Sir James chuckled.
“I think your Italian accent is wonderful,” he said. “I can hear Marelli talking. Continue please.” Brute Bellingham continued. He had no wish to be shot or to shoot. He explained what he wanted, where he stood, and Marelli listened, first with surprise, then with a secret laugh. The honest Brute Bellingham described that laugh with a grimace, as though he had bitten upon an unsavoury morsel in his food.
“Italianish — all venom and stilettos — and not a sound with it — eyes like flints — shoulders shaking and not a sound from his lips. I shivered. I thought of one of those sparks who asked you to supper and pricked your finger with his ring as he shook hands and you went home and died five hours later as big as an elephant. When he had laughed enough, he put up his sword and pistol and agreed to come on his own terms — the secret to be kept to the last moment, and he would drive to the house and away from it in his own chaise. I said I’d pay him his fee.”
“And what did he say to that?” asked Elliot with a grin.
Brute Bellingham, with a sour expression, filled himself another glass of the Madeira.
“He was damned impolite. He told me I was a comical fellow to fancy I could afford it. He’d pay himself, thank you. Now what did he mean by that?”
Sir James shook his head. Julian certainly did not propose to sing for nothing at Grest, but his price was buried in his own fierce heart. Sir James, however, had not to answer. For Brute Bellingham suddenly drew up a chair to the side of the writing-table and sat down on it.
“He said that he would wait in the Library with the big book-case until I came for him. Now, how the devil did he know that the Library opened into the drawing-room? Or of the big book-case?”
“The big book-case is famous,” Elliot replied instantly.
“Oh, is it?”
Mr. Bellingham pushed his chair a trifle closer to the table. There was a heavy perplexity in his face, even a trace of suspicion.
“Did you ever see an Italiano with blue eyes as sharp as swords?”
“Many,” said Sir James.
“All those Connoisseurs and Spectators jeer at ’em as melting.”
“It’s the ladies who melt,” said Sir James.
“And a lot of use that’d be,” cried Brute Bellingham with a roar of laughter.
Elliot thrust his chair back with a movement of disgust, but Bellingham was, at all events, diverted from a dangerous line of speculation and Elliot hurried on to ask:
“Where is Marelli now?”
“He’s on his way to my house with Bob Joyce and Charlie Bassett in his chaise with him. He changed horses here and should be there before midnight.”
“He changed horses here! When?”
“Half an hour ago. Just before I sent up my name to you.”
“Did he know I was in the Inn?”
“Not unless he was to meet you here. I didn’t know until he had gone, and he didn’t leave his chaise.”
Sir James nodded his head. An old notion had returned to him that there was a design and pattern in all these accidental happenings against which it was useless to struggle. The stage was set at Grest for the accomplishment of a great tragedy with the fatality of a Greek play. “What is, is, and dreams have their end.” Who had said that? Crespino Ferrer on Ischia. Julian had been travelling towards Grest, wondering, perhaps, how he should force an entrance into his own house and bring his contented enemies to their bitter reckoning. And lo! by the crazy invention of this great lout, Brute Bellingham, the perfect road had opened out. Henry Linchcombe with his new Office, Frances with her beauty, her high position and her child, were sitting quietly amongst their dreams in their most lordly mansion, and over the dark roads the avenger was drawing nearer with every revolution of the wheels. Nothing could hinder the designated end. Let him meddle, if he dared, and another way as unforeseen would open. But Elliot did not dare. He was no more than a word of conjunction in the whole grim story and must fall obediently into his place. He tore up the sheet of paper with its splutter of ink in front of him.
“I shall go to Grest,” he said. “I shall do as Julian asks.”
He was too burdened to realize what name he had used and to see the amazement which overspread Bellingham’s face. But he was oddly conscious that the odour of musk and amber was heavy in the room.
XXVI. JULIAN RETURNS TO GREST
“SLR JAMES, THE decanter is blushing for your dreams,” said Henry Scoble.
“They were as white as a child’s, full of ogres and big faces and strange fears,” Elliot replied.
