Chapter 1
I
I am strongly of the opinion that, after the age of twenty-one, aman ought not to be out of bed and awake at four in the morning.The hour breeds thought. At twenty-one, life being all future, itmay be examined with impunity. But, at thirty, having become anuncomfortable mixture of future and past, it is a thing to belooked at only when the sun is high and the world full of warmthand optimism.
This thought came to me as I returned to my rooms after theFletchers' ball. The dawn was breaking as I let myself in. The airwas heavy with the peculiar desolation of a London winter morning.The houses looked dead and untenanted. A cart rumbled past, andacross the grey street a dingy black cat, moving furtively alongthe pavement, gave an additional touch of forlornness to thescene.
I shivered. I was tired and hungry, and the reaction after theemotions of the night had left me dispirited.
I was engaged to be married. An hour back I had proposed toCynthia Drassilis. And I can honestly say that it had come as agreat surprise to me.
Why had I done it? Did I love her? It was so difficult to analyselove: and perhaps the mere fact that I was attempting the task wasan answer to the question. Certainly I had never tried to do sofive years ago when I had loved Audrey Blake. I had let myself becarried on from day to day in a sort of trance, content to beutterly happy, without dissecting my happiness. But I was fiveyears younger then, and Audrey was--Audrey.
I must explain Audrey, for she in her turn explains Cynthia.
I have no illusions regarding my character when I first met AudreyBlake. Nature had given me the soul of a pig, and circumstanceshad conspired to carry on Nature's work. I loved comfort, and Icould afford to have it. From the moment I came of age andrelieved my trustees of the care of my money, I wrapped myself incomfort as in a garment. I wallowed in egoism. In fact, if,between my twenty-first and my twenty-fifth birthdays, I had oneunselfish thought, or did one genuinely unselfish action, mymemory is a blank on the point.
It was at the height of this period that I became engaged toAudrey. Now that I can understand her better and see myself,impartially, as I was in those days, I can realize how indescribablyoffensive I must have been. My love was real, but that did notprevent its patronizing complacency being an insult. I was KingCophetua. If I did not actually say in so many words, 'Thisbeggar-maid shall be my queen', I said it plainly and often in mymanner. She was the daughter of a dissolute, evil-tempered artistwhom I had met at a Bohemian club. He made a living by paintingan occasional picture, illustrating an occasional magazine-story,but mainly by doing advertisement work. A proprietor of a patentInfants' Food, not satisfied with the bare statement that BabyCried For It, would feel it necessary to push the fact home to thepublic through the medium of Art, and Mr Blake would be commissionedto draw the picture. A good many specimens of his work in this veinwere to be found in the back pages of the magazines.
A man may make a living by these means, but it is one thatinclines him to jump at a wealthy son-in-law. Mr Blake jumped atme. It was one of his last acts on this earth. A week after hehad--as I now suspect--bullied Audrey into accepting me, he diedof pneumonia.
His death had several results. It postponed the wedding: itstirred me to a very crescendo of patronage, for with the removalof the bread-winner the only flaw in my Cophetua pose hadvanished: and it gave Audrey a great deal more scope than she hadhitherto been granted for the exercise of free will in the choiceof a husband.
This last aspect of the matter was speedily brought to my notice,which till then it had escaped, by a letter from her, handed to meone night at the club, where I was sipping coffee and musing onthe excellence of life in this best of all possible worlds.
It was brief and to the point. She had been married that morning.
To say that that moment was a turning point in my life would be touse a ridiculously inadequate phrase. It dynamited my life. In asense it killed me. The man I had been died that night, regretted,I imagine, by few. Whatever I am today, I am certainly not thecomplacent spectator of life that I had been before that night.
I crushed the letter in my hand, and sat staring at it, my pigstyin ruins about my ears, face to face with the fact that, even in abest of all possible worlds, money will not buy everything.
I remember, as I sat there, a man, a club acquaintance, a borefrom whom I had fled many a time, came and settled down beside meand began to talk. He was a small man, but he possessed a voice towhich one had to listen. He talked and talked and talked. How Iloathed him, as I sat trying to think through his stream of words.I see now that he saved me. He forced me out of myself. But at thetime he oppressed me. I was raw and bleeding. I was struggling tograsp the incredible. I had taken Audrey's unalterable affectionfor granted. She was the natural complement to my scheme ofcomfort. I wanted her; I had chosen and was satisfied with her,therefore all was well. And now I had to adjust my mind to theimpossible fact that I had lost her.
