Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  Lady Maud was thinking of these things as she disappeared from Griggs’s sight, and not at all of him. It might have surprised her to know that his eyes had followed her with sincere admiration, and perhaps she would have been pleased. There is a sort of admiration which acknowledged beauties take for granted, and to which they attach no value unless it is refused them; but there is another kind that brings them rare delight when they receive it, for it is always given spontaneously, whether it be the wondering exclamation of a street boy who has never seen anything so beautiful in his life, or a quiet look and a short phrase from an elderly man who has seen what is worth seeing for thirty or forty years, and who has given up making compliments.

  The young widow was quite unconscious of Griggs’s look and was very busy with her thoughts, for she was a little afraid that she had made trouble. Ten days had passed since she had last written to Rufus Van Torp, and she had told him, amongst other things, that Madame da Cordova and Logotheti were engaged to be married, adding that it seemed to her one of the most ill-assorted matches of the season, and that her friend the singer was sure to be miserable herself and to make her husband perfectly wretched, though he was a very good sort in his way and she liked him. There had been no reason why she should not write the news to Mr. Van Torp, even though it was not public property yet, for he was her intimate friend, and she knew him to be as reticent as all doctors ought to be and as some solicitors’ clerks are. She had asked him not to tell any one till he heard of the engagement from some one else.

  He had not spoken of it, but something else had happened. He had cabled to Lady Maud that he was coming back to England by the next steamer. He often came out and went back suddenly two or three times at short intervals, and then stayed away for many months, but Lady Maud thought there could not be much doubt as to his reason for coming now. She knew well enough that he had tried to persuade the Primadonna to marry him during the previous winter, and that if his passion for her had not shown itself much of late, this was due to other causes, chiefly to the persecution of which he had rid himself just before he went to America, but to some extent also to the fact that Margaret had not seemed inclined to accept any one else.

  Lady Maud, who knew the man better than he knew himself, inwardly compared him to a volcano, quiescent just now, so far as Margaret was concerned, but ready to break out at any moment with unexpected and destructive energy.

  Margaret herself, who had known Logotheti for years, and had seen him in his most dangerous moods as well as in his very best moments, would have thought a similar comparison with an elemental force quite as truly descriptive of him, if it had occurred to her. The enterprising Greek had really attempted to carry her off by force on the night of the final rehearsal before her first appearance on the stage, and had only been thwarted because a royal rival had caused him to be locked up, as if by mistake, in order to carry her off himself; in which he also had failed most ridiculously, thanks to the young singer’s friend, the celebrated Madame Bonanni. That was a very amusing story. But on another occasion Margaret had found herself shut up with her Oriental adorer in a room from which she could not escape, and he had quite lost his head; and if she had not been the woman she was, she would have fared ill. After that he had behaved more like an ordinary human being, and she had allowed the natural attraction he had for her to draw her gradually to a promise of marriage; and now she talked to Lady Maud about her gown, but she still put off naming a day for the wedding, in spite of Logotheti’s growing impatience.

  This was the situation when the London season broke up and Mr. Van Torp landed at Southampton from an ocean greyhound that had covered the distance from New York in five days twelve hours and thirty-seven minutes, which will doubtless seem very slow travelling if any one takes the trouble to read this tale twenty years hence, though the passengers were pleased because it was not much under the record time for steamers coming east.

  Five hours after he landed Van Torp entered Lady Maud’s drawing-room in the little house in Charles Street, Berkeley Square, where she had lived with the departed Leven from the time when he had been attached to the Russian Embassy till he had last gone away. She was giving it up now, and it was already half dismantled. It was to see Van Torp that she was in town in the middle of August, instead of with her father at Craythew or with friends in Scotland.

  London was as hot as it could be, which means that a New Yorker would have found it chilly and an Italian delightfully cool; but the Londoners were sweltering when Van Torp arrived, and were talking of the oppressive atmosphere and the smell of the pavement, not at all realising how blessed they were.

  The American entered and stood still a moment to have a good look at Lady Maud. He was a middle-sized, rather thick-set man, with rude hands, sandy hair, an over-developed jaw, and sharp blue eyes, that sometimes fixed themselves in a disagreeable way when he was speaking — eyes that had looked into the barrel of another man’s revolver once or twice without wavering, hands that had caught and saddled and bridled many an unridden colt in the plains, a mouth like a carpet-bag when it opened, like a closed vice when it was shut. He was not a handsome man, Mr. Rufus Van Torp, nor one with whom any one short of a prize-fighter would meddle, nor one to haunt the dreams of sweet sixteen. It was not for his face that Lady Maud, good and beautiful, liked him better than any one in the world, except her own father, and believed in him and trusted him, and it was assuredly not for his money. The beggar did not live who would dare to ask him for a penny after one look at his face, and there were not many men on either side of the Atlantic who would have looked forward to any sort of contest with him without grave misgivings.

  ‘Well,’ he said, advancing the last step after that momentary pause, and taking the white hand in both his own, ‘how have you been? Fair to middling? About that? Well — I’m glad to see you, gladder than a sitting hen at sunrise!’

