“You will find summer by the Mediterranean,” he said; “March and April are the most delicious months on that sunny shore. Nature is loveliest there just when all the smart people have left for Paris or London. Leave everything to me and your valet, and all you will have to do when your conscientious little medical man here permits you to move, will be to take your seat in the train de luxe. I am going Southward for Easter myself, and I’ll be your travelling companion, if you like.”
“If I like? I should be miserable alone. You will go as my guest, of course.”
“As you please,” replied Jermyn, shrugging his shoulders. “One does not stand upon punctilio with a millionaire on a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence. I hope to earn my travelling expenses by being useful to you. Does Mrs. Hanley go with you to the South?”
“No,” Gerard answered shortly.
Mr. Jermyn went up to town next day to see Gerard’s valet, and to give all instructions for the journey. He came hack in time for dinner.
“Mrs. Hanley shuns me,” he said, on this second occasion, he and Gerard having dined alone on both evenings. “I hope I have not offended her.”
“She likes to he with her father.”
“But surely some one told me that the old gentleman goes to bed at eight o’clock. She can hardly be wanted in his room after that hour.”
“Perhaps not, but she may like to be there,” answered Gerard, and then changed the conversation abruptly. “How is your friend the painter getting on with his house?”
“Admirably. I believe it will be finished in two years, which is only a year and a quarter beyond the time specified. His contract with the builder was for two thousand five hundred, and I fancy, in spite of all his alterations and improvements on the original design, he will get off for sis or seven thousand. He finds his boat too cold a residence at this time of year, and he is staying at the Inn, where he puts me up.”
“I am sorry we have no room for you here—”
“Don’t mention it. I doubt whether Mrs. Hanley would like to have me on the premises even were there half-a-dozen bachelor rooms. I’m afraid I am no favourite of hers. It is a curious thing that while the ladies I meet at the Petunia and the Small Hours are positively devoted to me I am unfortunate in provoking the prejudices of the purely domestic mind — and Mrs. Hanley is so thoroughly domestic.”
“She is the most devoted and unselfish of women. Her only faults are virtues in excess,” answered Gerard, gravely.
His convalescence lasted a week longer before the village doctor gave him leave to start for the Riviera, where the weather reports were now of the fairest. His illness had been so carefully watched by Mr. Mivor that he had implicit belief in that gentleman’s wisdom, and listened without impatience to the counsel which the doctor gave him on his last visit, counsel which in some points echoed Dr. South’s advice, given some months earlier.
Illness is apt to be selfish, and in his long illness that self-love which had grown and strengthened ever since the sudden change in his fortune, took a stronger growth, and in the long days of convalescence, weak, depressed, and self-absorbed, he had brooded over Hester’s refusal to be his companion in his Southern wanderings, her choice of duty to her father rather than duty to him. Angered by her opposition, he began to doubt even her love, or to count that love a poor and paltry thing; the love that can consider another rather than the beloved one; the love so closely allied with remorse that it almost ceases to he love.
A long letter from Edith Champion, which reached him during his last days at the Rosary, seemed to accentuate Hester’s coldness. Edith’s letter was glowing with hopeful love. Her year of widowhood was drawing towards its close. June would soon be here, and then, if he still cared for her, their new life might begin. He had never been absent from her thoughts during her exile. The winter had seemed very long, but the dawn of spring meant the dawn of hope. —
The letter claimed him, and, in his present mood, he had no desire to dispute that claim. The pale, sweet face which looked at him in mute agony on that last March morning had lost its power to move him.
“You will come back to me, Gerard?” she entreated, clinging to him in a farewell embrace.
“Perhaps! Who knows if I may live long enough to see you and England again? You have made your choice, Hester. The future must take care of itself. In any case your welfare is provided for. I have taken care of all material matters — for you and yours.” That was all. There was no tender allusion to that new obligation which the summer was to bring upon Hester and upon him. His heart was full of a sullen anger against this woman whose sacrifice just stopped short of blind obedience.
