
-
-“Dear Lady Alistair, I am afraid I have been rather slow in calling,
-but we have been abroad, and when we got back I found I had really
-nothing to wear. What do you do for your autumn hats?”
-
-One glance at the overdressed and bejewelled little woman had taught
-Hero the way to her friendship. Once lured on to the ground of
-millinery Molly became interested and animated before she knew it, and
-Stuart found himself provided with a good excuse for slipping out of
-the room.
-
-The new Lady Alistair had expected to feel embarrassed in talking to
-the first lady she had ever met, and she had prepared to carry off
-her embarrassment by insolence. It was a surprise, and an agreeable
-one, to find herself chatting easily and pleasantly with the new-comer
-on topics that she thoroughly understood. Instead of being schooled
-and patronized, it was she whose superior knowledge of fashions and
-fashionable shops enabled her to impart information, and almost to
-condescend.
-
-Hero was not contented with this opening success. She wanted to be
-Molly’s friend, and not merely to be friends with Molly.
-
-“What a clever idea to take this little house!” she said, as soon as
-the opportunity served. “And what a charming nest you have made of it!”
-
-“It is rather poky,” said Lady Alistair, not quite sure whether her
-visitor was speaking sincerely.
-
-“Oh, but how cosy you must find it! Everybody loves cottages, but then
-so few of us can afford to live in them. My father, for instance--of
-course, as a working professional man he is obliged to consider the
-opinion of his patients.”
-
-“Yes, I suppose so,” Molly assented. It made her quite gracious to
-think that Miss Vanbrugh recognized her own social inferiority.
-
-“I should not wonder if you set the fashion,” Hero pursued. “I am sure
-there must be lots of people who are tired of flats.”
-
-Molly was surprised by her visitor’s discernment.
-
-“The Chevalier Vane, a friend of ours, talks of taking the cottage next
-door,” she said, with satisfaction.
-
-“That will be just the thing for you, won’t it? I know Lord Alistair
-well enough to be sure that he wants plenty of society. I expect you
-have hard work sometimes to find distractions for him.”
-
-The hint sank into Molly’s mind. Frivolous and stupid as she was, she
-was able to see that this new friend was giving her sound advice, and
-she was not ungrateful for it. Alistair had married her, but whether he
-would continue to live with her would depend a good deal on how far she
-succeeded in making his home a pleasant one.
-
-Poor Molly! She had caged her bird, but she had yet to see if she could
-make it sing.
-
-Hero would not go away till she had coaxed Molly into making tea. She
-praised the furniture, the copper saucepans, the new cuckoo clock, the
-absence of servants--everything about the house, till its mistress
-began to think that she must be really a most enviable housewife. When
-Alistair rejoined them over the tea, he found Molly in a better humour
-than he ever remembered. And he was careful to do nothing to break the
-charm.
-
-As he escorted Hero down the yard to her carriage he thanked her
-earnestly.
-
-“Your visit has been like an angel’s--only let me hope there will be no
-‘far between.’”
-
-“I will come as often as I think your wife wishes me to,” was the
-gentle answer. “Be sure you do nothing to make me unwelcome to her.”
-
-The advice was not unnecessary. After Miss Vanbrugh had departed
-Molly began to doubt whether she had done well in being so friendly.
-She tried the experiment of disparaging the visitor to her husband,
-watching him keenly to see the effect of her remarks. But Alistair was
-on his guard, and only responded by shrugging his shoulders and saying:
-
-“If you don’t like her you needn’t see any more of her. You have only
-not to return the call, and the Vanbrughs will leave us alone. If you
-do return it, I suppose they will ask us to dinner. Please yourself. As
-long as you don’t interfere with my friendships I won’t interfere with
-yours.”
-
-The prospect of going to a real dinner-party--a dinner-party at which
-ladies would be present--was a strong temptation to Molly. She decided
-that the acquaintance must be kept up.
-
-“Of course I shall return her call,” she said sharply. “What do you
-take me for? Do you think I’m jealous of an ordinary girl like that,
-who doesn’t even know where to get her gloves?”
-
-During the next few days there was a perceptible change in Molly’s
-behaviour towards her husband. She suggested his going to look up some
-of his friends, and asked him to choose at what place they should dine.
-
-It was in the midst of this effort of the little creature’s to be a
-good wife to Alistair that Alistair’s mother came to see her.
-
-Caroline had found her simple morality confused by the transformation
-of Molly Finucane into Lady Alistair Stuart. Ordinarily the marriage
-ceremony would have amounted in her view to a complete white-washing
-of the sinner. It was the atonement prescribed by all her social and
-religious canons. But this particular marriage concerned her as a
-mother. She could not but view with jealousy an atonement made at her
-son’s expense, and she found an excuse for condemnation in the fact
-that the marriage had taken place in a registry office. The Duchess was
-not so strong a Churchwoman as to deem it no marriage at all, but she
-could, and did, regard it as something short of that reconciliation
-with righteousness and respectability which a union blessed by the
-Church would have been.
-
-She could not forgive her son’s wife, but she could not quite condemn
-her. In this frame of mind she made her way to Beers Cooperage one
-morning before lunch, determined to give her first visit a neutral
-character.
-
-The appearance of the Duchess after an absence of so many weeks caused
-a flutter of excitement in the little court, and all its inhabitants
-hastened out of doors to greet her.
-
-As it happened, Lady Alistair was in her house alone, and hearing the
-sounds, she went to the window and looked out.
-
-The spectacle of an elderly lady in old-fashioned black silk walking up
-the yard amid the throng of her dependents told Molly nothing. It was
-an entire surprise to see the visitor advance straight to her own door,
-and to hear her say to the people thronging round her: “I am going in
-here first. I will see you all again when I come out.”
-
-In the absence of a servant, Molly was half inclined to let the visitor
-knock in vain. But, after all, a visit paid at such an hour could
-hardly be one of ceremony. Most likely the old thing wanted to ask her
-for a subscription: she would surely not presume to talk religion to
-her when she was informed of her rank.
-
-Determined to put the intruder in her place at once, Molly went
-leisurely to the door and threw it open.
-
-“Do you want to see me?” she asked roughly.
-
-Caroline gazed at the pretty painted face that she had brought herself
-to believe had been her boy’s undoing, and there was not much relenting
-in the gaze.
-
-“Are you my son’s wife?” she returned, with gravity.
-
-Molly was taken aback. The idea that this old person, evidently a
-familiar figure in the court, should be the mother of Lord Alistair
-quite confused her for an instant.
-
-“Are you the Duchess of Trent?” she stammered, with a shamefaced
-recollection of certain correspondence that had once passed between
-them.
-
-“I am Alistair’s mother,” was the response. “Is he here?”
-
-“He has gone out,” said Molly. Then, realizing that she was standing in
-the doorway, and that the interview was being watched by a number of
-curious eyes, she drew aside hastily. “But won’t you come inside?”
-
-“I will, thank you.”
-
-The Duchess walked in with great deliberation, and seated herself,
-upright and stately, in Molly’s own chair, exactly as she was
-accustomed to do in one of her poor people’s cottages when about to
-admonish a drunken husband or a slatternly wife. The poor people, who
-knew that the lecture was really an excuse offered by the Duchess to
-her own conscience for the forgiveness and solid kindness that were to
-follow, always listened meekly enough. Unfortunately Molly did not know
-anything except that she was on her defence. These court martial airs
-roused her spirit, and she sailed across the room with a flushed face,
-and cast herself down with insolent negligence on the settle.
-
-“I have been a district visitor in this neighbourhood for some years.
-I don’t know whether you were aware of it when you took this house.”
-
-“No,” said Molly, “I wasn’t. But I don’t think I should have had any
-objection.”
-
-The Duchess frowned. She had come, not prepared to make peace, perhaps,
-but disposed to entertain a truce. Now the enemy seemed not to desire
-either peace or truce.
-
-“I asked because I could not understand my son’s choice of such a
-residence. Does he really mean to stay here?”
-
-“You must ask him that. I suppose he will leave it when I do--not
-before.”
-
-The Duchess, routed from her own position, was obliged to accept
-Molly’s.
-
-“Why have you brought him here? Do you wish him to forfeit his place in
-society altogether?”
-
-“I don’t know what society you mean. Our friends are visiting us here
-as usual, and they think the place charming. If it keeps away frumps
-and bores, so much the better.”
-
-Caroline was confounded. In her mind the common notions of her
-generation on the subjects of piety, morality, and social propriety
-were inextricably blended. Quite unconsciously to herself she had
-included in her scheme for Alistair’s salvation the possession of a
-big Cubitt-built house in Eaton Square, with menservants eating five
-substantial meals a day in the basement, and doing little else; a
-carriage and pair, conveying him and his wife to an endless round of
-serious entertainments in other Cubitt-built houses, wherein similar
-menservants ate similar meals; the directorship of some respectable
-railway or insurance company to occupy his mind; a seat on a hospital
-committee by way of good works; and, above all, a stately pew furnished
-with red cushions and hassocks, in which he would be seen regularly
-every Sunday morning, carrying the glossiest of silk hats and wearing
-the straightest of frock-coats. No doubt she placed first of all
-that spiritual change which she deemed necessary to all men, but she
-believed that if Alistair were once converted all these other things
-would be added unto him, and perhaps she also believed, without being
-conscious of it, that if the other things were present the conversion
-would be added.
-
-Molly’s own ideal was really very similar. The Cubitt-built life was
-the life for which she hankered with all a woman’s thirst for the envy
-of other women. If the Duchess had known it she might have found in
-Molly a much more trustworthy ally than in Hero Vanbrugh. But she was
-never likely to know it. For her Molly embodied every evil influence
-at work in Alistair’s life. The evil had triumphed, and the best that
-could now be hoped for was some poor salvage from the wreck.
