“Don’t say such things, Molly,” he said, bending his head over the desk and fumbling with his pen.
“Well, I knew you’d be sympathetic. It’s a shame — a crime! — it’s absolutely disgusting the way that men gamble with other people’s money and cheat and lie and — and — oh, it’s a perfectly rotten world and I’m tired of it!”
“Where is Mrs. Leeds?” he asked in a low voice.
“At Witch-Hollow — in town for this afternoon to see her stupid lawyers. They don’t do anything. They say they can’t just yet. They’re lazy or — something worse. That’s my opinion. We go out on the five-three train — Strelsa and I — —”
“Is she — much affected?”
“No; and that’s the silly part of it. It would simply wreck me. But she hasn’t wept a single tear.... I suppose she’ll have to marry, now—” Mrs. Wycherly glanced askance at Quarren, but his face remained gravely expressionless.
“Ricky dear?”
“Yes.”
“I had a frightful row, on your account, with Mrs. Sprowl.”
“I’m sorry. Why?”
“I told her I was going to ask you and Strelsa to Witch-Hollow.”
Quarren said calmly:
“Don’t do it then, Molly. There’s no use of your getting in wrong with Mrs. Sprowl.”
Mrs. Wycherly laughed:
“Oh, I found a way around. I asked Mrs. Sprowl and Sir Charles at the same time.”
“What do you mean?” he said, turning a colourless face to hers.
“What I say. Ricky dear, I suppose that Strelsa will have to marry a wealthy man, now — and I believe she realises it, too — but I — I wanted her to marry you, some day — —”
He swung around again, confronting her.
“You darling!” he said under his breath.
Mrs. Wycherly’s lip trembled and she dabbed at her eyes.
“I wish I could express my feelings like Mrs. Sprowl, but I can’t,” she said naïvely. “Sir Charles will marry her, now; I know perfectly well he will — unless Langly Sprowl — —”
Quarren drew his breath sharply.
“Not that man,” she said.
“God knows, Ricky. He’s after Strelsa every minute — and he can make himself agreeable. The worst of it is that Strelsa does not believe what she hears about him. Women are that way, often. The moment the whole world pitches into a man, women are inclined to believe him a martyr — and end by discrediting every unworthy story concerning him.... I don’t know, but I think it is already a little that way with Strelsa.... He’s a clever brute — and oh! what a remorseless man!... I said that once to Strelsa, and she said very warmly that I entirely misjudged him.... I wish Mary Ledwith would come back and bring things to a crisis — I do, indeed.”
Quarren said, calmly;
“You don’t think Mrs. Leeds is engaged to Sprowl, do you?”
“No.... I don’t think so. Sometimes I don’t know what to think of Strelsa. I’m certain that she was not engaged to him four weeks ago when she was at Newport.”
Quarren gazed out into the sunlit street. It was just four weeks ago that her letters ceased. Had she stopped writing because of worry over the Adamant Trust? Or was there another reason?
“I suppose,” said Molly, dabbing at her eyes, “that Strelsa can’t pick and choose now. I suppose she’s got to marry for sordid and sensible and material reasons. But if only she would choose Sir Charles — I think I could be almost reconciled to her losing you — —”
Quarren laughed harshly.
“An irreparable loss to any woman,” he said. “I doubt that Mrs. Leeds survives losing me.”
“Ricky! She cares a great deal for you! So do I. And Strelsa does care for you — —”
“Not too rashly I hope,” he said with another disagreeable laugh.
“Oh, that isn’t like you, Ricky! You’re not the sneering, fleering nasty kind. If you are badly hurt, take it better than that — —”
“I can’t!” he said between set teeth. “I care for her; she knows it. I guess she knows, too, that what she once said to me started me into what I’m doing now — working, waiting, living like a dog — doing my best to keep my self-respect and obtain hers—” He choked, regained his self-control, and went on quietly:
“Why do you think I dropped out of everything? To try to develop whatever may be in me — so that I could speak to her as an equal and not as the court jester and favourite mountebank of the degenerate gang she travels with — —”
“Ricky!”
