“I am obliged to go away very suddenly,” he said; and his voice trembled violently.
Margaret’s face lost colour in answer, and she resisted an impulse to turn and meet his eyes. She would have liked to, but she felt his look on her, and she feared lest, looking once, she should look too long.
“Must you go away?” she asked with a good deal of self-possession.
“Yes, I fear I must. I know I must, if I mean to remain here afterwards. I would rather go at once and be done with it.” He still spoke uncertainly, as if struggling with some violent hoarseness in his throat.
“Tell me why you must go,” she said imperiously. Claudius hesitated a moment.
“I will tell you one of the principal reasons of my going,” he said. “You know I came here to take possession of my fortune, and I very naturally relied upon doing so. Obviously, if I do not obtain it I cannot continue to live in the way I am now doing, on the slender resources which have been enough for me until now.”
“Et puis?” said the Countess, raising her eyebrows a little.
“Et puis,” continued the Doctor, “these legal gentlemen find difficulty in persuading themselves that I am myself — that I am really the nephew of Gustavus Lindstrand, deceased.”
“What nonsense!” exclaimed Margaret. “And so to please them you are going away. And who will get your money, pray?”
“I will get it,” answered Claudius, “for I will come back as soon as I have obtained the necessary proofs of my identity from Heidelberg.”
“I never heard of anything so ridiculous,” said Margaret hotly. “To go all that distance for a few papers. As if we did not all know you! If you are not Dr. Claudius, who are you? Why, Mr. Barker went to Heidelberg on purpose to find you.”
“Nevertheless, Messrs. Screw and Scratch doubt me. Here is their letter — the last one. Will you look at it?” and Claudius took an envelope from his pocket-book. He was glad to have come over to the argumentative tack, for his heart was very sore, and he knew what the end must be.
“No.” The Countess turned to him for the first time, with an indescribable look in her face, between anger and pain. “No, I will not read it.”
“I wish you would,” said Claudius, “you would understand better.” Something in his voice touched a sympathetic chord.
“I think I understand,” said the Countess, looking back at the sea, which was growing dim and indistinct before her. “I think you ought to go.”
The indistinctness of her vision was not due to any defect in her sight. The wet fog was rising like a shapeless evil genius out of the sluggish sea, rolling heavily across the little bay to the lovers’ beach, with its swollen arms full of blight and mildew. Margaret shivered at the sight of it, and drew the lace thing she wore closer to her throat. But she did not rise, or make any sign that she would go.
“What is the other reason for your going?” she asked at length.
“What other reason?”
“You said your inheritance, or the evidence you require in order to obtain it, was one of the principal reasons for your going. I suppose there is another?”
“Yes, Countess, there is another reason, but I cannot tell you now what it is.”
“I have no right to ask, of course,” said Margaret,— “unless I can help you,” she added, in her soft, deep voice.
“You have more right than you think, far more right,” answered Claudius. “And I thank you for the kind thought of help. It is very good of you.” He turned towards her, and leaned upon his hand as he sat. Still the fog rolled up, and the lifeless sea seemed overshed with an unctuous calm. They were almost in the dark on their strip of beach, and the moisture was already clinging in great, thick drops to their clothes, and to the rocks where they sat. Still Claudius looked at Margaret, and Margaret looked at the narrow band of oily water still uncovered by the mist.
“When are you going?” she asked slowly, as if hating to meet the answer.
“To-night,” said Claudius, still looking earnestly at her. The light was gone from her eyes, and the flush had long sunk away to the heart whence it had come.
“To-night?” she repeated, a little vaguely.
“Yes,” he said, and waited; then after a moment, “Shall you mind when I am gone?” He leaned towards her, earnestly looking into her face.
“Yes,” said Margaret, “I shall be sorry.” Her voice was kind, and very gentle. Still she did not look at him. Claudius held out his right hand, palm upward, to meet hers.
“Shall you mind much?” he asked earnestly, with intent eyes. She met his hand and took it.
“Yes, I shall be very sorry.” Claudius slipped from the rock where he was sitting, and fell upon one knee before her, kissing the hand she gave as though it had been the holy cross. He looked up, his face near hers, and at last he met her eyes, burning with a startled light under the black brows, contrasting with the white of her forehead, and face, and throat. He looked one moment.
“Shall you really mind very much?” he asked a third time, in a strange, lost voice. There was no answer, only the wet fog all around, and those two beautiful faces ashy pale in the mist, and very near together. One instant so — and then — ah, God! they have cast the die at last, for he has wound his mighty arms about her, and is passionately kissing the marble of her cheek.
“My beloved, my beloved, I love you — with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my strength” — but she speaks no word, only her arms pass his and hang about his neck, and her dark head lies on his breast; and could you but see her eyes, you would see also the fair pearls that the little god has formed deep down in the ocean of love — the lashes thereof are wet with sudden weeping. And all around them the deep, deaf fog, thick and muffled as darkness, and yet not dark.