-
-“What sort of friends?” she said, in answer to Molly’s last remarks. “I
-am afraid my poor boy’s friendships have done him more harm than good.”
-
-“His relations haven’t done much for him anyway.”
-
-The two women regarded each other with unconcealed hostility as they
-exchanged these retorts. It was a new experience for the Duchess to be
-defied in this open fashion.
-
-“I am afraid you must take the responsibility for that,” she said
-severely. “His brother and I were both trying to save him, but you
-prevented us.”
-
-“How did I?”
-
-“How? By marrying him, of course.”
-
-“And why should that prevent your doing anything for him? I know! If he
-had married your Miss Vanbrugh, as you wanted, the Duke would have paid
-off his debts fast enough. Because he preferred me you wash your hands
-of him in revenge.”
-
-“He did not prefer you,” said the Duchess sternly. “He thought that
-after living with you as he had done he was unfit to be the husband of
-a good woman.”
-
-It was a merciless stab, the stab of a mother fighting for her
-offspring. For an instant Molly felt sick. Then, to the dismay of her
-adversary, she burst into tears.
-
-“You are a cruel, wicked woman to say a thing like that. You hate me
-because I love Alistair, and you know that he loves me. What do you
-want me to do?”
-
-The Duchess’s conscience smote her. She sat there unable to make a
-reply. After all, now that this wretched marriage had taken place, what
-did she want Alistair’s wife to do?
-
-Molly, unconscious of the difficulty, removed it by putting her
-question in a different form.
-
-“He came back to me of his own accord,” she sobbed. “I was living
-here--with my brother--and he came and asked me to marry him. What
-ought I to have done?”
-
-“You knew that such a marriage would be his ruin. You ought to have
-saved him from it, if you really did love him.”
-
-“And what about me?” moaned the dejected Molly.
-
-The Duchess felt a momentary shame.
-
-“There are Homes,” she said, with hesitation, “where women who desire
-to lead better lives are encouraged and trained to become useful
-members of society.”
-
-Molly sat up, and dashed away the tears that were making havoc of her
-rouge and powder.
-
-“And is that what you want to do to me? Put me into a reformatory, and
-cut my hair, and make me go about in a grey dress and an apron, saying
-‘Ma’am’ to a lot of old maids who are too ugly themselves for any man
-to want them? and then get me a situation as a servant or something,
-where I should always be patronized and watched to see that I didn’t
-enjoy myself? No, thank you! I won’t go into your Home! I won’t--I
-won’t!”
-
-The Duchess rose to her feet slowly.
-
-“Some other time, when you are calmer----” she began.
-
-“I’m not going to be calm!” Molly cried fiercely. “And I’m not going to
-be good either--not in your way. Why should I? Why should I pretend to
-be ashamed of myself, and make long faces--repent, as you call it--to
-please you? I don’t want your good opinion. I never asked for it. All
-I want is for you to leave me alone. You think you are very good and
-gracious, I dare say, to talk to a girl like me. I don’t see it. If you
-really wanted to be kind, you would be kind to me now, as I am. It is
-easy enough to forgive people when they have left off doing what you
-don’t like; the thing is to forgive them while they are still doing
-it. If I joined the Salvation Army, and wore a poke-bonnet, you would
-have nothing to say against me. Bah! You’re like all the rest; I know
-you. Get us to go down at your feet and be miserable, and then you take
-credit for forgiving us. And that’s what you call Christianity!”
-
-The Duchess had stumbled to the door and escaped before Molly lost her
-breath.
-
-Alistair’s mother tottered down the yard, too much agitated to remember
-her pensioners, and Alistair’s wife lay on the high-art settle, with
-the copper pans gleaming down at her, and wept as if her heart would
-break.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXI
-
-THE HOUSE OF CATILINE
-
-
-AMONG those friends of Lord Alistair’s who did not neglect him in his
-fallen state was the moving spirit of the Legitimist Guild.
-
-The Comte des Louvres visited the house in Beers Cooperage, and
-professed himself enchanted with everything about it, but most of all
-with its nearness to Chestnut-Tree Walk.
-
-“We are neighbours now,” he declared, “and I shall expect you to look
-me up very often. Drop in whenever you have nothing better to do.”
-
-The Frenchman threw a flattering deference into his manner towards
-Molly now that her position seemed to be established. He was keen
-enough to see the direction in which her ambitions pointed, and he
-threw out hints of his ability to help her.
-
-By way of a beginning he invited her to his house to meet some of
-the ladies who had held stalls at the famous bazaar. Lady Alistair
-did not refuse the invitations. She appeared in the Count’s shabby
-drawing-room, flaunting in the extravagance of the past, and scored a
-feminine triumph over women whose whole yearly dress allowance would
-not have paid for one of her frocks. But Molly was too shrewd to
-mistake these gatherings, at which tea was handed round by the two
-Vanes, and the conversation turned chiefly on the Legitimist cause and
-its prospects, for the kind of society she had aspired to. The women
-to whom Des Louvres introduced her were as much outside the pale as
-herself, though for different reasons, and in the end they tired her by
-their pretentious gentility, and she left off trying to mix with them.
-
-It was borne in upon the poor little woman that her dream of
-respectability was never likely to be realized. The cruel frankness of
-the Duchess had broken her spirit. The dismal vision of the Home began
-to rise up before her as a final destiny. Very often she cried now when
-she was alone. It seemed to her that life could never be jolly again.
-Nothing had turned out as she had hoped. Marriage seemed to have made
-things worse instead of better. Alistair left her to herself as much as
-formerly, and when he was with her they had less and less to say to one
-another. And they became really poor. The Duke’s intentions as regards
-his brother’s allowance remained undeclared. In the meantime the South
-Kensington furniture, the copper saucepans, and the Cromwellian oak
-had been bought on the hire system, and there was trouble about the
-instalments. Once or twice already they had had to dine at home on
-slices of ham brought in from a shop in the Westminster Bridge Road,
-because they could not afford a meal at a restaurant. And now the
-winter was upon them.
-
-After all, Molly had not returned Miss Vanbrugh’s call. And this was
-not because she was jealous of her, but because when it came to the
-point she found she had not the courage. In Hero’s presence, in the
-light of her candid eyes, the pretence of being a lady could not be
-kept up. Perhaps Hero guessed how matters stood, for when she found
-that Lady Alistair did not come to her she made the experiment of
-coming again to Beers Cooperage. And Molly was very glad to see her. To
-her own surprise, she found her once dreaded rival was her only friend.
-They grew to call each other by their Christian names. And by degrees
-Molly opened her heart to Hero, and told her everything; told her one
-day, with tears and sobs, the story of her miserable life, and wound up
-with the despairing cry:
-
-“I shall never be any better; I know I shan’t. I can’t be sorry. I
-can’t repent.”
-
-Hero held out her arms. When she reached home that evening she found
-the bosom of her dress all streaked with rouge.
-
-Alistair’s wife was not blinded by the respectful homage of the Comte
-des Louvres to his true character. Her instinct told her that the Count
-had no friendships which did not serve some purpose of his own, and she
-warned Alistair against him.
-
-“Beware of that man,” she said one day after the Frenchman had been to
-see them. “He pretends to be your friend, but he is scheming to get
-something out of you.”
-
-“Most friends are,” was Alistair’s retort. “Of course, Des Louvres is a
-scoundrel, but he is an interesting one. Honest men are such bores.”
-
-And in that remark Alistair expressed more of his character than he
-knew. Perhaps the strongest of all the motives that stirred him to
-quarrel with the social order in which he had been reared was that he
-found it dull. He judged of life like a novel--it is the villain who is
-the soul of the plot.
-
-If he had been born fifty years before, Alistair Stuart might have been
-happily engaged among those who were struggling for the emancipation of
-Europe from the old Legitimist régime. Political liberty, the liberty
-that Shelley had hymned, and Mazzini plotted, and Garibaldi fought for,
-seemed a Dead Sea fruit to his taste, but yet at least the struggle for
-it had been worth waging. To-day nothing interesting, nothing heroic,
-was going on in the world. The glorious dawn of the nineteenth century
-had been succeeded by a commonplace day. The struggles of the hour were
-for markets and mines; the question that moved men’s souls was whether
-Mike Finigan should be compelled to hide his glass of beer from the
-respectable sight of Mr. Stiggins.
-
-Liberalism was dead, and the social democracy marching over its corpse
-had discarded every noble watchword, every lofty ideal, and proclaimed
-the naked issue of more wages and less work. They and the millionaires
-might fight it out between them as far as such as Alistair were
-concerned. Neither side seemed likely to add anything to the beauty of
-life.
-
-In the house in Chestnut-Tree Walk he found himself brought into touch
-with an altogether different world. It was a strange underground world,
-a world of decayed races, and lost causes, and fallen dynasties,
-and overthrown gods. Sometimes it seemed to him a world of pure
-make-believe, in which everything was pasteboard and tinsel, and at
-other times it seemed to him that there was a meaning hidden beneath
-the make-believe, that there was a strength in all this decay capable
-of assailing and overcoming in time the strength of the world of
-triumphant causes and conquering races; that from this concealed and
-stagnant source a power of corruption might arise, like the pestilence
-that issues from the slums of Canton or the pilgrim-ships of Mecca and
-devastates Asia and Europe.
-
-Alistair became a more and more frequent visitor to the house hidden
-behind the grimy chestnut-trees. Des Louvres was never a dull
-companion. He possessed a unique knowledge of contemporary European
-history, especially of that part of history which does not get into
-books, and which the underbred provincials who compile scholastic
-histories seem never to understand. His memory for royal genealogies
-was equal to that of a German Court Chamberlain. And he was not
-ignorant of British pedigrees either.