Her letter was a mirror in which I saw myself. She said little,but I understood, and my self-satisfaction was in ribbons--andsomething deeper than self-satisfaction. I saw now that I lovedher as I had not dreamed myself capable of loving.
And all the while this man talked and talked.
I have a theory that speech, persevered in, is more efficacious intimes of trouble than silent sympathy. Up to a certain point itmaddens almost beyond endurance; but, that point past, it soothes.At least, it was so in my case. Gradually I found myself hatinghim less. Soon I began to listen, then to answer. Before I leftthe club that night, the first mad frenzy, in which I could havebeen capable of anything, had gone from me, and I walked home,feeling curiously weak and helpless, but calm, to begin the newlife.
Three years passed before I met Cynthia. I spent those yearswandering in many countries. At last, as one is apt to do, Idrifted back to London, and settled down again to a life which,superficially, was much the same as the one I had led in the daysbefore I knew Audrey. My old circle in London had been wide, and Ifound it easy to pick up dropped threads. I made new friends,among them Cynthia Drassilis.
I liked Cynthia, and I was sorry for her. I think that, about thattime I met her, I was sorry for most people. The shock of Audrey'sdeparture had had that effect upon me. It is always the bad niggerwho gets religion most strongly at the camp-meeting, and in mycase 'getting religion' had taken the form of suppression of self.I never have been able to do things by halves, or even with adecent moderation. As an egoist I had been thorough in my egoism;and now, fate having bludgeoned that vice out of me, I foundmyself possessed of an almost morbid sympathy with the troubles ofother people.
I was extremely sorry for Cynthia Drassilis. Meeting her motherfrequently, I could hardly fail to be. Mrs Drassilis was arepresentative of a type I disliked. She was a widow, who had beenleft with what she considered insufficient means, and her outlookon life was a compound of greed and querulousness. Sloane Squareand South Kensington are full of women in her situation. Theirposition resembles that of the Ancient Mariner. 'Water, watereverywhere, and not a drop to drink.' For 'water' in their casesubstitute 'money'. Mrs Drassilis was connected with money on allsides, but could only obtain it in rare and minute quantities. Anyone of a dozen relations-in-law could, if they had wished, havetrebled her annual income without feeling it. But they did not sowish. They disapproved of Mrs Drassilis. In their opinion the Hon.Hugo Drassilis had married beneath him--not so far beneath him asto make the thing a horror to be avoided in conversation andthought, but far enough to render them coldly polite to his wifeduring his lifetime and almost icy to his widow after his death.Hugo's eldest brother, the Earl of Westbourne, had never liked theobviously beautiful, but equally obviously second-rate, daughterof a provincial solicitor whom Hugo had suddenly presented to thefamily one memorable summer as his bride. He considered that, bydoubling the income derived from Hugo's life-insurance andinviting Cynthia to the family seat once a year during herchildhood, he had done all that could be expected of him in thematter.
It used to irritate me when I overheard people, as I occasionallyhave done, speak of Cynthia as hard. I never found her so myself,though heaven knows she had enough to make her so, to me she wasalways a sympathetic, charming friend.
Ours was a friendship almost untouched by sex. Our minds fitted sosmoothly into one another that I had no inclination to fall inlove. I knew her too well. I had no discoveries to make about her.Her honest, simple soul had always been open to me to read. Therewas none of that curiosity, that sense of something beyond thatmakes for love. We had reached a point of comradeship beyond whichneither of us desired to pass.
Yet at the Fletchers' ball I asked Cynthia to marry me, and sheconsented.
* * * * *
Looking back, I can see that, though the determining cause was MrTankerville Gifford, it was Audrey who was responsible. She hadmade me human, capable of sympathy, and it was sympathy,primarily, that led me to say what I said that night.
But the immediate cause was certainly young Mr Gifford.
I arrived at Marlow Square, where I was to pick up Cynthia and hermother, a little late, and found Mrs Drassilis, florid andoverdressed, in the drawing-room with a sleek-haired, pale youngman known to me as Tankerville Gifford--to his intimates, of whomI was not one, and in the personal paragraphs of the colouredsporting weeklies, as 'Tanky'. I had seen him frequently atrestaurants. Once, at the Empire, somebody had introduced me tohim; but, as he had not been sober at the moment, he had missedany intellectual pleasure my acquaintanceship might have affordedhim. Like everybody else who moves about in London, I knew allabout him. To sum him up, he was a most unspeakable little cad,and, if the drawing-room had not been Mrs Drassilis's, I shouldhave wondered at finding him in it.
