CHAPTER XV
The night passed slowly and restlessly for Sir William Gore, although heslept from sheer exhaustion, and even when he was not sleeping was in astate of semi-coma, without any clear perception of what had happened.But in his dreams he lived through one quarter of an hour of the daybefore, over and over and over again, always with the same result,always with the same sense of some unexpected, horrible, shamefulcatastrophe, that was to lead to his utter humiliation. That was theimpression that still remained when at last the morning came, and hefinally awoke to the life of another day. Over and over again he wentover the situation as he lay there, Pateley's words ringing in his ears,his looks present before him. Again he felt the sensation of absolutesickness at his heart that had gripped him at the moment he had realisedthat the map had been photographed, passing as much out of his own poweras though he had given it to a man in the street. Does any one reallyacknowledge in his inmost soul that he has on a given occasion done"wrong," without an immeasurable qualifying of that word, without acovert resentment at the way other people may label his action? There isbut one person in the world who even approximates to knowing the historyof any given deed. The very fact of snatching it from its context putsit into the wrong proportion, the fact of contemplating it as though itwere something deliberate, separate, complete in itself, apart from allthat has led up to it, apart from the complication and pressure ofcircumstance. Sir William went over and over again in his mind all thathad happened the day before, trying to realise under what aspect hisactions would appear to others--over and over again, until everythingbecame blurred and he hardly knew under what aspect they appeared tohimself. He felt helplessly indignant with Fate, with Chance, that hadwith such dire results made him the plaything of a passing impulse. Thenwith the necessity of finding an object for his anger, his thoughtsturned first to Rendel, who had primarily put him in the position ofgaining the knowledge he had used to such disastrous effect, and then toPateley, who had taken it from him.
It is unpleasant enough for a child, at a time of life generallyfamiliar with humiliation and chastisement, to see the moment nearingwhen his guilt will be discovered: but it is horrible for a man who isapproaching old age, who is dignified and respected, suddenly to findhimself in the position of having something to conceal, of beingactually afraid of facing the judgment and incurring the censure of ayounger man. And at that moment Gore felt as if he almost hated the manwhose hand could hurl such a thunderbolt. Then his thoughts turned toPateley, to the probable result of his operations in the City. In theother greater anxiety which he himself had suddenly imported into hislife, that first care, which yet was important enough, of the "Equator,"had almost sunk out of sight. Would the mine turn out to be a gold mineafter all? What would Pateley be able to do? Would he be able to makeenough to cover his liabilities? and his head swam as he tried toremember what these might amount to.
In the meantime Rendel, in a very different frame of mind from that ofhis father-in-law, or, indeed, from that of his own of the night before,filled with a buoyant thrill of expectation, with the sense thatsomething was going to happen, that everything might be going to happen,was looking out into life as one who looks from a watch tower waiting onfortune and circumstances, waiting confident and well-equipped without amisgiving. The day was big with fate: a day on which new developmentsmight continue for himself, the thrill of excitement of the nightbefore, the sense of being in the foreground, of being actually hurriedalong in the front between the two giants who were leading the way. Thedining-room was ablaze with sunshine as he came into it, and in themorning light sat Rachel, looking up at him with a smile when he cameinto the room.
"What an excellent world it is, truly!" said Rendel, as he came acrossthe room.
"I am glad it is to your liking," she answered.
"You look very well this morning," said Rendel, looking at her, "whichmeans very pretty."
"I don't feel so especially pretty," said Rachel, with something betweena smile and a sigh.
"Don't you? Don't have any illusions about your appearance," saidRendel. "Don't suppose yourself to be plain, please."
"I am not so sure," said Rachel, as she began pouring out the tea.
"What is the matter with you?" said Rendel. "What fault do you find withthe world, and your appearance?"
"I am perturbed about my father," she said, her voice telling of thevery real anxiety that lay behind the words. "I don't think he is aswell as he was yesterday."
"Don't you?" said Rendel, more gravely. "I am very sorry. What is thematter?"
"I can't think," Rachel answered. "He may have done too much yesterdayafternoon."
"He certainly looked terribly tired," said Rendel.
"Terribly," said Rachel, "but I can't imagine why. He had been soabsolutely quiet all the afternoon."
"Well, you take care of him to-day," said Rendel, unable to eliminatethe cheerful confidence from his voice.
"I shall indeed," said Rachel.
"Oh, he'll come all right again, never fear," said Rendel. "You mustn'ttake too gloomy a view."
"You certainly seem inclined to take a cheerful one this morning," saidRachel, half convinced in spite of herself that all was well.