-
-On one occasion he surprised Stuart by asking him:
-
-“You are related to the Earls of Mar, are you not?”
-
-“My grandmother was an Erskine,” Alistair replied. “Why do you ask?”
-
-“Your ancestor headed the first Jacobite rising on behalf of James
-III,” said Des Louvres, with a significant glance.
-
-“It is sometimes called the Earl of Mar’s Rebellion,” responded
-Alistair. “But I don’t think my ancestor distinguished himself very
-much. He made his arrangements very badly, and quarrelled with the
-Pretender when he came over.”
-
-The other did not pursue the subject. But his remark had taken effect
-on Stuart’s mind.
-
-In addition to Des Louvres there were often other interesting figures
-to be met with at Chestnut-Tree House: Frenchmen fresh from the
-boulevards; Austrians and Spaniards with the latest gossip of their
-capitals; urbane Roman priests, affecting the diplomatist rather than
-the cleric, and anxious that the Duke of Trent’s brother should take an
-interest in the absorbing question of the Temporal Power.
-
-“There never was a more interesting State than the Pope’s,” Stuart was
-told. “It was government by the refined and intellectual class, the
-aristocracy of mind and birth combined. There was no public opinion,
-which, as you know, always means vulgar middle-class opinion. There
-was no Puritan inquisition; Garibaldi and his brigands made it their
-chief complaint against us that we did not persecute the sinner. Every
-man could do as he pleased, in short, provided that he did not openly
-assail the Church. Of course, no Sovereign can tolerate rebellion. For
-artists and poets, for all men of taste and originality, the Rome of
-the Popes was an almost perfect home.”
-
-Alistair grew more and more inclined to believe it. More and more
-he came to feel that he had no quarrel with the Church of Rome. It
-had never persecuted him. On the contrary, it had treated him with
-consideration at a time when he had received no consideration from
-those who owed it to him most.
-
-He would have been glad enough to believe that a restored Papal State
-would afford him the city of refuge for which he yearned, and if he
-raised objections the tempters easily swept them away.
-
-“Was not the press muzzled?” he would ask. “Was there not a censorship
-of books?”
-
-And the answer would be that the democratic press was equally muzzled,
-only it was muzzled by a golden muzzle. A paper could not be launched,
-except at a cost only within the means of the very rich. It could not
-be carried on at all without the revenue derived from the pill-makers
-and the soap-makers; and the pill-maker would permit nothing to appear
-in it that might by any possibility offend his bilious customers.
-The rich man would not tolerate any paper that did not pander to
-the passionate greed which was fast becoming more than a disease--a
-veritable possession.
-
-And there was a censorship of books as well, a censorship
-administered, not by educated men, but by policemen hounded to
-their work by rabid zealots in whom sexual perversion took the form
-of prudery. There were commercial censorships and voluntary ones.
-A tradesman, sitting in his office, held in his hands the fate of
-half the books brought out in England. The committees of the Free
-Libraries were more intolerant than any Roman congregation. Were not
-their shelves choked with the rubbish of evangelical serialists,
-and barred to the masterpieces of De Maupassant and D’Annunzio? The
-real censorships of books in every age had been exercised by human
-stupidity. The Index Expurgatorius of ignorance and spite was vaster
-than the British Museum Catalogue.
-
-Stuart found himself more than half committed to the cause already. His
-effort on behalf of Don Juan, slight and unsuccessful as it had been,
-had brought him a letter of thanks from the Prince, and an invitation
-to call on him if Lord Alistair should ever find himself in Rome. Des
-Louvres continued to speak hopefully of the Pretender’s prospects. And
-in the meanwhile it became more and more clear to Alistair that Don
-Juan’s cause, and all these romantic causes and whispering conspiracies
-centred in the one supreme cause and the one secular conspiracy
-represented by that immemorial figure, crowned with the triple crown of
-Ra, grasping the keys of Sheol and Amenti, and pursuing in the name of
-the Crucified One the empire of the Conqueror.
-
-In the same measure that Alistair Stuart was attracted to the camp of
-these rebels against the established order he was repelled from that
-rival camp whose red flag was the symbol of an international Jacquerie.
-
-Every poet is at heart an anarchist, but his vocation bids him be a
-transcendental one, perceiving that sympathy is stronger than violence,
-and the seed that bursts unseen and silently is a more formidable
-engine than the bomb. Alistair found in the proletarian propaganda, so
-far as it had come under his notice, a leaven of envy and hatred of
-the best. The spirit of Marat’s bloody apostolate lurked under words
-like brotherhood and humanity. It was not only against the rich and the
-tyrannical that the red flag waved; it menaced equally knowledge and
-genius. Archimedes would fare no better at such hands than he had fared
-at the hands of the soldier of Marcellus. The policy of these helot
-Tarquins was to strike down the tall flowers of the garden, roses and
-nettles together.
-
-His three months’ sojourn in Beers Cooperage had taught Alistair that
-he could not really be the brother of his humble neighbours. He was
-not nearer to them in spirit than if he were dwelling in Colonsay
-House. He was too kind-hearted not to wish to befriend them, but he
-could only do so as he befriended children and animals--without feeling
-himself as one of them. His common sense, or, what is the same thing,
-his sense of humour, saved him from trying to elevate them by means of
-wireless telegraphy and the Andaman Islands. The simple truth was that
-he no more wanted to change their natures than to change his own. He
-was that rare thing, an individualist who respected the individuality
-of others. He was the only person who had ever bestowed money in the
-Cooperage without asking whether it was to be spent on tea or on beer.
-In his mother’s opinion he was doing harm to the neighbourhood. Among
-the beneficiaries a suspicion had begun to germinate that he must have
-his eye on a seat in the County Council. His favourite manifestation
-of interest was to call in passing organ-grinders, who played in the
-Cooperage by the hour together, while the children danced.
-
-Alistair could make his poor neighbours happy, but they could not make
-him happy.
-
-The poet searching for his Eden places it ever in some environment
-which he has not yet tried. Whole generations of priest-ridden Italians
-had placed the home of freedom in Puritan-ridden England; it was
-natural that Alistair should place it in Papal Rome.
-
-Des Louvres, the Catiline of this conspiracy, had just that touch of
-the bohemian in his own character which enabled him to understand
-Stuart. He did not hope to rouse in him any active enthusiasm for the
-small territorial ambitions of the Catholic Pretenders, clerical or
-lay. But he saw that what Stuart wanted was a stick with which to beat
-society, and the Legitimist stick was as good as any other. Little
-by little he drew his proselyte on to the view that all the elements
-that made the Victorian Order hateful to him were personified in
-the reigning House itself. The Hanoverian dynasty was a Protestant
-dynasty--or, at least, it was required to pose as such in public. The
-Act of Settlement was the work of the Low Church party, supported by
-the Nonconformists; in other words, it was the Puritan settlement.
-All English history, all English literature, all English society,
-had rested hitherto on the basis that the Low Church party was in
-the right, and that its standards ought to govern Great Britain, and
-Ireland, and India, and ultimately the whole world.
-
-Alistair himself had been brought up in an atmosphere where that
-assumption was not supposed to be even subject to discussion. The whole
-world, to his youthful mind, had been divided into two classes--those
-who were Low Churchmen, and those who ought to be, and knew it. He,
-Alistair, knew it, so did the others, from the General of the Jesuits
-to the stone-breaker suspected of being a Plymouth Brother, and from
-the condemned murderer to the author of the “Origin of Species.” The
-Sultan of Turkey knew it in his heart, and so did every follower of
-every other faith, except, possibly, the Grand Lama, protected by
-geographical barriers from the enterprise of the Low Church Missionary
-Society.
-
-And now all these assumptions were breaking up and melting away so
-rapidly that the mere statement of them sounded more like satire than
-sober record. Histories of England were being written, and were being
-used in the schools, which failed to teach that the Revolution of 1688
-was the most glorious event in the annals of the human race. It was no
-longer universally deemed an act of oppression on the part of James I.
-to permit the peasantry to dance on Sunday. Even the Reformation had
-ceased to be the subject of unmitigated eulogy. The rising generation
-were being allowed to perceive that some bigotry goes to the making of
-a martyr, as well as of a heretic-hunter. The failings of the leading
-Reformers were no longer veiled, and the virtues of their opponents
-were lovingly conceded.
-
-Every revelation passes through three stages: first, it is a heresy;
-next, a commonplace; and last, a superstition. The mind of man revolves
-like his planet, and truths rise and set like the stars.
-
-Protestantism had survived into the third stage. The great Protestant
-Churches still flourished, but they no longer professed the Protestant
-religion. The Church of England was suing for recognition by the
-Church of Rome. The Dissenting Churches, founded by men who were more
-willing to endure poverty and prison than to wear a surplice, or to
-use a ring in the marriage ceremony, were adopting liturgies and
-vestments. The evangelical organizations, the Missionary Societies,
-the Bible Societies, the Tract Societies, were still in full activity,
-but they had ceased to evangelize. Like the Churches, they lived on
-their inheritance; they were kept going by the dead hand. Frock-coated
-committees were called together by well-salaried secretaries to dispose
-of funds too large for the shrunken field of endeavour; but, wiser
-than the augurs of old Rome, the secretaries never smiled.
-
-The machinery went on with well-oiled wheels, but the spirit was gone.
-The foundation stone of the building had been almost accidentally
-mined. The picks of excavators toiling at the dust-heaps beside the
-Tigris and Euphrates that once were Nineveh and Babylon, had turned
-up a handful of arrow-stamped bricks, and the Protestant Bible had
-become a mere human document. The whole of English society was engaged
-in a conspiracy to suppress the fact that the world was changing. The
-schools and universities went on teaching that it never changed; the
-pulpits proved that it could not; the newspapers were positive that
-it had not; yet underneath all this loud shouting of the cohorts of
-respectability could be heard a murmur like the whisper of Galileo
-before the Inquisition--_But it does move_.