  Lady Maud laid her left hand affectionately on the man’s right, which was uppermost on hers, and her voice rippled with happiness.

  ‘If you had only said a lark instead of a hen, Rufus!’ she laughed.

  ‘We could get along a great sight better without larks than without hens,’ answered her friend philosophically. ‘But I’ll make it a nightingale next time, if I can remember, or a bald eagle, or any bird that strikes you as cheerful.’

  The terrible mouth had relaxed almost to gentleness, and the fierce blue eyes were suddenly kind as they looked into the woman’s face. She led him to an old-fashioned sofa, their hands parted, and they sat down side by side.

  ‘Cheerful,’ he said, in a tone of reflection. ‘Yes, I’m feeling pretty cheerful, and it’s all over and settled.’

  ‘Do you mean the trouble you were in last spring?’

  ‘N — no — not that, though it wasn’t as funny as a Sunday School treat while it lasted, and I was thankful when it was through. It’s another matter altogether that I’m cheerful about — besides seeing you, my dear. I’ve done it, Maud. I’ve done it at last.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve sold my interest in the Trust. It won’t be made known for some time, so don’t talk about it, please. But it’s settled and done, and I’ve got the money.’

  ‘You have sold the Nickel Trust?’

  Lady Maud’s lips remained parted in surprise.

  ‘And I’ve bought you a little present with the proceeds,’ he answered, putting his large thumb and finger into the pocket of his white waistcoat. ‘It’s only a funny little bit of glass I picked up,’ he continued, producing a small twist of stiff writing-paper. ‘You needn’t think it’s so very fine! But it’s a pretty colour, and when you’re out of mourning I daresay you’ll make a hat-pin of it. I like handsome hat-pins myself, you know.’

  He had untwisted the paper while speaking, it lay open in the palm of his hand, and Lady Maud saw a stone of the size of an ordinary hazel-nut, very perfectly cut, and of that wonderful transparent red colour which is known as ‘pigeon’s blood,’ and
which it is almost impossible to describe. Sunlight shining through Persian rose-leaf sherbet upon white silk makes a little patch of colour that is perhaps more like it than any other shade of red, but not many Europeans have ever seen that, and it is a good deal easier to go and look at a pigeon’s blood ruby in a jeweller’s window.

  ‘What a beautiful colour!’ exclaimed Lady Maud innocently, after a moment. ‘I didn’t know they imitated rubies so well, though, of course, I know nothing about it. If it were not an impossibility, I should take it for a real one.’

  ‘So should I,’ assented Mr. Van Torp quietly. ‘It’ll make a pretty hat-pin anyway. Shall I have it mounted for you?’

  ‘Thanks, awfully, but I think I should like to keep it as it is for a little while. It’s such a lovely colour, just as it is. Thank you so much! Do tell me where you got it.’

  ‘Oh, well, there was a sort of a traveller came to New York the other day selling them what they call privately. I guess he must be a Russian or something, for he has a kind of an off-look of your husband, only he wears a beard and an eyeglass. It must be about the eyes. Maybe the forehead too. He’ll most likely turn up in London one of these days to sell this invention, or whatever it is.’

  Lady Maud said nothing to this, but she took the stone from his hand, looked at it some time with evident admiration, and then set it down on its bit of paper, upon a little table by the end of the sofa.

  ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t leave it around much,’ observed Mr. Van Torp carelessly. ‘Somebody might take a fancy to it. The colour’s attractive, you see, and it looks like real.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll be very careful of it, never fear! I can’t tell you how much I like it!’ She twisted it up tightly in its bit of paper, rose to her feet, and put it away in her writing-table.

  ‘It’ll be a sort of souvenir of the old Nickel Trust,’ said her friend, watching her with satisfaction.

  ‘Have you really sold out all your interest in it?’ she asked, sitting down again; and now that she returned to the question her tone showed that she had not yet recovered from her astonishment.

  ‘That’s what I’ve done. I always told you I would, when I was ready. Why do you look so surprised? Would you rather I hadn’t?’

  Lady Maud shook her head and her voice rippled deliciously as she answered.

  ‘I can hardly imagine you without the Nickel Trust, that’s all! What in the world shall you do with yourself?’

  ‘Oh, various kinds of things. I think I’ll get married, for one. Then I’ll take a rest and sort of look around. Maybe something will turn up. I’ve concluded to win the Derby next year — that’s something anyway.’

  ‘Rather! Have you thought of anything else?’

  She laughed a little, but was grave the next moment, for she knew him much too well to believe that he had taken such a step out of caprice, or a mere fancy for change; his announcement that he meant to marry agreed too well with what she herself had suddenly foreseen when she had parted with Griggs in Bond Street a few days earlier. If Margaret had not at last made up her mind to accept Logotheti — supposing that her decision was really final — Rufus Van Torp would not suddenly have felt sure that he himself must marry her if she married at all. His English friend could not have put into words what she felt had taken place in his heart, but she understood him as no one else could, and was certain that he had reached one of the great cross-roads of his life.