Mrs Drassilis introduced us.
'I think we have already met,' I said.
He stared glassily.
'Don't remember.'
I was not surprised.
At this moment Cynthia came in. Out of the corner of my eye Iobserved a look of fuddled displeasure come into Tanky's face ather frank pleasure at seeing me.
I had never seen her looking better. She is a tall girl, whocarries herself magnificently. The simplicity of her dress gainedan added dignity from comparison with the rank glitter of hermother's. She wore unrelieved black, a colour which set off towonderful advantage the clear white of her skin and her pale-goldhair.
'You're late, Peter,' she said, looking at the clock.
'I know. I'm sorry.'
'Better be pushing, what?' suggested Tanky.
'My cab's waiting.'
'Will you ring the bell, Mr Gifford?' said Mrs Drassilis. 'I willtell Parker to whistle for another.'
'Take me in yours,' I heard a voice whisper in my ear.
I looked at Cynthia. Her expression had not changed. Then I lookedat Tanky Gifford, and I understood. I had seen that stuffed-fishlook on his face before--on the occasion when I had beenintroduced to him at the Empire.
'If you and Mr Gifford will take my cab,' I said to Mrs Drassilis,'we will follow.'
Mrs Drassilis blocked the motion. I imagine that the sharp note inher voice was lost on Tanky, but it rang out like a clarion to me.
'I am in no hurry,' she said. 'Mr Gifford, will you take Cynthia?I will follow with Mr Burns. You will meet Parker on the stairs.Tell him to call another cab.'
As the door closed behind them, she turned on me like a many-colouredsnake.
'How can you be so extraordinarily tactless, Peter?' she cried.'You're a perfect fool. Have you no eyes?'
'I'm sorry,' I said.
'He's devoted to her.'
'I'm sorry.'
'What do you mean?'
'Sorry for her.'
She seemed to draw herself together inside her dress. Her eyesglittered. My mouth felt very dry, and my heart was beginning tothump. We were both furiously angry. It was a moment that had beencoming for years, and we both knew it. For my part I was glad thatit had come. On subjects on which one feels deeply it is a reliefto speak one's mind.
'Oh!' she said at last. Her voice quivered. She was clutching ather self-control as it slipped from her. 'Oh! And what is mydaughter to you, Mr Burns!'
'A great friend.'
'And I suppose you think it friendly to try to spoil her chances?'
'If Mr Gifford is a sample of them--yes.'
'What do you mean?'
She choked.
'I see. I understand. I am going to put a stop to this once andfor all. Do you hear? I have noticed it for a long time. Because Ihave given you the run of the house, and allowed you to come inand out as you pleased, like a tame cat, you presume--'
'Presume--' I prompted.
'You come here and stand in Cynthia's way. You trade on the factthat you have known us all this time to monopolize her attention.You spoil her chances. You--'
The invaluable Parker entered to say that the cab was at the door.
We drove to the Fletchers' house in silence. The spell had beenbroken. Neither of us could recapture that first, fine, carelessrapture which had carried us through the opening stages of theconflict, and discussion of the subject on a less exalted planewas impossible. It was that blessed period of calm, the restbetween rounds, and we observed it to the full.
When I reached the ballroom a waltz was just finishing. Cynthia, astatue in black, was dancing with Tanky Gifford. They wereopposite me when the music stopped, and she caught sight of meover his shoulder.
She disengaged herself and moved quickly towards me.
'Take me away,' she said under her breath. 'Anywhere. Quick.'
It was no time to consider the etiquette of the ballroom. Tanky,startled at his sudden loneliness, seemed by his expression to beendeavouring to bring his mind to bear on the matter. A couplemaking for the door cut us off from him, and following them, wepassed out.
Neither of us spoke till we had reached the little room where Ihad meditated.
She sat down. She was looking pale and tired.
'Oh, dear!' she said.
I understood. I seemed to see that journey in the cab, thosedances, those terrible between-dances ...
It was very sudden.
I took her hand. She turned to me with a tired smile. There weretears in her eyes ...
I heard myself speaking ...
She was looking at me, her eyes shining. All the weariness seemedto have gone out of them.
I looked at her.
There was something missing. I had felt it when I was speaking. Tome my voice had had no ring of conviction. And then I saw what itwas. There was no mystery. We knew each other too well. Friendshipkills love.
She put my thought into words.
'We have always been brother and sister,' she said doubtfully.