-
-It was the close of the Victorian Age. It was an age which had recorded
-its own praises on a myriad monuments, and chanted them in thunder
-on the days of jubilee. It was an age which had gazed round upon its
-mighty works, and boasted itself like Nebuchadnezzar. Nevertheless, in
-this age, so glorious in its own conceit, so fruitful in many respects,
-one rank weed had been suffered to grow up unchecked, till it poisoned
-the breathing-room of the human spirit.
-
-The name of this weed was Cant.
-
-The Victorian world had been satirized unconsciously by the Victorian
-poet. In his “Idylls of the King” Tennyson had depicted a man without
-passions trying to impose his own cold virtues on men of warmer
-temperament, and producing first hypocrisy and deceit, and in the end a
-deeper corruption. The Victorian world had been like Arthur’s Court.
-
-In this world Cant became a religion, and hypocrisy was enforced by
-law. It was a world whose literature and art were adjusted to the
-mental and moral level of the Sunday-school. It was a world in which
-a terrible disease, bred of moral corruption, scourged the race, and
-every effort to stay its ravages was fought against tooth and nail
-by the mænads of social purity. It was a world in which selfishness
-was inculcated in a million sermons, and slander and persecution were
-reckoned as good works. It was a world in which blackmailing became
-a recognized profession. It was a world in which men sent sailors to
-be drowned in rotten ships, and built chapels with the proceeds. It
-was a world which overthrew kings and set up millionaire monopolists;
-which suppressed slavery and invented sweating; which substituted the
-prostitute for the concubine; which imposed a curfew on beer at home
-and sold opium abroad at the point of the bayonet. A great pirate
-Empire ravaged the seas, with a crucifix at the masthead, and stole
-pagan continents.
-
-One night when Alistair Stuart went round to the house in Chestnut-Tree
-Walk he found its master waiting for him in a state of excited
-expectation.
-
-“Have you heard the news?” Des Louvres asked in a whisper, as soon
-as Stuart had sat down. “They are trying to keep it out of the papers
-as long as possible, but it has reached me from a source that I can
-absolutely depend upon. Queen Victoria is dying.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXII
-
-HIGH TREASON
-
-
-“I HAVE my information from a person in the confidence of one of the
-Royal Family. The Queen cannot last more than three days.”
-
-Stuart had received the news with a slight shock. For him, as for all
-his generation, the venerable figure seated on the throne had almost
-a legendary character. It seemed impossible to think of the British
-Empire without Queen Victoria; the idea of a new head on the coins and
-postage-stamps was strange and incredible.
-
-But, apart from these reflections the Frenchman’s announcement did not
-strike him as having any importance for himself, and he was unable to
-understand the excitement with which Des Louvres took him by the arm
-and drew him towards the door of the room.
-
-“Most of the others are here,” Des Louvres said in a voice lowered to a
-whisper. “I telegraphed to them as soon as I heard. They are in there,
-waiting for you to take the chair.”
-
-Then for the first time it struck Alistair that the approaching demise
-of the Crown was an event likely to prove a crisis, and that Des
-Louvres expected him to play a part in keeping with his ancestral
-traditions and outlawed state.
-
-Nothing loth, he passed into the room where the committee was
-assembled, the strongest feeling in his mind one of amusement at
-the thought of the terror likely to be excited in the bosom of the
-Chevalier Vane and his brother at the prospect of a serious collision
-with the authorities.
-
-He found the Chevalier inside, looking pale and anxious, while
-Wickham’s face bore the calmer expression of one whose mind was made
-up. Mr. St. Maur was also present, looking little less comfortable than
-the Chevalier, and the party was reinforced by the Hon. Gerald St. John
-and Mr. Basil Dyke. The Decadents were complete, with the one exception
-of Mendes, whose complaisance had never extended to the length of
-enrolling himself among the comrades or followers of the Comte des
-Louvres.
-
-Stuart had scarcely seated himself when Egerton Vane rose precipitately
-to his feet, to explain his position.
-
-Des Louvres had cruelly refrained from assigning anything more definite
-than “important business” as the object of the meeting; and when on
-their arrival they learned the character of the crisis, the brothers
-felt themselves entrapped. This was the moment of all others when they
-would have wished the Guild to practise the modesty of self-effacement;
-and if the Guild was going, on the contrary, to do anything rash, it
-was the moment which they would have chosen silently to sever their
-connection with the Guild. They knew better than the Frenchman the
-sentiment entertained by her subjects towards the dying Queen, and
-they had no desire to face the storm that would be provoked by any
-demonstration of disrespect.
-
-“Our secretary has called us together rather hastily,” the Chevalier
-began in a plaintive tone. “No doubt the news he has received is very
-important, if it is reliable.”
-
-“It is absolutely reliable,” interrupted the Count.
-
-The Chevalier drew a laboured sigh, as he resumed: “In that case,
-whatever our political views may be, I am sure we shall all feel that
-at such a moment we must share to a certain extent in the national
-mourning for the loss of a venerated and respected--er--personage. I
-am not sure that our secretary has acted altogether discreetly--though
-of course he meant it for the best--in summoning a meeting of the
-Guild at such a moment; but as we are here, I suggest that it
-would be a graceful act on our part to pass a resolution recording
-our--er--respect and--er--sympathy with the family of the--er--the
-Queen!”
-
-The speaker brought out the last word with a defiant jerk, and sat down
-hastily, hoping to evade a rebuke at the hands of Des Louvres. But he
-was agreeably surprised to see that astute schemer rise and second his
-proposition. The French Count had the sense to interpret the situation
-rightly, and to see that the fears of a man like Egerton Vane were a
-useful index to the state of English opinion. Evidently it would be
-wise to propitiate the public sentiment by such a resolution as Vane
-had suggested.
-
-The Chevalier had the gratification of seeing his proposition carried
-unanimously. But this concession made to policy, Des Louvres lost no
-time in coming to business.
-
-“In three days from now the throne will be vacant, and the Guild will
-have to show whether it is capable of taking action in accordance with
-its principles. Since the successful rebellion of 1688 no usurping
-Sovereign has ever been allowed to ascend the throne without a protest
-being made on behalf of the legitimate heirs. On this occasion it is
-clearly our duty to make that protest, and the only question is how we
-should proceed.”
-
-This bold challenge was received in chilling silence. Stuart glanced
-round the room with a disdain he hardly tried to conceal, and saw one
-after the other shrink back.
-
-Without rising from his seat, St. John put a question to the secretary.
-
-“Has the Princess been consulted?”
-
-Des Louvres shook his head.
-
-“Her Majesty’s position is a difficult one,” he explained. “As a German
-Princess she is exposed to pressure from Berlin. We cannot expect her
-to give us any open countenance. As long as she does not publicly
-repudiate us, that is as much as we have any right to ask.”
-
-After a silence full of eloquence, the waverers found a champion
-in Mr. Basil Dyke. The novelist was on the eve of completing his
-reconciliation with the _bourgeoisie_ by marriage with a lady whose
-father’s liver pills enjoyed a celebrity such as literature cannot
-attain, although it was part of the understanding that in the future
-Mr. Dyke’s productions were to be recommended in the same organs of
-publicity as his father-in-law’s. The reformed Decadent looked forward
-to entering the House of Commons in the character of a supporter of
-Church and Throne; and with such a prospect in view it was evidently
-time for him to dissociate himself from the political profligacies of
-his youth.
-
-“I cannot agree with the Comte des Louvres that we have any right to
-speak on behalf of the Princess, without her express authority,” he
-said. “Neither do I see what we have to gain by coming forward at this
-particular time. We have proclaimed our principles, the public is
-aware of them, and any assertion of them at this moment would be taken
-badly. It would be said that we were guilty of bad taste--that we were
-advertising ourselves on the occasion of a funeral.”
-
-Alistair smiled. It seemed to him very English, this unctuous horror
-of advertisement on the part of a man who had won notoriety with a
-treacherous libel and was about to confirm it by an alliance with liver
-pills. Basil Dyke was clearly marked out for a knighthood under the
-new reign. He was one of those whom England delights to honor.
-
-There was no doubt that the novelist had on his side the majority
-of those present. The disappointed Count vainly tried to strike a
-responsive chord.
-
-“What is the Guild for, if it is not to act at a crisis like this?” he
-demanded.
-
-The Hon. Gerald St. John gave him his answer:
-
-“Our mission is to educate, not to indulge in vulgar demonstrations,
-like Socialists and people of that kind. For my part I have never
-pretended to take any interest in Mary III. My quarrel is with
-respectability and I shall wait to see whether the new Court is
-respectable before I condemn it.”
-
-Des Louvres bit his lip. “You English are always respectable,” he
-sneered.
-
-“Not at all,” was the good-tempered answer. “Our middle class is always
-respectable, I grant you; but our aristocracy is generally wicked. And
-we have had lots of disreputable Kings. I have every hope that the
-Victorian Age will be succeeded by a Restoration.”
-
-“Charles II. was a Stuart,” protested the Legitimist agent.
-
-“Well, if it comes to that, I don’t know that your German Princess is
-any more of a Stuart than the people in possession. There seems to me
-very little to choose between Bavaria and Saxe-Coburg. George IV. was a
-man with many fine qualities.”
-
-Des Louvres began to lose his temper.
-
-“Of course, if anybody is afraid of the consequences I don’t expect
-them to come forward,” he said sneeringly.
-
-The insult that cannot be pardoned is the one that we feel to be
-deserved. Egerton Vane, St. Maur, and the bridegroom-elect rose to
-their feet together.