"Well, I do," said Rendel. "I must say that in spite of the prevalentopinion to the contrary, I feel inclined this morning to say that thescheme of the universe is entirely right; it is just to my liking. Thesunshine, and my breakfast, and my wife----"
"I am glad I am included," she said.
"And the day to live through. What can a man wish for more?"
"It sounds as though you had everything you could possibly want,certainly," said Rachel, smiling at him.
"I don't know," said Rendel, reflecting, "if it is that quite. The realhappiness is to want everything you can possibly get. That is the bestthing of all."
"And not so difficult, I should think," said Rachel.
"I am not sure," said Rendel. "I am not sure that it is quite an easything to have an ardent hold on life. Some people keep letting it downwith a flop. But I feel as if I could hold it tight this morning at anyrate. I do not believe there is a creature in the wide world that Iwould change places with at this moment," he went on, the force of hisardent hope and purpose breaking down his usual reserve.
"You are very enthusiastic to-day, Frank," she said.
"Well, one can't do much without enthusiasm," said Rendel, continuinghis breakfast with a satisfied air, "but with it one can move theworld."
"Is that what you are going to do?" said Rachel.
"Yes," said Rendel nodding.
"Frank, I wonder if you will be a great man?"
"Can you doubt it?" said Rendel.
"Supposing," she said, "some day you were a sort of Lord Stamfordham."
"That is rather a far cry," he replied. "By the way, I wonder where thepapers are this morning? Why are they so late?"
"They will come directly," Rachel said. "It is a very good thing they'relate, you can eat your breakfast in peace for once without knowing whathas happened."
"That is not the proper spirit," said Rendel smiling, "for the wife of afuture great man."
"The only thing is," said Rachel, "that if you did become a great man, Idon't think I should be the sort of wife for you. I am very stupid aboutpolitics, don't you think so? I don't understand things properly."
"I think you are exactly the sort of wife I want," said Rendel, "andthat is enough for me. That is the only thing necessary for you tounderstand. I don't believe you do understand it really."
"Then are you quite sure," she said, half laughing and half in earnest,"that you don't like politics better than you do me?"
"Absolutely certain," said Rendel, with a slight change of tone thattold his passionate conviction. "I wish you could grasp that incomparison with you, nothing matters to me."
"Nothing?" she repeated.
"There is nothing," said Rendel, looking at her, "that I would notsacrifice to you--my career, my ambit
ions, anything you asked for."
"I am glad," she said, "that you like me so much, but I don't want youto make sacrifices," and she spoke in all unconsciousness of the numberof small sacrifices, of an unheroic aspect perhaps, that Rendel wasdaily called upon to make for her sake.
At this moment Thacker came in with the morning papers, which he laid onthe table at Rendel's elbow.
"Now then you are happy," said Rachel lightly. "Now you can buryyourself in the papers and not listen to anything I say."
"I wonder if there is anything about Stoke Newton and old Crawley'sresignation," said Rendel, quite prepared to follow her advice. "I don'tsuppose he takes a very jovial view of life just now, poor old boy. Oh,how I should hate to be on the shelf!"
"I don't think you are likely to be, for the present," said Rachel.
And then Rendel, pushing his chair a little away from the table, openedthe papers wide, and began scanning them one after another, with themild and pleasurable excitement of the man who feels confidently abreastof circumstances. Then, as he took up the _Arbiter_, his eye suddenlyfell upon a heading that took his breath away. What was this? He droppedthe paper with a cry.
"What is it, Frank?" said Rachel startled.
"Good Heavens! what have they done that for?" he said, springing to hisfeet in uncontrollable excitement.
"Done what?" said Rachel.
"Why, they have announced--they have put in something that LordStamfordham----" He snatched up the paper again and looked at iteagerly. "It is incredible! and the map too, the very map, at thisstage! Well, upon my word, he has made a mistake this time, I dobelieve." And he still gazed at the paper as though trying to fathom thewhole hearing of what he saw.
At this moment the door opened, and Thacker came in.
"Sir William wished me to ask you for some foolscap paper, ma'am,please," he said, "with lines on it."
"Foolscap paper? What is he doing?" said Rachel anxiously.
"He is writing, ma'am," said Thacker. "He seems to be doing accounts."
"Oh, I wish he wouldn't!" Rachel said. "I must go and see. I'll bringthe foolscap paper myself, Thacker. Frank, there is some in your study,isn't there?"
"What?" said Rendel, who, still absorbed in what he had just seen, hadonly dimly heard their colloquy.
"Some foolscap paper," she repeated. "There is some in your study?"
"Yes, yes, in my writing-table," he said absently.