'Till tonight.'
'You have changed tonight? You really want me?'
Did I? I tried to put the question to myself and answer ithonestly. Yes, in a sense, I had changed tonight. There was anadded appreciation of her fineness, a quickening of that blend ofadmiration and pity which I had always felt for her. I wanted withall my heart to help her, to take her away from her dreadfulsurroundings, to make her happy. But did I want her in the sensein which she had used the word? Did I want her as I had wantedAudrey Blake? I winced away from the question. Audrey belonged tothe dead past, but it hurt to think of her.
Was it merely because I was five years older now than when I hadwanted Audrey that the fire had gone out of me?
I shut my mind against my doubts.
'I have changed tonight,' I said.
And I bent down and kissed her.
I was conscious of being defiant against somebody. And then I knewthat the somebody was myself.
I poured myself out a cup of hot coffee from the flask whichSmith, my man, had f
illed against my return. It put life into me.The oppression lifted.
And yet there remained something that made for uneasiness, a sortof foreboding at the back of my mind.
I had taken a step in the dark, and I was afraid for Cynthia. Ihad undertaken to give her happiness. Was I certain that I couldsucceed? The glow of chivalry had left me, and I began to doubt.
Audrey had taken from me something that I could not recover--poetrywas as near as I could get to a definition of it. Yes, poetry.With Cynthia my feet would always be on the solid earth. To theend of the chapter we should be friends and nothing more.
I found myself pitying Cynthia intensely. I saw her future aseries of years of intolerable dullness. She was too good to betied for life to a battered hulk like myself.
I drank more coffee and my mood changed. Even in the grey of awinter morning a man of thirty, in excellent health, cannot poseto himself for long as a piece of human junk, especially if hecomforts himself with hot coffee.
My mind resumed its balance. I laughed at myself as a sentimentalfraud. Of course I could make her happy. No man and woman had everbeen more admirably suited to each other. As for that firstdisaster, which I had been magnifying into a life-tragedy, what ofit? An incident of my boyhood. A ridiculous episode which--I rosewith the intention of doing so at once--I should now proceed toeliminate from my life.
I went quickly to my desk, unlocked it, and took out a photograph.
And then--undoubtedly four o'clock in the morning is no time for aman to try to be single-minded and decisive--I wavered. I hadintended to tear the thing in pieces without a glance, and flingit into the wastepaper-basket. But I took the glance and Ihesitated.
The girl in the photograph was small and slight, and she lookedstraight out of the picture with large eyes that met andchallenged mine. How well I remembered them, those Irish-blue eyesunder their expressive, rather heavy brows. How exactly thephotographer had caught that half-wistful, half-impudent look, thechin tilted, the mouth curving into a smile.
In a wave all my doubts had surged back upon me. Was this meresentimentalism, a four-in-the-morning tribute to the pathos of theflying years, or did she really fill my soul and stand guard overit so that no successor could enter in and usurp her place?
I had no answer, unless the fact that I replaced the photograph inits drawer was one. I felt that this thing could not be decidednow. It was more difficult than I had thought.
All my gloom had returned by the time I was in bed. Hours seemedto pass while I tossed restlessly aching for sleep.
When I woke my last coherent thought was still clear in my mind.It was a passionate vow that, come what might, if those Irish eyeswere to haunt me till my death, I would play the game loyally withCynthia.
II
The telephone bell rang just as I was getting ready to call atMarlow Square and inform Mrs Drassilis of the position of affairs.Cynthia, I imagined, would have broken the news already, whichwould mitigate the embarrassment of the interview to some extent;but the recollection of my last night's encounter with MrsDrassilis prevented me from looking forward with any joy to theprospect of meeting her again.
Cynthia's voice greeted me as I unhooked the receiver.
'Hullo, Peter! Is that you? I want you to come round here atonce.'
'I was just starting,' I said.
'I don't mean Marlow Square. I'm not there. I'm at the Guelph. Askfor Mrs Ford's suite. It's very important. I'll tell you all aboutit when you get here. Come as soon as you can.'
My rooms were conveniently situated for visits to the HotelGuelph. A walk of a couple of minutes took me there. Mrs Ford'ssuite was on the third floor. I rang the bell and Cynthia openedthe door to me.
'Come in,' she said. 'You're a dear to be so quick.'