“I beg your pardon,” he said sullenly.
“I am not offended, you poor boy.... I hadn’t realised that you were so much in love with her — so deeply concerned — —”
“I have always been.... She knows it....” He cleared his eyes and turned a dazed gaze on the sunny street once more.
“If I could—” he stopped; a hopeless look came into his eyes. Then he slowly shook his head.
“Oh, Ricky! Ricky! Can’t you do something? Can’t you make a lot of money very quickly? You see Strelsa has simply got to marry money. Be fair; be just to her. A girl can’t exist without money, can she? You know that, don’t you?”
“I’ve heard your world say so.”
“You know it’s true!”
“I don’t know what is true. I don’t know truth from falsehood. I suppose that love requires money to keep it nourished — as roses require manure — —”
“Ricky!”
“I’m speaking of your world — —”
“My world! The entire world knows that money is necessary — except perhaps a silly sentimentalist here and there — —”
“Yes, there are one or two — here and there,” he said. “But they’re all poor — and prejudiced.”
Molly applied her handkerchief to her eyes, viciously.
“I hope you are not one, Ricky. I’m sure I’m not fool enough to expect a girl who has been accustomed to everything to be contented without anything.”
“There’s her husband as an asset.”
“Oh, my dear, don’t talk slush!”
“ — And — children — perhaps.”
“And no money to educate them! You dear boy, there is nothing to do — absolutely nothing — unless it’s based on money. You know it; I know it. People without it are intolerable — a nuisance to everybody and to themselves. What could Strelsa find in life without the means to enjoy it?”
“Nothing — perhaps.... But I believe I’ll ask her.”
“She’ll tell you the truth, Ricky. She’s an unusually truthful woman.... I must go downtown. Strelsa and I are lunching” — she reddened— “with Langly.... His aunt would kill me if she heard of it.... I positively do not dare ask Langly to Witch-Hollow because I’m so deadly afraid of that fat old woman!... Besides, I don’t want him there — although — if Strelsa has to marry him — —”
She fell silent and thoughtful, reflecting, perhaps, that if Strelsa was going to take Langly Sprowl, her own country house might as well have the benefit of any fashionable and social glamour incident to the announcement.
Then, glancing at Quarren, her heart smote her, and she flushed:
“Come up to Witch-Hollow, Ricky dear, and get her to elope with you if you can! Will you?”
“I’ll come to Witch-Hollow if you ask me.”
“That’s ducky of you. You are a good sport, Ricky — and always were! Go on and marry her if you can. Other women have stood it.... And, I know it’s vulgar and low and catty of me — but I’d love to see Mrs. Sprowl blow up — and see that hatchet-faced Langly disappointed — yes, I would, and I don’t care what you think! Their ancestors were common people, and Heaven knows why a Wycherly of Wycherly should be afraid of the descendants of Dutch rum smugglers!”
Quarren looked up with a weary smile.
“But you are afraid,” he said.
“I am,” admitted Molly, furiously; and marched out.
As he put her into her car h
e said:
“Write me if you don’t change your mind about asking me to Witch-Hollow.”
“No fear,” said the pretty little woman; “and,” she added, “I hope you make mischief and raise the very dickens all around. I sincerely hope you do!”
“I hope so, too,” he said with the ghost of a smile.
“A fortnight later Strelsa wrote to Quarren for the first time in nearly two months.”
CHAPTER VIII
A fortnight later Strelsa wrote to Quarren for the first time in nearly two months.
“Dear Mr. Quarren,
“Molly says that she saw you in town two weeks ago, and that she told you how unexpectedly my worldly affairs have altered since I last wrote to you.
“For me, somehow or other, life has been always a sequence of abrupt experiences — a series of extremes — one grotesque exaggeration after another, and all diametrically opposed. And it seems odd that such radically material transformations should so ruthlessly disturb and finally, now, end by completely altering the character of a girl whose real nature is — or was — unaccented and serene to the verge of indifference. For the woman writing this is very different from the one you knew as Strelsa Leeds.