Her heart turned to ice at this cold reply. Womanly pride, the pride of a deeply injured woman, rose up against him at this last moment. Her arms dropped from his neck. The wan cheek that had been pressed against his was turned away. She followed him silently into the hall, and stood by in silence while he was being helped on with his fur-lined coat, and saw him step into the snug little brougham, with the dumb, tearless agony of a leaden despair. He looked out of the carriage window and waved her a smiling good-bye. The smile hurt her more than his harshest words could have done.
CHAPTER XXVI. “SING WHILE HE MAY, MAN HATH NO LONG DELIGHT.”
Gerard and his companion started for the South in the train de luxe that left Charing Cross early in the forenoon. A sunlit passage across the Channel, a day of cigar-smoking and newspaper-reading, and brief intermittent slumbers, into which they sank, not from sleepiness, but from sheer weariness and vacuity: an evening at piquet, played under the vacillating light of a couple of reading-lamps, while the train rushed southward: and then a long weary night in which the same rushing sound, the same incessant oscillation, mixed itself with every dream, while now and again the sudden thunder of a passing train startled the dreamer with some strange image conjured instantaneously out of the distorted dream-world.
Gerard’s spirits had been variable all through the long day and evening, now breaking out into gaiety, anon sinking into gloom. His strongest feeling was a sense of relief. He had escaped from a life that had been gradually growing abhorrent to him. He had escaped from the house of melancholy, from the atmosphere of undying remorse. Most of all, he had escaped from the presence of Nicholas Davenport — that living spectre, the dismal simulacrum of humanity, the perpetual reminder of old age, disease, and death; the mindless automaton whose vicinity made life hideous.
“If duty is more to her than love she must find happiness in doing her duty,” he said to himself again and again, while his thoughts set themselves to the rhythmical beat of the engine. “She must find happiness — doing her duty!” With every thud those words repeated themselves.
He had done his duty by her, he told himself. He had given her the option, and she had decided. Her lover or her father? She had chosen to stand by the earlier tie. Obstinately, needlessly, in opposition to all reason, she had sacrificed herself to the father whose only claim upon her love at the best had been a father’s name. She had chosen.
Yes, he had done his duty. Hurried although his flight from England had been, eager as he was to plunge into new scenes, to wash the bitter taste of memory out of his mouth with the waters of novelty, he had taken every step necessary to ensure Hester Davenport’s material prosperity. His last act before leaving London had been to execute a deed of trust which provided for her. She would be a rich woman all the days of her life — a very rich woman — able to enjoy all that wealth can offer of splendour, luxury, variety, the world’s esteem, long after he would be inured in bronze or marble, a handful of mindless dust. She had known the sharp sting of poverty all through the fairest years of her youth, and would be the better able to appreciate the privileges of wealth. He told himself that he could afford to think of her without one remorseful pang; yet he did not so think in the enforced vacuity of long sleepless hours, cramped, with aching limbs, in his narrow berth. The pathetic face, the imploring eyes, haunted hi
m.
He thought of the infinite consolations of her life — a life not measured, like his miserable existence, within the narrow limits of a year or two. If she was alone now, alone with that sad phantasm of mindless humanity, she would have a new companion before very long — the sweetest, tenderest companion woman’s life can know — the child who in every attribute recalls all that was best and dearest in the father.
“If I had stayed with her to the end our parting must have come all the same,” he told himself, “and why should I sacrifice my poor remnant of life to the horror of an association that agonises me?
One little year, perhaps, at the best. Only a year. Am I a wretch because I try to make the most of that last year?”
He looked at Justin Jermyn, sleeping on the other side of the carriage, the image of placid repose; his breathing as regular as an infant’s; his complexion delicately fair in the lamplight; his parted lips rosy as the lips of a child.
“There is enjoyment of life,” mused Gerard, “and yet I don’t believe that man ever had an unselfish thought, or would hesitate at the commission of the darkest crime, if crime could make life pleasanter to him.”