'My rooms are only just round the corner.' She shut the door, andfor the first time we looked at one another. I could not say thatI was nervous, but there was certainly, to me, a something strangein the atmosphere. Last night seemed a long way off and somehow alittle unreal. I suppose I must have shown this in my manner, forshe suddenly broke what had amounted to a distinct pause by givinga little laugh. 'Peter,' she said, 'you're embarrassed.' I deniedthe charge warmly, but without real conviction. I was embarrassed.'Then you ought to be,' she said. 'Last night, when I was lookingmy very best in a lovely dress, you asked me to marry you. Now yousee me again in cold blood, and you're wondering how you can backout of it without hurting my feelings.'
I smiled. She did not. I ceased to smile. She was looking at me ina very peculiar manner.
'Peter,' she said, 'are you sure?'
'My dear old Cynthia,' I said, 'what's the matter with you?'
'You are sure?' she persisted.
'Absolutely, entirely sure.' I had a vision of two large eyeslooking at me out of a photograph. It came and went in a flash.
I kissed Cynthia.
'What quantities of hair you have,' I said. 'It's a shame to coverit up.' She was not responsive. 'You're in a very queer moodtoday, Cynthia,' I went on. 'What's the matter?'
'I've been thinking.'
'Out with it. Something has gone wrong.' An idea flashed upon me.'Er--has your mother--is your mother very angry about--'
'Mother's delighted. She always liked you, Peter.'
I had the self-restraint to check a grin.
'Then what is it?' I said. 'Tired after the dance?'
'Nothing as simple as that.'
'Tell me.'
'It's so difficult to put it into words.'
'Try.'
She was playing with the papers on the table, her face turnedaway. For a moment she did not speak.
'I've been worrying myself, Peter,' she said at last. 'You are sochivalrous and unselfish. You're quixotic. It's that that istroubling me. Are you marrying me just because you're sorry forme? Don't speak. I can tell you now if you will just let me saystraight out what's in my mind. We have known each other for twoyears now. You know all about me. You know how--how unhappy I amat home. Are you marrying me just because you pity me and want totake me out of all that?'
'My dear girl!'
'You haven't answered my question.'
'I answered it two minutes ago when you asked me if--'
'You do love me?'
'Yes.'
All this time she had been keeping her face averted, but now sheturned and looked into my eyes with an abrupt intensity which, Iconfess, startled me. Her words startled me more.
'Peter, do you love me as much as you loved Audrey Blake?'
In the instant which divided her words from my reply my mind flewhither and thither, trying to recall an occasion when I could havementioned Audrey to her. I was convinced that I had not done so. Inever mentioned Audrey to anyone.
There is a grain of superstition in the most level-headed man. Iam not particularly level-headed, and I have more than a grain inme. I was shaken. Ever since I had asked Cynthia to marry me, itseemed as if the ghost of Audrey had come back into my life.
'Good Lord!' I cried. 'What do you know of Audrey Blake?'
She turned her face away again.
'Her name seems to affect you very strongly,' she said quietly.
I recovered myself.
'If you ask an old soldier,' I said, 'he will tell you that awound, long after it has healed, is apt to give you an occasionaltwinge.'
'Not if it has really healed.'
'Yes, when it has really healed--when you can hardly remember howyou were fool enough to get it.'
She said nothing.
'How did you hear about--it?' I asked.
'When I first met you, or soon after, a friend of yours--wehappened to be talking about you--told me that you had been engagedto be married to a girl named Audrey Blake. He was to have beenyour best man, he said, but one day you wrote and told him therewould be no wedding, and then you disappeared; and nobody saw youagain for three years.'
'Yes,' I said: 'that is all quite true.'
'It seems to have been a s
erious affair, Peter. I mean--the sortof thing a man would find it hard to forget.'
I tried to smile, but I knew that I was not doing it well. It washurting me extraordinarily, this discussion of Audrey.
'A man would find it almost impossible,' I said, 'unless he had aremarkably poor memory.'
'I didn't mean that. You know what I mean by forget.'
'Yes,' I said, 'I do.'
She came quickly to me and took me by the shoulders, looking intomy face.
'Peter, can you honestly say you have forgotten her--in the senseI mean?'
'Yes,' I said.
Again that feeling swept over me--that curious sensation of beingdefiant against myself.
'She does not stand between us?'
'No,' I said.
I could feel the effort behind the word. It was as if somesubconscious part of me were working to keep it back.
'Peter!'
There was a soft smile on her face; as she raised it to mine I putmy arms around her.
She drew away with a little laugh. Her whole manner had changed.She was a different being from the girl who had looked so gravelyinto my eyes a moment before.