Rachel went quickly out of the room. At that moment the hall door bellrang violently. Rendel started and went to the window. In the phase ofacute tension in which he found himself, every unexpected sound carriedan untold significance, but he was not prepared for what this onebetokened: Lord Stamfordham in the street, dismounting from his horse.Stamfordham was accustomed to ride every morning from eight till nine,alone and unattended. Thacker hurried out to hold the horse. Rendelfollowed him and met Stamfordham on the doorstep. He led the way quicklyacross the hall into his study and shut the door. They both feltinstinctively that greetings were superfluous.
"Have you seen the _Arbiter_?" Stamfordham said.
"Yes," said Rendel, looking him straight in the face with eagerexpectation.
"So have I," said Stamfordham, "at the German Embassy. I had not seen itbefore leaving home, but I saw a poster at the corner, and I wentstraight to Bergowitz to ask him what it meant; he is as much in thedark as I am."
"In the dark!" said Rendel, looking at him amazed. "What! but--was itnot you who published it?"
"_I_ publish it?" said Stamfordham. "Do you mean to say you thought Ihad?"
"Of course I did! who else?" said Rendel.
"Who else?" Stamfordham repeated. "I have come here to ask you that."
"To ask _me_?" said Rendel, bewildered. "How should I know? I have notseen those papers since I gave the packet sealed to Thacker to take itto you."
"And I received it," said Stamfordham, "sealed and untampered with, andopened it myself, and it has not been out of my keeping since."
"But at the German Embassy," said Rendel, "since it was telegraphed...?"
"The substance of the interview was telegraphed," said Stamfordham, "butnot the map--_not the map_," he said emphatically. "That map no one hasseen besides Bergowitz, you, and myself. Bergowitz it would be quiteabsurd to suspect, he is as genuinely taken back as I am--I know that itdidn't get out through me, and therefore----" he paused and lookedRendel in the face.
"What!" said Rendel, with a sort of cry. A horrible light, an incredibleinterpretation was beginning to dawn upon him. "You can't think it wasthrough _me_?"
"What else can I think?" said Stamfordham--Rendel still looked at himaghast--"since the papers after I gave them into your keeping wereapparently not out of it until they passed into mine again? I broughtthem to you here myself. Of course I see now I ought not to have doneso, but how could I have imagined----"
Rendel hurriedly interrupted him.
"Lord Stamfordham, not a soul but myself can have had access to thosepapers. I went out of the room, it is true," and he went rapidly over inhis mind the sequence of events the day before, "for a short half-hourperhaps, when you came back here and I went out with you, but beforeleaving the room I remember distinctly that I shut the cover of mywriting-table down with the spring, and tried it to see that it wasshut, and then unlocked it myself when I came back."
"Was any one else in the room?" said Stamfordham.
"Yes," said Rendel, and a sudden idea occurred to him, to be dismissedas soon as entertained, "Sir William Gore."
"Gore?" said Stamfordham, looking at Rendel, but forbearing any commenton his father-in-law.
"It was quite impossible," Rendel said decidedly, answeringStamfordham's unspoken words, "that he could have got at the papers;for, as I told you, when I came back again they were exactly where I hadleft them, and the thing locked with this very complicated key, and heshowed it hanging on his chain."
"It is evident," Stamfordham repeated inflexibly, "that some one musthave got hold of it with or without your knowledge. I warned youyesterday, you remember, about taking your--any one in your householdinto your confidence."
"And I did not," Rendel said, grasping his meaning. "My wife did noteven know that I had the papers to transcribe. She does not know itnow."
Stamfordham paused a moment. He could not in words accuse Rendel's wife,whatever his silence might imply. Then he spoke with emphatic sternness.
"Rendel," he said, "by whatever means the thing happened, we must knowhow. I must have an explanation."
Rendel was powerless to speak.
"For you must see," Stamfordham went on, "what a terrible catastrophethis might have been--the danger is not over yet, in fact, although Imay be strong enough for my colleagues to condone the fact that thepublic has been told of this before themselves, and the country may bestrong enough for foreign Powers to do the same. But, as a personalmatter, I must know how it got out, and I repeat, I must have anexplanation. For your own sake you must explain."
Rendel felt as if the ground were reeling under his feet.
"I will try," he said, still feeling as if he were in some wild dream.
"When you have made inquiries," Stamfordham said, still speaking in abrief tone of command, "you had better come and tell me the result. Ishall be at the Foreign Office till twelve."
"Till twelve. Very well," said Rendel, feeling as if there was a darkchasm between himself and that moment. Mechanically he let LordStamfordham out, and stood as the latter mounted and rode away. Then heturned back into the house.
The Arbiter: A Novel Page 15