“I am not yet sure what the outcome of this Adamant affair will be. Neither, apparently, are my attorneys. But it is absolutely certain that if I ever recover anything at all, it will not amount to very much — not nearly enough to live on.
“When they first brought the unpleasant news to me my instinct was to sit down and write you about it. I was horribly scared, and wanted you to know it.
“I didn’t yield to the impulse as you know — I cannot give you the reasons why. They were merely intuitions at first; later they became reasons as my financial situation developed in all its annoying proportions.
“I can tell you only this: before material disaster threatened me out of a clear sky, supposing that matters would always remain with me as they were — that I should never know any serious want, never apprehend actual necessity — I had made up my mind to a course of life which now has become impossible.
“It was not, perhaps, a very admirable plan of existence that I had conceived for myself, nothing radical or original. I meant, merely, not to marry, to live well within my income, to divide my time between my friends and myself — that is to give myself more leisure for self-development, tranquil cultivation, and a wider and more serious interest in things worthy.
“If by dividing my time between my friends and myself I was to lose touch more or less with the lively and rather exacting society in which I live, I had decided on the sacrifice.
“And that, Mr. Quarren, is how matters stood with me until a month ago.
“Now everything is altered — even my own character I think. There is in me very little courage — and, alas, much of that cowardice which shrinks from pain and privation of any kind — which cringes the more basely, perhaps, because there has been, in my life, so much of sorrow, so little of material ease and tranquility of mind.
“I had been dreaming of a balanced and secure life with leisure to develop mental resources hitherto neglected. And your friendship — our new understanding — meant much of that part of life for me — more than I realised — far more than you do. Can you understand how deep the hurt is? — deeper because now you will learn what a coward I really am and how selfishly I surrender to the menace of material destruction. I am in dire terror of it; I simply do not choose to endure it. That I need not submit to it, inspires in me the low type of equanimity that enables me to face the future with apparent courage. My world applauds it as pluck. I have confessed to you what it really is.
“Now you know me, Mr. Quarren — a preacher of lofty ideals while prosperous, a recreant in adversity.
“I thought once that the most ignoble sentiments ever entertained by man were those lesser and physical emotions which, in the world, masquerade as love — or as an essential part of it. To me they always seemed intolerable as any part of love, material, unworthy, base. To me love was intellectual — could be nothing less lofty — and should aspire to the spiritual.
“I say this because you once tried to make me understand that you loved me.
“Marriage of two minds with nothing material to sully an ideal union was what I had dreamed of. I might have cared for you that way when a marriage tainted with lesser emotions repelled me. And now, like all iconoclasts, I end by shattering my own complacent image, and the fragments have fallen to the lowest depth of all.
“For I contemplate a mariage de convenance — and I scarcely care whom I marry as long as he removes from me this terror of a sordid and needy future.
“All ideals, all desire for higher and better things — for a noble leisure and the quiet pleasures of self-development, have gone — vanished utterly. Fear sickens me night and day — the same dull dread that I have known so many, many years in my life — a blind horror of more unhappiness and pain after two years of silence — that breathless stillness which frightened wounded things know while they lie, panting, dazed listening for the coming footsteps of that remorseless Fate which struck them down from afar.
“I tell you this, Mr. Quarren, because it is due to you if you really love me — or if you once did love me — because when you have read this you will no longer care for me.
“One evening you made me understand that you cared for me; and I replied to you only by a dazed silence that neither you nor I entirely understood at the time. It was not contempt for you — yet, perhaps, I could not really have cared very deeply for such a man as you then seemed to be. It was not intellectual indifference that silenced me.... And I can say no more about it — except that — something — changed me radically from that moment — and ever since I have been trying to understand myself — to learn something about myself — and of the world I live in — and of men.