'Oh, my dear boy, how terribly muscular you are! You've crushedme. I expect you used to be splendid at football, like MrBroster.'
I did not reply at once. I cannot wrap up the deeper emotions andput them back on their shelf directly I have no further immediateuse for them. I slowly adjusted myself to the new key of theconversation.
'Who's Broster?' I asked at length.
'He used to be tutor to'--she turned me round and pointed--'to_that_.'
I had seen a picture standing on one of the chairs when I enteredthe room but had taken no particular notice of it. I now gave it acloser glance. It was a portrait, very crudely done, of asingularly repulsive child of about ten or eleven years old.
_Was_ he, poor chap! Well, we all have our troubles, don'twe! Who _is_ this young thug! Not a friend of yours, I hope?'
'That is Ogden, Mrs Ford's son. It's a tragedy--'
'Perhaps it doesn't do him justice. Does he really squint likethat, or is it just the artist's imagination?'
'Don't make fun of it. It's the loss of that boy that is breakingNesta's heart.'
I was shocked.
'Is he dead? I'm awfully sorry. I wouldn't for the world--'
'No, no. He is alive and well. But he is dead to her. The courtgave him into the custody of his father.'
'The court?'
'Mrs Ford was the wife of Elmer Ford, the American millionaire.They were divorced a year ago.'
'I see.'
Cynthia was gazing at the portrait.
'This boy is quite a celebrity in his way,' she said. 'They callhim "The Little Nugget" in America.'
'Oh! Why is that?'
'It's a nickname the kidnappers have for him. Ever so manyattempts have been made to steal him.'
She stopped and looked at me oddly.
'I made one today, Peter,' she said. I went down to the country,where the boy was, and kidnapped him.'
'Cynthia! What on earth do you mean?'
'Don't you understand? I did it for Nesta's sake. She was breakingher heart about not being able to see him, so I slipped down andstole him away, and brought him back here.'
I do not know if I was looking as amazed as I felt. I hope not,for I felt as if my brain were giving way. The perfect calmnesswith which she spoke of this extraordinary freak added to myconfusion.
'You're joking!'
'No; I stole him.'
'But, good heavens! The law! It's a penal offence, you know!'
'Well, I did it. Men like Elmer Ford aren't fit to have charge ofa child. You don't know him, but he's just an unscrupulousfinancier, without a thought above money. To think of a boygrowing up in that tainted atmosphere--at his most impressionableage. It means death to any good there is in him.'
My mind was still grappling feebly with the legal aspect of theaffair.
'But, Cynthia, kidnapping's kidnapping, you know! The law doesn'ttake any notice of motives. If you're caught--'
She cut through my babble.
'Would you have been afraid to do it, Peter?'
'Well--' I began. I had not considered the point before.
'I don't believe you would. If I asked you to do it for my sake--'
'But, Cynthia, kidnapping, you know! It's such an infernally low-downgame.'
'I played it. Do you despise _me_?'
I perspired. I could think of no other reply.
'Peter,' she said, 'I understand your scruples. I know exactly howyou feel. But can't you see that this is quite different from thesort of kidnapping you naturally look on as horrible? It's justtaking a boy away from surroundings that must harm him, back tohis mother, who worships him. It's not wrong. It's splendid.'
She paused.
'You _will_ do it for me, Peter?' she said.
'I don't understand,' I said feebly. 'It's done. You've kidnappedhim yourself.'
'They tracked him and took him back. And now I want _you_ totry.' She came closer to me. 'Peter, don't you see what it willmean to me if you agree to try? I'm only human, I can't help, atthe bottom of my heart, still being a little jealous of thisAudrey Blake. No, don't say anything. Words can't cure me; but ifyou do this thing for me, I shall be satisfied. I shall _know_.'
She was close beside me, holding my arm and looking into my face.That sense of the unreality of things which had haunted me sincethat moment at the dance came over me with renewed intensity. Lifehad ceased to be a rather grey, orderly business in which daysucceeded day calmly and without event. Its steady stream hadbroken up into rapids, and I was being whirled away on them.
'Will you do it, Peter? Say you will.'
A voice, presumably mine, answered 'Yes'.
'My dear old boy!'
She pushed me into a chair, and, sitting on the arm of it, laidher hand on mine and became of a sudden wondrously business-like.
'Listen,' she said, 'I'll tell you what we have arranged.'
It was borne in upon me, as she began to do so, that she appearedfrom the very beginning to have been extremely confident that thatessential part of her plans, my consent to the scheme, could berelied upon as something of a certainty. Women have theseintuitions.