-
-“After that I shall go home. Come, Wickham,” cried the Chevalier. Mr.
-St. Maur was understood to mutter that if anything did happen the
-Comte des Louvres would probably be the first out of the country. Dyke
-inquired whether a foreigner was qualified to dictate to Englishmen
-their line of conduct at a national crisis.
-
-The hubbub was subdued by the chairman’s voice. Alistair had been
-bored by the debate, much as a boy fresh from his first term at school
-is bored by the forgotten interests of the nursery. He felt that he
-had outgrown all this kind of thing; it was wide of the mark; it led
-nowhere, and promised nothing. But he was in just that mood when action
-of any kind offered a temptation which it was impossible to resist, and
-he felt a keen pleasure in asserting himself for the last time among
-those who had been his followers for so long.
-
-“Before Des Louvres talks about being afraid, suppose he tells us what
-he wants us to do?”
-
-The mutterings of strife died down, and all eyes were turned on the
-Count. His response was ready instantly.
-
-“I consider the Guild ought to issue a formal Assertion of the right of
-Queen Mary III. to the throne.”
-
-“Have you got the Assertion there?”
-
-Des Louvres produced it, and read it aloud. It was received in dead
-silence.
-
-“Well,” said Alistair, “what next? What do you want to do with that
-thing?”
-
-“It ought to be posted up all over London, the moment the death of the
-Queen is announced.”
-
-“Who is to post it up?”
-
-This time Des Louvres had no answer ready. He glanced doubtfully round
-the uneasy faces of his colleagues, and drew his own conclusions. Dyke
-could not resist a sneer.
-
-“Surely that is the secretary’s duty.”
-
-The Frenchman was stung into accepting the challenge.
-
-“I will post up one if everyone else will do the same,” he said.
-
-The chairman looked slowly round him.
-
-“I agree to put up one,” he said deliberately.
-
-There was another silence, during which the two Vanes consulted each
-other’s countenances. The same thought had occurred to each. What was
-to prevent them from taking a copy of the treasonable document and
-discreetly disposing of it in private?
-
-The Hon. Gerald St. John shrugged his shoulders. “If Stuart is going to
-post one up, I shall do the same, though I don’t agree with it.”
-
-The Chevalier Vane rose to his feet with considerable emotion.
-
-“Give me a copy, and I will do my duty,” he said sublimely. “I answer
-for my brother as well.”
-
-Mr. St. Maur had meanwhile been deciding on his private course of
-action. Convinced that the present proceedings must be taken seriously
-by the authorities, he had resolved to earn his own pardon by a
-whole-souled repentance. He lowered his eyes to the ground, as he said:
-
-“For my part I am compelled to dissociate myself from this manifesto at
-such a time. I desire that my protest may be recorded in the minutes of
-the Guild.”
-
-The Chevalier and his brother exchanged alarmed glances. The idea that
-their courageous undertaking might be recorded in writing had not
-occurred to them.
-
-“Surely there will be no record taken of to-night’s meeting!” Egerton
-exclaimed. “These proceedings are confidential!”
-
-Des Louvres hastened to reassure him. He had conceived a suspicion from
-St. Maur’s manner, and determined to balk him.
-
-“I am in the hands of the committee,” he said. “But in my opinion it
-will be best to make no entry beyond the names of those present, and to
-state that the proceedings were of a private character.”
-
-Basil Dyke sprang to his feet.
-
-“In that case I shall withdraw at once!” he declared. “I consider you
-had no right to bring us here without warning us of what you were going
-to propose. This is high treason. I shall resign my membership of the
-Guild.”
-
-“I move that Mr. Dyke’s resignation be accepted,” said Alistair
-swiftly, going through the necessary formalities, as the irate novelist
-made his way to the door.
-
-Wickham Vane cast a reproachful glance at his brother.
-
-“If there is going to be any record of to-night’s meeting, I shall go
-as well,” he announced.
-
-Des Louvres saw that he must give way.
-
-“Have it as you please,” he remarked. “As I said, I am in your hands.”
-Then, with a warning glance in St. Maur’s direction, he added: “That
-concludes the business of the meeting. Those who have undertaken to
-post up copies of the Assertion had better remain behind to consult as
-to the most appropriate places.”
-
-The informer was obliged to take the hint.
-
-“Very well, gentlemen,” he said, as he rose to go. “Remember that if
-this lands you in trouble, I have done my best to save you.”
-
-“That fellow means to betray us,” said Des Louvres, as the door closed
-behind the Irishman. “He will turn King’s evidence if the police get on
-our track.”
-
-Egerton Vane turned white. But stealing a look at his brother, he was
-reassured by the placid expression that stole over Wickham’s face.
-
-In the discussion that followed it was settled that Stuart should put
-up the manifesto at the most important spot--the gallery of St. James’s
-Palace, from which the new Sovereign is wont to be proclaimed. The
-others selected other points about the Metropolis, and Des Louvres
-undertook to post copies to members of the Guild in the provinces, with
-instructions to affix them to the church doors. The secretary possessed
-a typing machine, and each of the volunteers was in possession of his
-copy as he came away.
-
-Alistair strolled home slowly, to find his wife in a state of some
-excitement.
-
-“Do you know what is happening?” she asked eagerly, as he came in. “The
-Queen is dying.”
-
-Alistair stared at her.
-
-“What, is it in the papers already?” he exclaimed.
-
-It was Molly’s turn to stare.
-
-“Then you knew it? Who told you? Oh, of course, that man Des Louvres.”
-
-“Who told you?” demanded Alistair. He noticed that Molly was rouged to
-the eyebrows, and that she had been drinking.
-
-“Mr. Mendes told me,” she said in a hard, defiant voice. “He called
-here just after you had gone. He wants us to go and dine with him.”
-
-“You can go if you like,” Alistair said listlessly.
-
-The dinner with Mendes took place three nights afterwards. It was
-given in London’s most expensive restaurant, and Lord and Lady Alistair
-were the only guests. Mendes was as cool and composed as ever, chatting
-with his guests as if no interruption had ever occurred in their
-intercourse. Molly was voluble and restless, emptying her glass as
-often as the waiter filled it with champagne. Alistair ate and drank
-little, and hardly spoke except when his host addressed to him a direct
-question. He felt strangely out of place, as he sat there, looking
-abstractedly from one to the other of his companions, and wondering
-what he was doing there between them, and how it was all going to end.
-
-Suddenly, just as the sweets were being brought round, there was a stir
-outside, and a man came in hurriedly with a sheaf of papers under his
-arm. He went through the long, brilliantly lit saloon, leaving a paper
-on each little table, and as he approached Mendes he said in his ear in
-a subdued voice:
-
-“The Queen is dead, sir.”
-
-Alistair slowly filled his own glass with wine, lifted it up, and
-emptied it.
-
-“It is the end of an age,” he said, as he set it down again, and rose
-deliberately to his feet.
-
-Mendes glanced at him curiously.
-
-“Yes, it is the end of some things,” he answered composedly. “Are you
-off?”
-
-“I have an engagement,” said Alistair dryly.
-
-The two men shook hands quietly, but not without cordiality. Each of
-them had found something in the other to respect.
-
-Alistair was leaving without bestowing more than a nod on Molly, when
-she surprised him by getting up.
-
-“You don’t want me?” she said, with the husky accent which came into
-her voice when she had been drinking a good deal.
-
-“No,” said Alistair, puzzled.
-
-“Then good-bye.”
-
-She held out a beringed hand, and Alistair took it nervously, inly
-afraid of a scene. Then he went without looking back.
-
-It was midnight before he let himself into the little art kitchen in
-Beers Cooperage, and saw by the light of the match which he had struck
-to show him the way upstairs a white envelope lying on the floor. The
-flap bore the printed name of the hotel in which he had dined that
-night, and he tore it open, with a sensation of knowing all about it,
-and having expected it all along.
-
-  “DEAR ALISTAIR” (said the shaky, badly-formed writing within), “It is
-  no good. You don’t want me, and it will never be any better. I have
-  gone abroad with Mr. Mendes, and you can get a divorce as soon as you
-  like.
-
-                                                        “MOLLY FINUCANE.
-
-  “P.S.--You are a fool if you don’t marry Hero Vanbrugh.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIII
-
-A PERSONAL EXPLANATION
-
-
-THE great Puritan Queen lay dead--dead, after sixty-three years of
-unexampled prosperity and glory. For her, and in her name, heroes
-had conquered and statesmen had annexed; laureates had hymned her in
-exquisite verse; discoverers had written her name on the map of new
-continents and carried it to the mysterious sources of old Nile. On her
-the farthest East had showered barbaric pearl and gold, and new realms
-had come forth out of the desert to hail her Queen.
-
-The last Protestant Queen lay dead. And before the warmth of life
-had ebbed away two hands were lifted to rend the veil of the world’s
-reverence. One of these hands affixed a paper to her Palace walls,
-proclaiming that she had been a usurper; the other boasted in the
-public press that she had been interred with a Catholic emblem upon her
-breast.
-
-Both hands were guided, consciously or unconsciously, by the same
-motive power. Both actions were symbolical. The mysterious process of
-the rise and fall of nations is worked out by and through the change of
-minds. The Victorian Age had passed away before Victoria herself. And
-her end had been hastened and embittered by the opening revelations of
-the anti-Puritan war.
-
-The last man in England who was likely to read aright the signs of the
-times, and perceive the true trend of contemporary history was the
-man who, naturally enough, found himself occupying the post of Home
-Secretary.