“Ugh!” muttered the evil genius of the sea, “I hate lovers; an’ they drown not, they shall have a wet wooing.” And he came and touched them all over with the clamminess of his deathly hand, and breathed upon them the thick, cold breath of his damp old soul. But he could do nothing against such love as that, and the lovers burned him and laughed him to scorn.
She was very silent as she kissed him and laid her head on his breast. And he could only repeat what was nearest, the credo of his love, and while his arms were about her they were strong, but when he tried to take them away, they were as tremulous as the veriest aspen.
The great tidal wave comes rolling in, once in every lifetime that deserves to be called a lifetime, and sweeps away every one of our landmarks, and changes all our coast-line. But though the waters do not subside, yet the crest of them falls rippling away into smoothness after the first mad rush, else should we all be but shipwrecked mariners in the sea of love. And so, after a time, Margaret drew away from Claudius gently, finding his hands with hers as she moved, and holding them.
“Come,” said she, “let us go.” They were her first words, and Claudius thought the deep voice had never sounded so musical before. But the words, the word “go,” sounded like a knell on his heart. He had forgotten that he must sail on the morrow. He had forgotten that it was so soon over.
They went away, out of the drizzling fog and the mist, and the evil sea-breath, up to the cliff walk and so by the wet lanes homewards, two loving, sorrowing hearts, not realising what had come to them, nor knowing what should come hereafter, but only big with love fresh spoken, and hot with tears half shed.
“Beloved,” said Claudius as they stood together for the last time in the desolation of the great, dreary, hotel drawing-room — for Claudius was going— “beloved, will you promise me something?”
Margaret looked down as she stood with her clasped hands on his arm.
“What is it I should promise you — Claudius?” she asked, half hesitating.
Claudius laid his hand tenderly — tenderly, as giants only can be tender, on the thick black hair, as hardly daring, yet loving, to let it linger there.
“Will you promise that if you doubt me when I am g
one, you will ask of the Duke the ‘other reason’ of my going?”
“I shall not doubt you,” answered Margaret, looking proudly up.
“God bless you, my beloved!” — and so he went to sea again.
CHAPTER XVI.
WHEN MR. BARKER, who had followed the party to Newport, called on the Countess the following morning, she was not visible, so he was fain to content himself with scribbling a very pressing invitation to drive in the afternoon, which he sent up with some flowers, not waiting for an answer. The fact was that Margaret had sent for the Duke at an early hour — for her — and was talking with him on matters of importance at the time Barker called. Otherwise she would very likely not have refused to see the latter.
“I want you to explain to me what they are trying to do to make Dr. Claudius give up his property,” said Margaret, who looked pale and beautiful in a morning garment of nondescript shape and of white silken material. The Duke was sitting by the window, watching a couple of men preparing to get into a trim dogcart. To tell the truth, the dogcart and the horse were the objects of interest. His Grace was not aware that the young men were no less personages than young Mr. Hannibal Q. Sniggins and young Mr. Orlando Van Sueindell, both of New York, sons of the “great roads.” Either of these young gentlemen could have bought out his Grace; either of them would have joyfully licked his boots; and either of them would have protested, within the sacred precincts of their gorgeous club in New York, that he was a conceited ass of an Englishman. But his Grace did not know this, or he would certainly have regarded them with more interest. He was profoundly indifferent to the character of the people with whom he had to do, whether they were catalogued in the “book of snobs” or not. It is generally people who are themselves snobs who call their intimates by that offensive epithet, attributing to them the sin they fall into themselves. The Duke distinguished between gentlemen and cads, when it was a question of dining at the same table, but in matters of business he believed the distinction of no importance. He came to America for business purposes, and he took Americans as he found them. He thought they were very good men of business, and when it came to associating with them on any other footing, he thought some of them were gentlemen and some were not — pretty much as it is everywhere else. So he watched the young men getting into their dogcart, and he thought the whole turn-out looked “very fit.”
“Really,” he began, in answer to the Countess’s question, “ — upon my word, I don’t know much about it. At least, I suppose not.”
“Oh, I thought you did,” said Margaret, taking up a book and a paper-cutter. “I thought it must be something rather serious, or he would not have been obliged to go abroad to get papers about it.”
“Well, you know, after all, he — aw—” the Duke reddened— “he — well yes, exactly so.”
“Yes?” said Margaret interrogatively, expecting something more.
“Exactly,” said the Duke, still red, but determined not to say anything. He had not promised Claudius not to say he could have vouched for him, had the Doctor stayed; but he feared that in telling Margaret this, he might be risking the betrayal of Claudius’s actual destination. It would not do, however.
“I really do not understand just what you said,” said Margaret, looking at him.