III
Looking back, I think I can fix the point at which this insaneventure I had undertaken ceased to be a distorted dream, fromwhich I vaguely hoped that I might shortly waken, and took shapeas a reality of the immediate future. That moment came when I metMr Arnold Abney by appointment at his club.
Till then the whole enterprise had been visionary. I gathered fromCynthia that the boy Ogden was shortly to be sent to a preparatoryschool, and that I was to insinuate myself into this school and,watching my opportunity, to remove him; but it seemed to me thatthe obstacles to this comparatively lucid scheme were insuperable.In the first place, how were we to discover which of England'smillion preparatory schools Mr Ford, or Mr Mennick for him, wouldchoose? Secondly, the plot which was to carry me triumphantly intothis school when--or if--found, struck me as extremely thin. Iwas to pose, Cynthia told me, as a young man of private means,anxious to learn the business, with a view to setting up a schoolof his own. The objection to that was, I held, that I obviouslydid not want to do anything of the sort. I had not the appearanceof a man with such an ambition. I had none of the conversation ofsuch a man.
I put it to Cynthia.
'They would find me out in a day,' I assured her. 'A man who wantsto set up a school has got to be a pretty brainy sort of fellow. Idon't know anything.'
'You got your degree.'
'A degree. At any rate, I've forgotten all I knew.'
'That doesn't matter. You have the money. Anybody with money canstart a school, even if he doesn't know a thing. Nobody wouldthink it strange.'
It struck me as a monstrous slur on our educational system, butreflection told me it was true. The proprietor of a preparatoryschool, if he is a m
an of wealth, need not be able to teach, anymore than an impresario need be able to write plays.
'Well, we'll pass that for the moment,' I said. 'Here's the realdifficulty. How are you going to find out the school Mr Ford haschosen?'
'I have found it out already--or Nesta has. She set a detective towork. It was perfectly easy. Ogden's going to Mr Abney's. SansteadHouse is the name of the place. It's in Hampshire somewhere. Quitea small school, but full of little dukes and earls and things.Lord Mountry's younger brother, Augustus Beckford, is there.'
I had known Lord Mountry and his family well some years ago. Iremembered Augustus dimly.
'Mountry? Do you know him? He was up at Oxford with me.'
She seemed interested.
'What kind of a man is he?' she asked.
'Oh, quite a good sort. Rather an ass. I haven't seen him foryears.'
'He's a friend of Nesta's. I've only met him once. He is going tobe your reference.'
'My what?'
'You will need a reference. At least, I suppose you will. And,anyhow, if you say you know Lord Mountry it will make it simplerfor you with Mr Abney, the brother being at the school.'
'Does Mountry know about this business? Have you told him why Iwant to go to Abney's?'
'Nesta told him. He thought it was very sporting of you. He willtell Mr Abney anything we like. By the way, Peter, you will haveto pay a premium or something, I suppose. But Nesta will lookafter all expenses, of course.'
On this point I made my only stand of the afternoon.
'No,' I said; 'it's very kind of her, but this is going to beentirely an amateur performance. I'm doing this for you, and I'llstand the racket. Good heavens! Fancy taking money for a job ofthis kind!'
She looked at me rather oddly.
'That is very sweet of you, Peter,' she said, after a slightpause. 'Now let's get to work.'
And together we composed the letter which led to my sitting, twodays later, in stately conference at his club with Mr ArnoldAbney, M.A., of Sanstead House, Hampshire.
Mr Abney proved to be a long, suave, benevolent man with an Oxfordmanner, a high forehead, thin white hands, a cooing intonation,and a general air of hushed importance, as of one in constantcommunication with the Great. There was in his bearing somethingof the family solicitor in whom dukes confide, and something ofthe private chaplain at the Castle.
He gave me the key-note to his character in the first minute ofour acquaintanceship. We had seated ourselves at a table in thesmoking-room when an elderly gentleman shuffled past, giving a nodin transit. My companion sprang to his feet almost convulsively,returned the salutation, and subsided slowly into his chair again.
'The Duke of Devizes,' he said in an undertone. 'A most able man.Most able. His nephew, Lord Ronald Stokeshaye, was one of mypupils. A charming boy.'
I gathered that the old feudal spirit still glowed to some extentin Mr Abney's bosom.
We came to business.
'So you wish to be one of us, Mr Burns, to enter the scholasticprofession?'