-
-The Duke of Trent had been passing the last two days at Osborne, in
-obedience to the archaic custom which required him to witness the
-Sovereign’s demise. Not less archaic in essence seemed to his eye the
-seditious manifesto which was brought to him by an agent of Scotland
-Yard, torn down from St. James’s Palace within half an hour of its
-being put up. Viewing it, as his character and intellectual limitations
-compelled him to view it, as an offensive practical joke, nevertheless
-he hastened back to town in a state of uneasiness bordering on alarm.
-He did not, of course, apprehend anything in the nature of violence,
-but he thought it quite possible that the authors of the Assertion
-might be preparing to interrupt the formal proclamation of the new
-Sovereign; and he had ordered the ceremony to be deferred till the
-police had had time to act.
-
-Privately he had another and still more serious cause of anxiety.
-He had not forgotten the Legitimist bazaar, and he feared that the
-investigations which had been immediately set on foot might show the
-name of his brother as figuring among the authors of the disgraceful
-jest.
-
-The task of the police did not prove a difficult one. Late in the
-afternoon of the day after the outrage the Chief Commissioner himself
-waited upon the Secretary of State at the Home Office to make his
-confidential report.
-
-The Duke received him alone, with an air of embarrassment which the
-Commissioner found it easy to understand.
-
-“I thought it best to come to your Grace myself, as the matter is one
-that seems to call for careful handling.”
-
-“What have you found out?”
-
-“The manifesto--they call it the Assertion--comes from the committee
-of a body styling itself the Legitimist Guild. The real instigator,
-I suspect, is a Frenchman, the Comte des Louvres, who is a sort of
-international agent. He is in the pay of the Duke of ----, the King of
-the ----, and even, I believe, of the Vatican.”
-
-The Home Secretary frowned.
-
-“What was his motive?”
-
-“Simply to show that he was earning his money, I expect. There may
-be some idea that if they can give trouble to our Royal Family, the
-influence of the English Court will be exerted on behalf of the
-Royalist cause in France--or the Pope’s temporal power.”
-
-“Well, what have you done?”
-
-“We had very little to do. As soon as the manifesto was found I guessed
-whom it came from, and sent a couple of detectives round to the Count’s
-house, where they seized the papers of the Guild. That seems to have
-frightened them, and within an hour or two more than half of the
-committee were round with us volunteering information, and anxious to
-be accepted as King’s evidence in case of a prosecution.”
-
-The Duke raised his eyes to the Commissioner’s face.
-
-“The King does not want a prosecution. He prefers that the whole thing
-should be hushed up. All we have to do is to give these fools a good
-fright, so that they will think twice before repeating their exploit.
-What are their names?”
-
-“The first men who came to us were two brothers named Vane, who had
-undertaken to post up copies of the Assertion themselves, but thought
-better of it--they brought the copies with them to prove their
-innocence. Afterwards there was an Irishman who calls himself St. Maur,
-but whose real name is Maher, and Basil Dyke, the novelist. Dyke seems
-to have protested the whole thing from the first, and resigned from the
-Guild in consequence. I don’t think any of the four are likely to give
-any more trouble.”
-
-“Who else is there?”
-
-The Commissioner of Police discreetly turned his head.
-
-“The only others are the Comte des Louvres, the Hon. Gerald St. John,
-and--Lord Alistair Stuart.”
-
-Lord Alistair’s brother clenched the hand that rested on the desk in
-front of him.
-
-“Yes; that is what I expected.” He paused for a moment or two, frowning
-and fidgeting in his chair. “Who put up this wretched thing?”
-
-“According to the Vanes, Lord Alistair must have posted the one on the
-Palace. The other two were each to put up one somewhere else, but I
-believe Mr. St. John was the only one who actually did.”
-
-“In other words, my brother is the ringleader--is that so?”
-
-“I think his lordship is the only one of the whole crew who has any
-pluck,” was the response. “He was in the chair when the thing was
-decided on.”
-
-The Duke of Trent drew his lips together.
-
-“Do you know where to find him?”
-
-“I have men watching them all. Lord Alistair has stayed indoors all
-day.” The Chief Commissioner hesitated, and then went on. “Your Grace
-will excuse me if I refer to a private matter which perhaps you would
-wish to hear at once. Lady Alistair has deserted his lordship--eloped,
-in fact, with Mr. Mendes, the millionaire.”
-
-The Duke looked up, startled.
-
-“When did that happen?”
-
-“Yesterday, I understand. She did not come home last night. His
-lordship has been alone all day.”
-
-James Stuart fell into a brown study. The news he had just heard was
-both good and bad. It was a relief to know that he would not remain
-much longer the brother-in-law of Molly Finucane; but on the other
-hand he saw his brother resuming the position of a rival for the hand
-of Hero Vanbrugh. With the cold obstinacy of his nature, James still
-clung persistently to the belief that sooner or later he would obtain
-the woman on whom he had set his heart--or what he deemed to be his
-heart. But now the obstacle that had stood between Hero and his brother
-had been removed, and unless he could replace it by another, even his
-dull mind could perceive how things were likely to go.
-
-He fixed his eyes once more upon his official subordinate.
-
-“What you have told me, Commissioner, alters my position. If my brother
-is the person principally guilty, I cannot honourably be responsible
-for advising His Majesty to let the affair be hushed up.”
-
-The Commissioner bowed low, deeply impressed by the scrupulous delicacy
-of his superior.
-
-“What are your Grace’s instructions?”
-
-“The law must take its course--for the present, at all events. Of
-course, I shall communicate again with His Majesty, and with the Prime
-Minister.”
-
-“In that case I shall have to arrest his lordship as well as the
-others.”
-
-“It will be sufficient if you arrest Lord Alistair. You can give the
-others a chance to escape abroad.”
-
-The Chief Commissioner stood for a moment, playing awkwardly with his
-hat.
-
-“In cases of high treason,” he observed, in a low voice, “it is
-customary for the warrant to be signed by the Home Secretary.”
-
-The Home Secretary drew himself up.
-
-“Have you a warrant with you?”
-
-The necessary form was procured from the criminal branch of the
-Department, and James wrote his own name beneath that of his only
-brother, with a firm, unfaltering hand.
-
-The next hour was taken up by the Commissioner of Police in personally
-effecting the arrest of his distinguished prisoner, and by the
-Secretary of State in communicating with the head of the Government.
-The Duke went through the form of tendering his resignation, which was
-courteously declined.
-
-“I do not believe for a moment that His Majesty will reconsider
-his decision, nor should I advise it,” the old Prime Minister said
-sensibly. “You had better cancel the warrant at once. Give your brother
-a good fright and send him out of the country. Let us hope that this
-experience may sober him.”
-
-When James got back to the Home Office he found a note on his desk from
-the Chief Commissioner.
-
-“I have his lordship in the next room, but he is hardly in a fit
-condition to be questioned. Perhaps your Grace had better see him
-to-morrow.”
-
-The Duke rang his bell, and ordered his brother to be brought before
-him alone.
-
-Alistair came in, still wearing the evening dress in which he had dined
-with Mendes overnight, with his hair unbrushed and his eyes from an
-unreposeful sleep.
-
-His brother glanced at him with carefully concealed anxiety; for though
-he was scarcely aware of it himself, he was always a little afraid of
-Alistair. It was a relief to see that his brother was not apparently
-intoxicated: the reckless mood which James dreaded most had given place
-to one of depression. At such a moment Alistair might be spoken to
-seriously; he might even be reproved without the risk of unpleasant
-retorts.
-
-The prisoner, without going through any form of greeting to his
-brother, dropped into one of the great spreading leather-covered chairs
-which stood round the wall and waited for Trent to speak.
-
-“Is it any use asking you why you have done this?” Trent said, after
-regarding him in silence for some time.
-
-Alistair turned on him a lack-lustre eye.
-
-“If you are asking me as Secretary of State, perhaps not.”
-
-The Home Secretary fidgeted with the papers on the writing-table in
-front of him. It was a favourite trick of his when he was embarrassed.
-Indeed, he generally kept a pile of papers in front of him on purpose.
-A little consideration told him that it was not worth while to try to
-bluff Alistair.
-
-“Well, no, I’m not.”
-
-“You have arrested me, haven’t you?” The prisoner made his point
-quietly, as though moved by a quite impersonal curiosity.
-
-“Yes.” The Duke hesitated again, and again decided that the bluffing
-policy would be too risky. “Since I signed the warrant, I’ve seen the
-Prime Minister. I tendered him my resignation, of course.”
-
-Alistair began to look ever so little interested.
-
-“I never thought you would do that,” he confessed.
-
-“I don’t suppose you thought anything about it, one way or the other,”
-Trent retorted, with some bitterness. “You never do think of me--or
-your mother--do you?”
-
-The prisoner straightened himself up for an instant.
-
-“Oh, yes. It is difficult not to think of one’s enemies sometimes.”
-
-Honest astonishment came into Trent’s look and mien.
-
-“Enemies! Your mother and I! What do you mean? If I were to call you my
-enemy, I should have some reason. The worst enmity I have ever shown
-you has been to give you a thousand a year, and to offer to pay your
-debts.”
-
-“Yes, on conditions,” Alistair reminded him. But he did not speak with
-any appearance of resentment. The elder brother’s warmth had failed to
-rouse any answering warmth in the younger.
-
-“On conditions which, as you must now admit, were for your own good.
-At least, I suppose that you are not prepared to defend that wretched
-woman any longer.”
-
-“Silence!” Alistair had nearly sprung out of his chair. “Say whatever
-you like about me, I shan’t resent it; but leave Molly alone, please.”
-
-Trent looked as bewildered as he felt.
-
-“You know, don’t you?” he began.
-
-Alistair cut him short.
-
-“I know she has just done the greatest thing that any woman can do
-for a man. She loved me, she was married to me, she saw that I loved
-another woman, and she has deliberately set me free to marry her. By
-heavens! I should like to know how many of your Christian women would
-do as much as that!”