He remembered how Jermyn had pushed him on to his alliance with Hester, and how Jermyn had urged him to sever the tie directly it became irksome — a man who perhaps had done very little evil on his own account, who had neither robbed the widow and orphan nor murdered his friend, but who went about the world giving evil advice lightly, with a graceful carelessness, a perpetual happy-go-lucky air which minimised the wrongfulness in every transaction, and made so airy a jest of virtue that vice seemed non-existent. And, after all, when a man has filed down his beliefs to absolute materialism, when he says of that microcosm, himself, “Thou art as the beasts that perish,” it becomes very hard to define vice and virtue.
In the grey dawn Gerard envied his Mentor that childlike slumber, that perfect complacency and content with life. And then what physical advantages the man had! Lungs sound as a bell; muscles which no exercise could tire — on the river, in the gymnasium, on tennis-court or golf-links alike inimitable. Yes, that was the glory of life — a mind without sense of good and evil; a body endowed with health and strength, and with the promise of long life in every organ and every limb. Better than millions; better than that plethora of gold which seemed a mockery to the man whose days were numbered.
Gerard pondered on the months that he had wasted in the cottage by the river, living as a man might live whose income was under a thousand a year; he who had the spending of nearly a hundred thousand in the twelve months if he chose; he whose duty it was, knowing himself doomed to early death, to riot in gold, to wallow in the waters of Pactolus, to melt pearls of price in his wine, to achieve some mad extravagance — some folly which should be remembered when he was dust — almost every day of his life.
For fame he had done nothing. Granted that he had furnished a house which in every detail testified to lavish expenditure and superior taste; but do not the wool-growers of Australia and the petroleum merchants of America as much as that? Clever as he fancied himself, he had made no new departure. He had given recherché luncheons, and had succeeded in having his hospitality spoken of as “the Hillersdon table d’hôte” by the witlings of his circle, mostly, perhaps, by those whom he did not entertain. He had bought some of the costliest books from famous collections lately brought to the hammer. He had patronised some rising artists, eccentrics of the French and Belgian schools; had bought statues, and had given exorbitant sums for carriage horses which he rarely used, and for a Park hack which he rode so seldom that every ride had been a narrow escape of sudden death. And in works of beneficence — what was the record there? He had given freely, given carelessly and unquestioningly, given to all who asked, tossing the letters of appeal from Charities or from individuals to his secretary, with the order to send a cheque “for whatever you think fit.” It may be that gold distributed thus unthinkingly had done as much harm as it had done good, had fed the professional begging-letter writer, and encouraged the drunken hanger-on of Fortune. He had devoted his wealth to no great work for the public good. He had dedicated no recreation-ground, no park or lawn, to the joyless dwellers in the seething slums. He had built no wholesome and airy habitations to replace the loathsome dens of Bethnal Green or Bermondsey. No; he had done very little with his money; he, who when penniless had pondered so often on the potentialities of wealth, and had wondered at the sorry use the average millionaire makes of his golden opportunities! He, Gerard Hillersdon, man of the world, thinker, dreamer, fully abreast with all the newest ideas, felt that his career up to this point had been a failure. And the time that remained to him for achievement was go short! He was oppressed by a sense of hurry, an eagerness to enjoy, which kept his blood at fever-point. How slow was this so-called express: how uncomfortable this train de luxe!
While the glamour of a passionate love had lasted that tranquil existence by the river had been perfect happiness; but now, by a strange perversity of mind, he looked back upon the placid monotony of those days with a feeling that was akin to disgust. It was not that he could contemplate Hester’s image without tenderness; but between the fair young face and his picture of the Rosary there came an image of horror — the face and form of the man whose shattered brain was in some wise his work. He forgot all that ho had enjoyed of exquisite bliss — the dual joys of a supreme and unselfish love — in the nearer memory of that one hideous night, in the painful associations of that after time when Hester’s heart had been divided between love and duty.
No train could travel fast enough to carry him away from those memories. They were at Monte Carlo in the golden light of afternoon. Only yesterday they had breakfasted at the London Métropole in the grey gloom of an English March. To-day they were taking afternoon-tea on a wide balcony overlooking the sunlit Mediterranean, Monaco’s promontory with its twin towers, and all the theatrical gardens and turrets, stucco pinnacles, flower-decked terraces, steps and balustrades of Monte Carlo.