I tried to look as if I did.
'Well, in certain circumstances, the circumstances in whichI--ah--myself, I may say, am situated, there is no more delightfuloccupation. The work is interesting. There is the constantfascination of seeing these fresh young lives develop--and ofhelping them to develop--under one's eyes; in any case, I may say,there is the exceptional interest of being in a position to mouldthe growing minds of lads who will some day take their place amongthe country's hereditary legislators, that little knot of devotedmen who, despite the vulgar attacks of loudmouthed demagogues,still do their share, and more, in the guidance of England'sfortunes. Yes.'
He paused. I said I thought so, too.
'You are an Oxford man, Mr Burns, I think you told me? Ah, I haveyour letter here. Just so. You were at--ah, yes. A fine college.The Dean is a lifelong friend of mine. Perhaps you knew my latepupil, Lord Rollo?--no, he would have been since your time. Adelightful boy. Quite delightful ... And you took your degree?Exactly. _And_ represented the university at both cricket andRugby football? Excellent. _Mens sana in_--ah--_corpore_, in fact,_sano_, yes!'
He folded the letter carefully and replaced it in his pocket.
'Your primary object in coming to me, Mr Burns, is, I gather, tolearn the--ah--the ropes, the business? You have had little or noprevious experience of school-mastering?'
'None whatever.'
'Then your best plan would undoubtedly be to consider yourself andwork for a time simply as an ordinary assistant-master. You wouldthus get a sound knowledge of the intricacies of the professionwhich would stand you in good stead when you decide to set up yourown school. School-mastering is a profession, which cannot betaught adequately except in practice. "Only those who--ah--braveits dangers comprehend its mystery." Yes, I would certainlyrecommend you to begin at the foot of the ladder and go, at leastfor a time, through the mill.'
'Certainly,' I said. 'Of course.'
My ready acquiescence pleased him. I could see that he wasrelieved. I think he had expected me to jib at the prospect ofactual work.
'As it happens,' he said, 'my classical master left me at the endof last term. I was about to go to the Agency for a successor whenyour letter arrived. Would you consider--'
I had to think this over. Feeling kindly disposed towards MrArnold Abney, I wished to do him as little harm as possible. I wasgoing to rob him of a boy, who, while no moulding of his growingmind could make him into a hereditary legislator, did undoubtedlyrepresent a portion of Mr Abney's annual income; and I did notwant to increase my offence by being a useless assistant-master.Then I reflected that, if I was no Jowett, at least I knew enoughLatin and Greek to teach the rudiments of those languages to smallboys. My conscience was satisfied.
'I should be delighted,' I said.
'Excellent. Then let us consider that as--ah--settled,' said MrAbney.
There was a pause. My companion began to fiddle a littleuncomfortably with an ash-tray. I wondered what was the matter,and then it came to me. We were about to become sordid. Thediscussion of terms was upon us.
And as I realized this, I saw simultaneously how I could throw onemore sop to my exigent conscience. After all, the whole thing wasreally a question of hard cash. By kidnapping Ogden I should betaking money from Mr Abney. By paying my premium I should begiving it back to him.
I considered the circumstances. Ogden was now about thirteen yearsold. The preparatory-school age limit may be estimated roughly atfourteen. That is to say, in any event Sanstead House could onlyharbour him for one year. Mr Abney's fees I had to guess at. To beon the safe side, I fixed my premium at an outside figure, and,getting to the point at once, I named it.
It was entirely satisfactory. My mental arithmetic had done mecredit. Mr Abney beamed upon me. Over tea and muffins we becamevery friendly. In half an hour I heard more of the theory ofschool-mastering than I had dreamed existed.
We said good-bye at the club front door. He smiled down at mebenevolently from the top of the steps.
'Good-bye, Mr Burns, good-bye,' he said. 'We shall meetat--ah--Philippi.'
When I reached my rooms, I rang for Smith.
'Smith,' I said, 'I want you to get some books for me first thingtomorrow. You had better take a note of them.'
He moistened his pencil.
'A Latin Grammar.'
'Yes, sir.'
'A Greek Grammar.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Brodley Arnold's Easy Prose Sentences.'
'Yes, sir.'
'And Caesar's Gallic Wars.'
'What name, sir?'
'Caesar.'
'Thank you, sir. Anything else, sir?'
'No, that will be all.'
'Very good, sir.'
He shimmered from the room.
Thank goodness, Smith always has thought me mad, and is consequentlynever surprised at anything I ask him to do.
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