-
-Trent was staggered. Like the Duchess, he had overlooked the fact that
-Molly Finucane was really an ally. Perhaps, if they had been wiser,
-Lady Alistair might have been made to take a different view of the
-situation in the past. But now it was too late.
-
-He dared not risk a direct question about Hero.
-
-“Well, you can’t marry anyone else yet,” he said, not very delicately.
-“The question is, what are you going to do?”
-
-“Isn’t it what are you going to do? I am still under arrest, I believe.”
-
-Trent fell back on his papers again.
-
-“I told you I had seen the Prime Minister. He is willing to let the
-matter be hushed up, out of consideration for me.”
-
-After all, he had ventured on a bluff; and, after all, it did not come
-off. Alistair merely smiled.
-
-“I am not a fool, Trent, you know. I have never seriously supposed
-that I ran any danger of being hanged, drawn and quartered. So the
-resignation has been withdrawn?”
-
-“It was declined,” the Minister corrected. “But if the papers get hold
-of the business, I shall have to go--for a time, at all events.”
-
-Alistair seemed genuinely concerned.
-
-“Really? I should be sorry if it was so bad as that.”
-
-Trent gazed at him sullenly.
-
-“Can’t you see that everything you do is bad for me? Somehow or
-other you seem bent on wrecking my career as well as your own. First
-bankruptcy, then that marriage; now, I suppose, divorce--and this
-disgraceful outrage on the top of everything else.”
-
-Alistair was surprisingly meek.
-
-“Yes, I dare say you feel it is rather rough on you; but, after all, no
-one can blame you for my misdeeds.”
-
-“But they do--they must. You don’t suppose I could remain Home
-Secretary with my own brother doing time in one of the prisons under my
-control. You just called me your enemy; I should like to know what you
-are to me.”
-
-“I could tell you that, if I thought you would understand,” the other
-said in low tones.
-
-“What have I done, what has our mother done, that you should make no
-effort to spare us all this disgrace?” Trent demanded warmly.
-
-“Ah! what have you done? Have you ever considered me?” returned
-Alistair.
-
-“Considered you? We have done nothing else. We have always been trying
-to save you, but you have never let us.”
-
-“Save me!--yes, I suppose that is how you would put it to yourself. You
-have been trying to save me from disgracing you, as you call it. Has it
-ever occurred to either of you that the whole of our joint lives has
-been one long persecution of me by you, Trent?”
-
-“Persecution! What do you mean?”
-
-“I am going to tell you what I mean. I dare say I shall never have
-another opportunity. We are not likely to see much more of one another.
-I am going abroad.”
-
-The unexpected announcement on his brother’s part that he was preparing
-to take the very step that Trent almost despaired of making him take
-was so welcome that the Duke found himself listening patiently to what
-followed.
-
-“Have you ever asked yourself why I am different from you--why I lead a
-different life from the one you lived? To begin with, you are the Duke
-of Trent and Colonsay; I am a younger son. Do you blame me for that? Do
-you blame me for not being a Duke, like you?”
-
-“Of course not. It is nonsense to suggest it.”
-
-“I do not think it is nonsense. On the contrary, I think a great many
-people in your position blame people in mine. Not in so many words,
-perhaps, but in their whole attitude towards them. You blame a man for
-not being a gentleman when you call him a cad. But if he was born a
-cad, what fault is it of his? Every time we who are well born boast of
-our good blood, surely we are blaming the people who had the bad luck
-to be born without pedigrees. And yet we cannot all belong to the Royal
-Family.”
-
-“I am not aware that I ever put on side on account of my family,”
-protested Trent.
-
-“No. But you would be very much surprised and offended if a tradesman
-offered to shake hands with you over the counter. Let us pass on. You
-have nearly forty thousand a year; I am a pauper. You must admit that
-you have blamed me for that.”
-
-“I? Never! I have blamed you for spending more than your allowance,
-that is all.”
-
-Alistair shook his head.
-
-“You don’t see it, of course. But the whole life of a man like you
-is a reproach to one like me. You blame me for buying things that
-you would not blame a rich man for buying. It is a crime on my part
-to drive a motor; it is no crime on yours. And you go much farther
-than that, because you tell me, in effect, that I ought to be rich.
-In England every rich man is telling that to every poor man all day
-long. It is the cry of the press and the pulpit, of the home and of the
-Sunday-school. Every millionaire is angry with the man who is not a
-millionaire. Why? They tell us that we could become millionaires like
-them if we chose; and it is a lie. We cannot all be millionaires.
-There are not enough millions to go round. The millionaire himself has
-gained his money at someone else’s expense. You have gained your money
-at my expense. Instead of the inheritance being divided, you have it
-all. If I am not angry with you on that account, why should you be
-angry with me?”
-
-“I am not angry,” Trent protested again. But he began to feel a little
-shaken.
-
-“If we all became millionaires,” Alistair continued calmly, “you who
-are millionaires already would be the first to suffer. You would have
-no servants to wait on you, no labourers to toil for you, no clerks to
-make and keep your millions for you. Surely it is to your interest that
-a large part of mankind should remain poor. Then why be angry with them
-on account of their poverty? Why despise them for serving you? If you
-like robbing, why abuse those who let themselves be robbed?”
-
-“Does this mean that you are going to turn Socialist?” asked the
-puzzled Duke.
-
-Alistair smiled.
-
-“Can’t you see that it means the very opposite? It is you who are
-the Socialist--yes, you--because it is you who will not tolerate the
-individual. You have never tolerated me. You have always been trying,
-as you put it, to reform me. And what do you mean by reforming me? You
-mean crushing me out of my natural shape and into your natural shape.
-You believe that all men ought to resemble each other like buttons on
-a coat--and you are the pattern button.”
-
-Trent made no answer. In his heart he felt that he was the pattern
-button, and that Alistair ought to try to resemble him. But he feared
-his brother’s sarcastic tongue too much to say so.
-
-“Why?” Alistair continued. “I am sure it has never occurred to you that
-I ought to dye my hair the same shade as yours, though men stooped even
-to that depth in the days of Louis Quatorze. You have just admitted
-that I am not really to blame for having been born after you, or
-because you have my share of the property. Then why blame me because my
-tastes are different from yours--because I prefer poetry to politics,
-and Bohemia to Philistia?”
-
-“It is not a matter of taste only. The common rules of morality are the
-same for all.”
-
-“And why should they be the same? Who made the rules? You”--he pointed
-an accusing finger--“you, and men like you. When you say morality, you
-mean monogamy. Who set up monogamy as the idol that all the human race
-ought to fall down and worship? It was not religion--there is not a
-word in favour of monogamy in the Bible. It is an Anglo-Saxon fad.”
-
-“Of course, if you repudiate the laws of morality, I cannot argue with
-you.”
-
-“I am not arguing. I am trying to make you understand. I want to see
-if it isn’t possible to stop all this cruelty--this frantic Puritan
-craze for killing everybody who isn’t a Wesleyan. I don’t want to kill
-you. I don’t mind your being respectable; why should you mind my being
-disreputable? What business is it of yours?”
-
-“You forget that you are my brother, and that I suffer for your
-conduct.”
-
-Alistair shook his head.
-
-“That isn’t true, Trent, and you know it isn’t true. Here you are,
-Secretary of State, with the Garter in prospect, and a very fair chance
-of the Premiership, if no man with brains comes along. If I ever were
-to reform, as you are always urging me to do, and go into politics, you
-would find me a rather dangerous rival, you know.” Trent thought of
-Hero, and winced. There was something in what his brother was saying.
-Alistair, in the House of Commons, with his fascinating manner and
-sparkling wit, would be a rather dangerous rival. And he had never seen
-it, never realized that their mother’s anxiety to make Alistair enter
-the House might be another of those projects to save the younger son at
-the expense of the elder. While these reflections were passing through
-his slow mind, Alistair was still speaking.
-
-“No, Trent, it is the other way about. I don’t suppose that you will
-ever see it, but I see it now. Instead of your suffering for me, it is
-I who suffer for you. You owe everything you are, and have, and may be,
-to me.”
-
-“How on earth can you say that?”
-
-“Because I am the younger son--the younger son in more senses than
-one. The law gives you the dukedom and the estates, and gives me
-nothing, is a law which makes me suffer for your benefit. And it is
-the same with all the other laws under which we live. They are all
-laws made in your favour at my expense. The whole social system has
-been created to favour you and oppress me. The laws of morality, as
-you call them, they are all made by men like you, and against men like
-me. You have regulated the world to suit yourself, and the man whom
-your regulations do not suit is sacrificed to secure your happiness.
-Yes, it is just like the old days when they buried a victim under
-the foundation stone, to make the building safe. You and your world,
-society, civilization, the British Empire--call it what you like--you
-are the builders, and it is the building; and all we whom you hang and
-exile and imprison--Jacobites in one century and anarchists in another,
-Byron and Shelley above, and the pickpocket and drunkard below--all we
-are the foundation victims, whom you sacrifice in order to secure your
-State.”
-
-Trent felt out of his depth. In his confusion of mind he said the most
-unwise thing he could have said.
-
-“You speak as though there were no such thing as religion. What you are
-really attacking is Christianity. You are not a Christian.”
-
-Then Alistair looked at him gravely and steadily, and the thought that
-had been growing and taking shape in his mind ever since the night he
-had stood on Westminster Bridge came out firm and distinct at last.
-
-“I am a christ!”
-
-“Alistair!” Genuine consternation showed in the listener’s face and
-voice. He actually feared that his brother was out of his mind.
-
-“I am your christ. Listen! It is not only the dukedom and the
-estates that have come to us from our ancestors. We have inherited
-other things--blood, instincts, passions, everything that makes the
-difference between one man and another. And that inheritance has been
-unfairly divided, too. Our forefathers were half Saxon and half Celtic.