He hurriedly filled his glass with port and passed on the decanter to his neighbour. Could he have said anything more foolish, he wondered? — But nobody was at the pains to take him up, not even Henry Scoble, who sat smiling and easy at the head of his table. Sir James had been pushed from his discretion by a mind at war with itself over a couple of trifles. On the one hand was the incredible speed with which supper had been served and eaten. Supper was a meal to be taken leisurely, the conversation, light but swift, making for good digestion. But to-night at Grest, it was over, so to say, before it had begun. Another minute and they would be joining the ladies in the great drawing-room. Yet, on the other hand, there had been no flurry, there had not even been that sprightliness of wit which wings a meal from the hors d’œuvres to the sweet as fast as the passage of a bird. There had been country talk — lots of it. Henry Scoble, to be sure, had quoted a few lines from the Georgies, but they had not appreciably lightened the entertainment. The supper party had in fact dragged more than a little.
Elliot had had time to notice the pride of Henry Scoble diffusing about him the consciousness of his Ministerial office, the care with which Frances Scoble waited upon his words and his needs, and, above all, how the light of the candles on the table from mere white specks in the twilight had grown into golden spears now that darkness curtained the windows.
“Now, why in the world am I held in this contradiction?” — so his thoughts ran, but being on the whole naturally honest, he broke off his speculations. “Rubbish, my man! You’re pompous and you’re a coward. You’re in terror of the moment when Henry Scoble will rise from his chair.”
For all was set now. During supper he had heard a sound for which his ears had been alert — the creaking of wheels as a chaise came down the hill to the door. Brute Bellingham was talking loudly as was his way. Had any but himself heard? He was reminded most relevantly and most unhappily of the legend of a great Scotch family: — that when the chieftain of the family was to die, the death-coach was heard winding down the glen behind the house. But no one except himself had been aware of that grim warning — unless — yes, unless one... For Frances Scoble dropped her napkin on the floor at that moment, and the butler, old Gurton, picked it up. She stooped too and her face was hid. As she raised her head again, it seemed to him that her face was white beneath its paint — the face of a woman who lived very near to fear, but kept it dungeoned in her soul. Yet she answered Brute Bellingham easily enough:
“Without the new good bourgeois blood, and the new enterprise we bring into the country, how, my dear Brute, could you stand for a day?”
The moment of fear had passed; or had it ever been? Sir James leaned back in his chair. Was there anything more deceptive than the flicker of a candle across a woman’s face? And the creaking of the wheels had ceased. And after all, Mr. Robert Joyce was expected at the house. Indeed, Frances Scoble had had that expectation in her mind. For she spoke to Gurton:
“If Mr. Joyce has arrived and missed his supper, you will set a place for him.”
“Very good, my Lady,” said Gurton.
He went out of the room and the conversation flowed on. Now the door by which Gurton went out opened behind the back of Frances Scoble and to the left of Elliot, and in a few minutes he saw the door re-open and remain ajar. Elliot had a vision of the man, now growing old in service, standing with his hand upon the door-knob and steadying himself after some
appalling catastrophe. Then the door opened wide. For a moment Gurton remained upon the threshold, surveying the table with its dishes of delicate porcelain heaped high with fruit, golden oranges from overseas, red apples from the home orchard, candles glistening in the light; and the Linchcombe family with a few favoured friends gathered about it. He shut the door behind him silently. He was trained to his service, and the service must go on though the house fall. But Elliot watched his face as he advanced. Here was a man who had seen a ghost and was shaken by the chill of death. Yet he spoke without a tremor in his voice.
“Mr. Joyce, my Lady, will meet you in the drawingroom. He has supped already.”