They were to stay here for a few days, as long as the place amused them, and then they were to go to Florence, rapidly or by easy stages, as the spirit moved them. Jermyn’s spirits were too equable to be brightened by the change from London greyness to this fairy-land of Europe, but he flung back his head with a gay laugh and sniffed the balmy air with sensuous appreciation.
“What a sensible man your doctor was to send yon to the South,” he exclaimed, “and what a sensible man you were to invite me to be your travelling companion!”
“I should have been bored to death if I had come alone,” answered Gerard laughingly, “and I really think you are the one man whose society suits me best — though I have the most despicable opinion of your morals.”
“My dear Hillersdon, I never set up for having any morals. I don’t know what morals mean. There are certain things that I wouldn’t do, because no man can do them and hold his head up in society. I wouldn’t cheat at cards, for instance, or open another man’s letter. Between men there is a kind of honesty which must be observed, or society couldn’t hold together. Between men and women: well, I think you must have found out long before yon met me that the weaker sex is outside the laws of honour, and that a man who would rather perish than sauter la coupe at whist or introduce an extraneous king at écarté thinks it a bagatelle to trick a woman out of her reputation. Yet, after all, in the net result of life I believe women have the best of it; and for every one whom we lead astray there are two who fatten upon our destruction, a fact which you may see exemplified in this charming place.”
They were at a brand new hotel, a white walled palace built on a height commanding sea and shore. La Condamine lay in a sunny hollow below them, a concatenation of white villas and red roofs and narrow gardens, balconies and trellises brimming over with roses, the rich purple masses of the Bougainvilliers conspicuous above wall and gable, hedges of pink and scarlet geranium, an avalanche of azaleas pouring down the hill to the lapis blue of th
e sea. The hotel was so new that it seemed to have been built and furnished expressly for Mr. Hillersdon’s occupation. The courtly manager assured him that the suite of rooms reserved for him had never been inhabited. They were on the second floor, and consisted of ante-room, saloon, and dining-room, bedrooms and bathroom, all upholstered in the same silvery greys and greens, with artistic touches of warmer colour here and there, to accentuate the prevailing coolness. A marble loggia extended the whole length of the windows, and in this balmy climate the loggia was the most delightful spot in which to live.
Gerard and his companion strolled down to the casino after their eight-o’clock dinner. The season was nearly over, and there was ample space for moving about in the gaudy mauresque rooms, but the players gathered thickly round the tables, under the vivid light concentrated on the green cloth; and there were plenty of people in the trente et quarante room, a higher class perhaps than are to be found in the height of the season, when the idle and the curious surge in and out and peer and watch and whisper, to the annoyance of the players who mean business and nothing else.
For Gerard since his accession to fortune play had but little charm. While he was still poor he had hankered after the feverish delights of the baccarat table, and had frequented clubs where play ran high, venturing small stakes, which when smallest were more than he could afford to lose — but now that loss or gain signified nothing to him he needed some stimulus from without to give a flavour to play.
He found that stimulus for the moment in the very atmosphere of the trente et quarante room, where some of the handsomest women and some of the quickest witted men in Paris crowded round the tables and elbowed him as he leant forward to deposit his stakes. He played very carelessly, sometimes letting his winnings lie on the table till they were trebled and quadrupled before the inexorable rake swept them away, sometimes putting aside his gains in a little heap of gold and notes, which some of those lovely Parisian eyes watched covetously. He was more interested in the people at the table than in the game. It, surprised him to see how many of these people exchanged greetings with Justin Jermyn, who had elbowed his way to the front, and was playing with small stakes in a light casual way. His careless nods, his sharp sudden handshakes indicated considerable intimacy with those of the players by whom he was greeted. The beautiful women smiled at him with an air of patronage, and he was equally patronising to the keen-eyed men. A little ripple of low laughter, a flutter of whispers went round the table, quieted only by the authoritative hush of the dealer.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 925