  A woman who has been married for years to such a man as Leven, and who tries to do good to those fallen and cast-out ones who laugh and cry and suffer out their lives, and are found dead behind the Virtue-Curtain, is not ignorant of the human animal’s instincts and ways, and Lady Maud was not at all inclined to believe her friend a Galahad. In the clean kingdom of her dreams men could be chaste, and grown women could be as sweetly ignorant of harm as little children; but when she opened her eyes and looked about her she saw, and she understood, and did not shiver with delicate disgust, nor turn away with prim disapproval, nor fancy that she would like to be a mediæval nun and induce the beatific state by merciless mortification of the body. She knew very well what the Virtue-Curtain was trying to hide; she lifted it quietly, went behind it without fear, and did all she could to help the unhappy ones she found there. She did not believe in other people’s theories at all, and had none herself; she did not even put much faith in all the modern scientific talk about vicious inheritance and degeneration; much more than half of the dwellers behind the scenes had been lured there in ignorance, a good many had been dragged there by force, a very considerable number had been deliberately sold into slavery, and nine out of ten of them stayed there because no one really tried to get them out. Perhaps no one who did try was rich enough; for it is not to be expected that every human sinner should learn in a day to prefer starving virtue to well-fed vice, or, as Van Torp facetiously expressed it, a large capital locked up in heavenly stocks to a handsome income accruing from the bonds of sin. If Lady Maud succeeded, as she sometimes did, the good done was partly due to the means he gave her for doing it.

  ‘Come and be bad and you shall have a good time while you are young,’ the devil had said, assuming the appearance, dress, and manner of fashion, without any particular regard for age.

  ‘Give it up and I’ll make you so comfortable that you’ll really like not being bad,’ said Lady Maud, and the invitation was sometimes accepted.

  Evidently, a woman who occupied herself with this form of charity could not help knowing and hearing a good deal about men which would have surprised and even shocked her social sisters, and she was not in danger of taking Rufus Van Torp for an ascetic in disguise.

  On the contrary, she was quite able to understand that the tremendous attraction the handsome singer had for him might be of the most earthly kind, such as she herself would not care to call love, and that, if she was right, it would not be partially dignified by any of that true artistic appreciation which brought Logotheti such rare delight, and disguised a passion not at all more ethereal than Van Torp’s might be. In refinement of taste, no comparison was possible between the Western-bred millionaire and the cultivated Greek, who knew every unfamiliar by-way and little hidden treasure of his country’s literature and art, besides very much of what other nations had done and written. Yet Lady Maud, influenced, no doubt, by the honest friendship of her American friend, believed that Van Torp would be a better and more faithful husband, even to a primadonna, than his Oriental rival.

  Notwithstanding her opinion of him, however, she was not prepared for his next move. He had noticed the grave look that had followed her laughter, and he turned away and was silent for a few moments.

  ‘The Derby’s a side show,’ he said at last. ‘I’ve come over to get married, and I want you to help me. Will you?’

  ‘Can I?’ asked Lady Maud, evasively.

  ‘Yes, you can, and I believe there’ll be trouble unless you do.’

  ‘Who is she? Do I know her?’ She was trying to put off the evil moment.

  ‘Oh, yes, you know her quite well. It’s Madame Cordova.’

  ‘But she’s engaged to Monsieur Logotheti — —’

  ‘I don’t care. I mean to marry her if she marries any one. He shan’t have her anyway.’

  ‘But I cannot deliberately help you to break off her engagement! It’s impossible!’

  ‘See here,’ answered Mr. Van Torp. ‘You know that Greek, and you know me. Which of us will make the best husband for an English girl? That’s what Madame Cordova is, after all. I put it to you. If you were forced to choose one of us yourself, which would you take? That’s the way to look at it.’

  ‘But Miss Donne is not “forced” to take one of you — —’

  ‘She’s going to be. It’s the same. Besides, I said “if.” Won’t you answer me?’

  ‘She’s in love with Monsieur Logotheti,’ said Lady Maud, rather desperately.

  ‘Is she, now? I wonder. I don’t much think so myself. He’s clever and he’s obsti
nate, and he’s just made her think she’s in love, that’s all. Anyhow, that’s not an answer to my question. Other things being alike, if she had to choose, which of us would be the best husband for her? — the better, I mean. You taught me to say “better,” didn’t you?’

  Lady Maud tried to smile.

  ‘Of two, yes,’ she answered. ‘You are forcing my hand, my dear friend,’ she went on very gravely. ‘You know very well that I trust you with all my heart. If it were possible to imagine a case in which the safety of the world could depend on my choosing one of you for my husband, you know very well that I should take you, though I never was the least little bit in love with you, any more than you ever were with me.’

  ‘Well, but if you would, she ought,’ argued Mr. Van Torp. ‘It’s for her own good, and as you’re a friend of hers, you ought to help her to do what’s good for her. That’s only fair. If she doesn’t marry me, she’s certain to marry that Greek, so it’s a forced choice, it appears to me.’