That excuse was in itself a little perplexing, for, after supper, the port would be hopping from chair to chair about the table and the vintages at Grest Park were rich as princes. However, Frances Scoble was eager for reassurances. She had only heard Gurton’s voice. She had had no glimpse of his face. And a moment afterwards she gave the signal to the ladies. There were five of them in all, a sister-in-law, and a niece of Henry Scoble, a cousin of her own and her great aunt, the stout old Lady Fritton, whom Elliot remembered to have met long ago at “The Golden Ox” in Naples. Brute Bellingham, who was nearest to the door, held it open, and as Frances Scoble passed out the last of her small flock, he said in what he hoped to be a whisper, “I shall persuade Henry to join you before the bottle’s twice round the table. I beg you to wait,” and with many sly nods and grimaces, “I’ve invented a surprise in your ladyship’s honour.”
“Idiot!”
Sir James almost uttered the exclamation aloud. But once again the sense of a tragedy impending which nothing could prevent, not even the stupidity of Brute Bellingham, caught and held him in a kind of admiration. For Frances Scoble faltered in her step, shot a swift glance of alarm at Brute Bellingham and suddenly broke into a laugh which had only amusement in it and disdain.
Brute Bellingham! Plots and alarms and subtleties were none of his inventions. Some new and childish game of cards perhaps. Some wild romp for a house-party!
Thus Elliot explained her laughter. It was the way of such tragedies that by their own wits the victims should be out-played. But at this point in his reflections the decanter, replenished, stood again before Sir James. It had started on its second round, and opposite to Sir James it stopped. For Henry, smiling, gracious, and a trifle condescending, said in answer to a word from Bellingham:
“You shall have your way with us, Brute, to-night,” and he stood up. “Gentlemen,” and with a mocking submission, “I bow to a new master of Grest. Mine own house is not mine own,” and with a bow he stood aside whilst Bellingham held open the door. Henry Scoble was a little heavier in the shoulders than he had been the last time that Elliot had seen him a year ago, but he was still the hard, strong animal with the stubborn red jaw and the blue eyes of his family, and he moved lightly and easily in his gold embroidered coat of scarlet satin, his yellow breeches and his pale grey silk stockings.
A wood fire was burning on the hearth in the drawing-room beneath the great Chinese mirror with the gold storks, and the ladies were gathered about it. But with a swirl of hoops and ribbons, they dissolved like a covey of the partridges to be shot on the morrow, as the men entered the room. A twitter of voices filled the air:
“Come, Brute!”
“I am positively swooning with suspense.”
“Expound, or we die!”
It was Brute’s hour. Sir James Elliot observed, not for the first time, how similar positions have their similar expressions. Brute Bellingham had the very smirk of an impresario titillating an audience with the promise of an incomparable new diva.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “my friend Lord Linchcombe, though I protest I cannot endure his politics...” and he snatched a slip of paper out of his waistcoat pocket. Even Charlie Bassett, his confederate, could not put up with effrontery so blatant.
“Brute!” he cried, shocked to the centre, “you’re not going to make a speech!”
“Just a few friendly thoughts strung together,” said Brute modestly. “For instance—” and he glanced at his slip of notes.
A wail rose from the ladies, an imprecation from the men.
“In front of Lord Linchcombe, too!”
“The arrogance of the man!”
“No wonder the Whigs are in office these fifty years.”
“Take his notes away, please! Then he’ll be tongue-tied!”
Brute Bellingham drew himself up. He was offering to this ribald company the treasures of his mind, pearls of which each one had produced a corresponding bead of sweat upon his forehead. Very well! They should be deprived of them. He advanced.
Henry Scoble was standing with a smile of amusement upon his face sideways to the fire. Behind his shoulder at the corner of the mantelpiece, where no flame from the burning logs could betray her, stood Frances, so still in her pale blue satin gown that not even the diamonds on her breast gave out a single spark. To them Brute Bellingham made his bow.
“To grace this evening above all other evenings, I have brought to Grest for your pleasure a great singer.”
Something rattled upon the floor at Henry Scoble’s heels.
“A great singer! You have brought him, Brute?” said Henry warmly; and it was indeed a rare proof of Bellingham’s goodwill that he, of all men, should have devised so delicate an entertainment. He stooped, picked up his wife’s gold comfit box and handed it to her.