-You have inherited the Saxon strain, and I the Celtic; and we live in
-a society in which it is well to be a Saxon, and ill to be a Celt. Our
-father was a drunkard and our mother a Puritan. You take after her
-and I after him, and we live in a world in which it is well with the
-Puritan and ill with the drunkard. Some of our forefathers were steady,
-plodding money-gatherers, others were wild, reckless adventurers.
-Again you have inherited the good strain, and I the bad. You have had
-everything, Trent. Everything which the world requires a man to be or
-to do, you are, or it is your nature to do. All that the world forbids
-a man to be and do, I am, or it is my nature to do. It is as though
-a breeder had deliberately bred you with all the good points and me
-with all the bad. You know what Sir Bernard Vanbrugh thinks about
-these things. What did he tell you?--that you had inherited an evil
-strain? The man was blind. I have inherited the evil strain, and by so
-doing I have saved you from it; I have carried it off from you, like a
-drainpipe. That is how it is. I am your saviour. Vanbrugh doesn’t see
-it, but Darwinism and Christianity are saying the same thing. Evolution
-is the sacrifice of the unfit on behalf of the fit. The scapegoat
-bears away the sins of the righteous. They were quite right to put up
-a crucifix in the old Courts of Justice, but it ought to have been
-over the dock, and not over the Judge’s head, because the criminal
-is the christ; he is the redeemer in whom the old vices and savage
-instincts in the blood of mankind are drained off and got rid of, for
-the salvation of the world. You may substitute the lethal chamber for
-the cross, but you will be still doing what those old Jews were doing,
-putting one man to death for the good of the people. Surely that is how
-it stands between you and me, Jim. Surely I have borne your sicknesses,
-and carried your pains, whereas you did esteem me stricken, smitten of
-God, and afflicted. But I was pierced for your transgressions, I was
-bruised for your iniquities: the chastisement on behalf of your peace
-was upon me; and with my stripes you are healed.”
-
-
-
-
-AFTERWARDS
-
-
-                                              “ISLE DE ST. PIERRE,
-                                                      “LAC DE BIENNE,
-                                                           “SWITZERLAND.
-
-“MY DEAR ONE:
-
-“I am writing to you from an island in the least known of the Swiss
-lakes, lying beneath the Jura. The island is the size of a small farm.
-It is crossed by a thickly-wooded ridge, and there are reed-grown
-marshes on one side, and on the other meadows and gardens and a homely
-inn. The inn has grown out of an older cottage or farmhouse, and
-certain rooms in the more ancient part of the building have become a
-place of local pilgrimage. On Sundays and holidays the workmen of the
-small neighbouring towns come here to drink and dance. But the foreign
-tourist is more rarely seen here, and the English tourist would most
-likely shun the spot if he had heard of it. For these rude quarters
-were the refuge, more than a hundred years ago, of a man who, more or
-less against his will, lit the great bonfire of the feudal system.
-
-“It was during one of those breaks in his life when, like Jonah of old,
-he seemed to be trying to flee from his allotted task, that Rousseau
-came and hid himself for this little isle. But the feudal society
-craved for destruction, and, like all societies in that condition, it
-first bred its destroyer and then steadily goaded him to the work. The
-young Marat, from his home a few miles away, must have looked on while
-the prophet of the Revolution was being hunted out of this retreat by
-the Prussian police, and, as it were, ordered to resume his terrible
-apostolate.
-
-“If imagination were possible for public bodies, if gratitude were
-conceivable on the part of the Socialist democracy, this isle would not
-be turned into a restaurant for bank-holiday workmen. It would be made
-a fit memorial of Rousseau by being set apart for the benefit of his
-heirs. Every man of genius, driven like him into exile by poverty and
-love of freedom, would find here a retreat in which he could rest from
-the storms of the world. Or if stupidity were not the curse of gold,
-the millionaires themselves would raise a voluntary tax to build an
-alms-house for Rousseau and Marat, instead of flogging them on to the
-work of anarchy with the sharp goads of hunger and contempt.
-
-“I find that my brother’s unexpected death has made no difference
-in my feelings towards England, although I find it has made a great
-difference in the feeling of England towards me. My godfather, the
-Archbishop, has written to me in the most cordial spirit about my
-Church patronage, thanking me in advance for my gracious patronage of
-Christianity. He hints that I may play an important part in bringing
-the Roman and Anglican communions closer together as the sole means of
-preserving society. But I do not want to preserve society. The Prime
-Minister’s letter of condolence also contains a hint that in a year or
-two, if I behave, I may succeed to the Home Secretaryship--I think he
-means all the Cabinet offices to become hereditary in course of time.
-But I am not going to behave. England expects every man to be a humbug,
-but she will be disappointed as far as I am concerned.
-
-“I recollect your father saying to me once that in many persons
-the infliction of pain on others--in extreme cases, even on
-themselves--gives rise to sensations of enjoyment which are actually
-akin to, and have their seat in the same region as, the sensations of
-physical lust. Thus the nuns who ill-use children in their orphanages,
-and the Puritans who gloat over the sufferings of profligate men and
-women, are really indulging in an unnatural form of profligacy. It
-is difficult to account on any other principle for what Anglo-Saxon
-races call their civilizing mission. It clearly has nothing to do with
-Christianity, because the only sins seriously denounced in the Gospel
-are love of money and hypocrisy, and those are the supreme Anglo-Saxon
-virtues. When we find a nation of swindlers bent on putting down
-polygamy in Utah, and a nation of pirates objecting to child-marriages
-in Hindustan, we are clearly face to face with some form of insanity.
-And it is becoming more difficult every day to escape out of the power
-of the maniacs.
-
-“Rousseau rendered greater services to the democracy of Europe and
-America than any one man who has ever lived. He is the author of the
-Declaration of Independence, and the author of universal suffrage. And
-yet if any follower of Rousseau attempted to set up a community to lead
-the life which Rousseau lived and advocated, anywhere within reach of
-that democracy, it would be put down by force. This isle is now the
-property of a hospital--of course, a hospital for the benefit of the
-democracy. I have written proposing to acquire the island and build on
-it a hospital for men of letters, and even that is more than democracy
-can tolerate; my letter has not been acknowledged. Switzerland is
-covered with sanatoriums for every kind of disease, but there is no
-sanatorium for genius. The Swiss are making millions a year out of
-Byron’s praises of their scenery; they grudge the smallest corner of
-their soil to be a home for other Byrons.
-
-“As far as I can see, there are only three or four countries which have
-still been spared a measure of freedom, and they will not retain it
-very long. The Puritans have been howling for the blood of the Turks
-for generations, and I doubt if their mutual jealousy will hold them
-back much longer from civilizing the whole of Islam. China has been
-spared for the moment, but it cannot be saved except on condition that
-it follows the Japanese example and becomes as greedy and bloodthirsty
-as the Christian Powers.
-
-“However, I shall now visit the countries that have not been annexed up
-to the present, and try to find some spot where it may be possible to
-set up a city of refuge. I will found a spiritual order like the old
-Knights of the Temple. Who knows that we may not be able to preserve
-one spot of the planet alike from the millionaire and the Socialist,
-the slave-driver and the slave?
-
-“In my monastery, dear Hero, there will be neither marrying nor giving
-in marriage, and none need declare himself man or woman unless he
-pleases. In all matters we shall strive to obtain freedom without
-disorder, and happiness without selfishness. We shall have many guests
-who will be refreshed and comforted, and sent upon their way, but only
-after long trial and approval will any be admitted to our Order. We
-shall have servants, whom we shall treat as brethren without calling
-them lay-brothers, and they will do their work, as we shall do ours.
-
-“Such are the thoughts and plans I wished to lay before you, but I dare
-not wish that you should make them yours. Doubtless you will consider
-them with kindness and with wisdom, and will tell me your decision.
-
-“I shall wait here another week for your answer before setting out for
-the East.”
-
-
-
-
-THE NEW WORD
-
-by ALLEN UPWARD
-
-_$1.50 net_
-
-
-“In this book a man, who in the broader sense of both words is at once
-a scientist and a seer, has undertaken an inquiry into the sources of
-knowledge and the foundations of faith, a review of the jurisdiction
-of materialism and the credentials of the idealists, that has worked
-out into what he himself has admirably defined as a ‘circumnavigation
-of hope.’ Mr. Upward’s equipment as a navigator of these reef-strewn
-and mirage-haunted seas is unequalled in our day. A man of scientific
-training and legal aptitude, a philologist of amazing insight, a
-debater with a wide knowledge of men, a broad culture, and a trenchant
-mind, no English writer of the post-Darwinian period has approached
-him in the gift of putting into living folk-speech the tangled
-technicalities of the schoolmen; no controversial critic has had at his
-command so vitriolic a wit and used it so magnanimously; no ruthless
-iconoclast of intellectual idols has shown himself so conservative and
-yet so able an architect of intellectual optimism. Mr. Upward’s inquiry
-is developed as an interpretation of a cryptic phrase in the will of
-Alfred Nobel, ‘a work of an idealistic tendency.’ Its professed object
-is ‘to forge upon the anvil of sense a definition of hope that will
-ring true in the ear of the materialist as well as of the idealist.’
-And its prosecution is Socratic in its argumentative shrewdness,
-its unity of purpose, its unswerving directness and its triumphant
-simplicity.”
-
-                                           --_Mr. J. B. Kerfoot in LIFE_
-
-  _At all booksellers or sent postpaid by the publisher on receipt of
-  price._
-
-MITCHELL KENNERLEY. Publisher, New York
-
-
-
-
-TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
-
-
-  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
-
-  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
-
-  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
-
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