“When a crisis arrives self-revelation comes in a single flash. My financial crisis arrived as you know; I suddenly saw myself as I am — a woman astonishingly undeveloped and ignorant in many ways, crude, unawakened, stupid — a woman half-blinded with an unreasoning dread of more pain — pain which she thought had at last been left behind her — and a coward all through; and selfish from head to heel.
“This is what I really am. And I shall prove it by marrying for reasons entirely material, because I have no courage to ever again face adversity and unhappiness.
“‘I say, Quarren — does this old lady hang next to the battered party in black?’”
“You will not care to write to me; and you will not care to see me again.
“I am glad you once cared for me. If you should ever reply to this letter, don’t be very unkind to me. I know what I am — and I vaguely surmise what I shall lose by being so. But I have no courage for anything else.
“Strelsa Leeds.”
That was the letter she wrote to Quarren; and he read it standing by his desk while several noisy workmen were covering every available inch of his walls with Dankmere’s family pictures, and the little Earl himself, whistling a lively air, trotted about superintending everything with all the cheerful self-confidence of a family dog regulating everything that goes on in his vicinity.
“I say, Quarren — does this old lady hang next to the battered party in black?” he demanded briskly.
Quarren looked around; “Yes,” he said, “they’re both by Nicholas Maas according to your list.”
“I think they’re bally fakes,” remarked the Earl, “don’t you?”
“We’ll try to find out,” said Quarren, absently.
Dankmere puffed away on his cigar and consulted his list: “Reynolds (Sir Joshua). Portrait of Lady Dankmere,” he read; “portrait of Sir Boggs Dankmere! — string ’em up aloft over that jolly little lady with no frock on! — Rembrandt (Van Rijn). Born near Leyden, July 15th, 1607 — Oh, who cares as long as it is a Rembrandt! — Is it, Quarren? It isn’t a copy, is it?”
“I hope not,” said the young fellow a
bsently.
“Egad! So do I.” And to the workmen— “Philemon and Baucis by Rembrandt! Hang ’em up next to that Romney — over the Jan Steen ... Quarren?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think that St. Michael’s Mount is a real Turner?”
“It looks like it. I can’t express opinions off-hand, Dankmere.”
“I can,” said the little Earl; “and I say that if that is a Turner I can beat it myself working with tomato catsup, an underdone omelette, and a clothes-brush.... Hello! I like this picture. The list calls it a Watteau— ‘The Fête Champêtre.’ What do you know about it, Quarren?”
“Nothing yet. It seems to be genuine enough.”
“And this pretty girl by Boucher?”
“I tell you, Dankmere, that I don’t know. They all appear to be genuine, after a superficial examination. It takes time to be sure about any picture — and if we’re going to be certain it will require confabs with authorities — restorers, dealers, experts, curators from various museums — all sorts and conditions of people must be approached and warily consulted — and paid,” he added smiling. “And that has to be done with circumspection because some are not honest and we don’t want anybody to get the impression that we are attempting to bribe anybody for a favourable verdict.”
A few minutes later he went across the street and telegraphed to Molly Wycherly:
“May I remind you that you asked me to Witch-Hollow?
Quarren.”
The following morning after the workmen had departed, he and Dankmere stood contemplating the transformations wrought in the office, back parlour, and extension of Quarren’s floor in the shabby old Lexington Avenue house.
The transformation was complete; all woodwork had been painted white, a gray-green paper hung on the walls, the floor stained dark brown and covered with several antique rugs which had come with the pictures — a Fereghan, a Ladik, and an ancient Herez with rose and sapphire lights in it.
At the end of the suite hung another relic of Dankmere Tarns — a Gobelins tapestry about ten by twelve, signed by Audran, the subject of which was Boucher’s “Venus, Mars, and Vulcan” from the picture in the Wallace Collection. Opposite it was suspended an old Persian carpet of the sixteenth century — a magnificent Dankmere heirloom woven in the golden age of ancient Eastern art and displaying amid the soft splendour of its matchless hues the strange and exquisitely arched cloud-forms traced in forgotten dyes amid a wilderness of delicate flowers and vines.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 596