“The sweets, my dear, alas! are spilt beyond recovery;” and it occurred to Elliot, not for the first time that night, how the words which Henry used bore, beyond their plain meaning, an irony of which the speaker was quite unaware. But Elliot was not surprised. The pattern was drawn long since by destiny. Every sentence spoken, every movement made would now weave the tapestry. But Elliot was allowed little time for observation. The ladies broke in too noisily upon him. Their wailings were now raptures.
“A great singer? Who, dear Brute, who?”
“London’s last idol,” cried Robert Joyce, who thought it high time that some of the incense should mount to his nostrils.
“Oh! not... Not...!”
Prayerful clasped white hands were extended towards him.
“Yes,” he said.
“Impossible!” cried the niece.
“I dare not ask,” exclaimed the cousin.
Henry Scoble broke in upon these ecstasies.
“But, my dear Brute, I am moved by your kindness.” He was without suspicion. An unexpected compliment had been paid to him. “Egad, I am moved. But so much generosity is not to be accepted. You must allow me to be the treasurer. I am told these fellows ask a fortune for a ballad.”
“This one,” replied Bellingham, “on the contrary will accept nothing. More! He will sing at no other house in England, but he will for your pleasure sing at Grest.”
Probably not one of these country girls had seen Marelli or heard him. But the fame of his singing, the accounts of his beauty, the stories of the romantic seclusion in which he lived had spread to every house where the London journals were read and young ladies wrote letters.
“It is he, then!” they cried.
“Yes, ladies,” cried Brute Bellingham, with a flourish. “It is Marelli, the boy from the sea, as they call him,” and he walked down the long room to the Library door.
The boy from the sea. In the shadow by the corner of the mantelpiece, Frances Scoble, as still and white as its marble, received the words like the stroke of a dagger in her heart. For a moment she felt neither pain, nor shock, nor shame, but a dull relief. Ever since she had seen — how long ago that was! — a medallion flaunted by some foolish woman who must be in the mode or perish, Frances Scoble had lived in torment with a smiling face. Every little happening which was unusual had been distorted into a menace. Even after she had fled from London to this country refuge she had known no peace. The very quiet had been no more than the hush of expectation. At night she had not slept until
the whiteness of the morning had distilled its comfort in the room. By day she had walked under a descending hammer.
Now the delay was over. How had the trap been set? — she gave no thought to a speculation so futile. Was there a way out of it — even now, when the last seconds of the last minute were passing on? She could not find it. Wonderful things occurred, no doubt. A heart failed and an arm raised to strike fell limp. If only that should happen now! Suddenly she came to life with a spurt of rage. There was Henry, the poor fool, talking in his courtly condescending way.
“This is a kindness not easily to be repaid, Signor Marelli” — yes, he was in the room now — Julian! She could not see him from the spot at which she stood. All these foolish girls, these still more foolish hobbledehoys of little squires stood in the way; and Henry Scoble’s voice went on:
“It has been my misfortune that the pressure of the State has hindered me from hearing you. The burdens of Ministry! In your delightful art you are happily free of them. And my friends here are chiefly country mice. So that we shall be too much in your debt. But perhaps after you have sung...” and the group parted and Frances saw him.
XXVII. AN OLD SONG IS SUNG AND AN OLD HIDING-PLACE DISCOVERED
HE WAS DRESSED in a velvet coat of the colour of a dark rose, breeches and waistcoat of white satin, and white stockings. His hair was powdered and tied with a black ribbon. The bow of cambric at his throat and the ruffles at his wrists were edged with fine lace, but without extravagance, his buckles were of plain gold. If he shone, he had his glitter from the rustics. There was not a trace of the coxcombical flourish, against which he had confessed to Elliot that he must be ever on his guard. He was in his own home and at one with its grace and decoration, its painted ceilings, its mirrors, its deep carpets and delicate furniture. As she watched him, this stripling so endowed to match his great possessions, all Frances Scoble’s hatred quickened into flame, and with a savage and most hateful joy she said to herself, “But marred — for all his life.”
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 748