“Ah! well, no. I daresay I did not express myself very clearly. What was your question, Countess?”
“I asked who it was who was making so much trouble for the Doctor;” said Margaret calmly.
“Oh, I was sure I could not have understood you. It’s the executors and lawyer people, who are not satisfied about his identity. It’s all right, though.”
“Of course. But could no one here save him the trouble of going all the way back to Germany?”
The Duke grew desperate. He was in a corner where he must either tell a lie of some sort or let the cat out of the bag. The Duke was a cynical and worldly man enough, perhaps, as the times go, but he did not tell lies. He plunged.
“My dear Countess,” he said, facing towards her and stroking his whiskers, “I really know something about Dr. Claudius, and I will tell you all I am at liberty to tell; please do not ask me anything else. Claudius is really gone to obtain papers from Heidelberg as well as for another purpose which I cannot divulge. The papers might have been dispensed with, for I could have sworn to him.”
“Then the other object is the important one,” said the Countess pensively. The Duke was silent. “I am greatly obliged to you,” Margaret continued, “for what you have told me.”
“I will tell you what I can do,” said the Englishman after a pause, during which an unusual expression in his face seemed to betoken thought. “I am going to the West for a couple of months to look after things, and of course accidents may happen. Claudius may have difficulty in getting what he wants, and I am the only man here who knows all about him. He satisfied me of his identity. I will, if you like, sign a statement vouching for him, and leave it in your hands in case of need. It is all I can do.”
“In my hands?” exclaimed Margaret, drawing herself up a little. “And why in my hands, Duke?” The Duke got very red indeed this time, and hesitated. He had put his foot into it through sheer goodness of heart and a desire to help everybody.
“Aw — a — the — the fact is, Countess,” he got out at last, “the fact is, you know, Claudius has not many friends here, and I thought you were one of them. My only desire is — a — to serve him.”
Margaret had quickly grasped the advantage to Claudius, if such a voucher as the Duke offered were kept in pickle as a rod for his enemies.
“You are right,” said she, “I am a good friend of Dr. Claudius, and I will keep the paper in case of need.”
The Duke recovered his equanimity.
“Thank you,” said he. “I am a very good friend of his, and I thank you on his behalf, as I am sure he will himself. There’s one of our Foreign Office clerks here for his holiday; I will get him to draw up the paper as he is an old friend of mine — in fact, some relation, I believe. By Jove! there goes Barker.” The latter exclamation was caused by the sudden appearance of the man he named on the opposite side of the avenue, in conversation with the two young gentlemen whom the Duke had already noticed as preparing to mount their dogcart.
“Oh,” said Margaret indifferently, in response to the exclamation.
“Yes,” said the Duke, “it is he. I thought he was in New York.”
“No,” said the Countess, “he has just called. It was his card they brought me just as you came. He wants me to drive with him this afternoon.”
“Indeed. Shall you go?”
“I think so — yes,” said she.
“Very well. I will take my sister with me,” said the Duke. “I have got something very decent to drive in.” Margaret laughed at the implied invitation.
“How you take things for granted,” said she. “Did you really think I would have gone with you?”
“Such things have happened,” said the Duke good-humouredly, and went away. Not being in the least a ladies’ man, he was very apt to make such speeches occasionally. He had a habit of taking it for granted that no one refused his invitations.
At four o’clock that afternoon Silas B. Barker junior drew up to the steps of the hotel in a very gorgeous conveyance, called in America a T-cart, and resembling a mail phaeton in build. From the high double box Mr. Barker commanded and guided a pair of showy brown horses, harnessed in the most approved philanthropic, or rather philozooic style; no check-rein, no breeching, no nothing apparently, except a pole and Mr. Barker’s crest. For Mr. Barker had a crest, since he came from Salem, Massachusetts, and the bearings were a witch pendant, gules, on a gallows sinister, sable. Behind him sat the regulation clock-work groom, brought over at considerable expense from the establishment of Viscount Plungham, and who sprang to the ground and took his place at the horses’ heads as soon as Barker had brought them to a stand. Then Barker, arrayed in a new hat, patent-leather boots, a very long fr
ock-coat, and a very expensive rose, descended lightly from his chariot and swiftly ascended the steps, seeming to tread half on air and half on egg-shells. And a few minutes later he again appeared, accompanied by the Countess Margaret, looking dark and pale and queenly. A proud man was dandy Silas as he helped her to her place, and going to the other side, got in and took the ribbands. Many were the glances that shot from the two edges of the road at the unknown beauty whom Silas drove by his side, and obsequious were the bows of Silas’s friends as they passed. Even the groggy old man who drives the water-cart on Bellevue Avenue could scarce forbear to cheer as she went by.
And so they drove away, side by side. Barker knew very well that Claudius had taken his leave the day before, and to tell the truth, he was a good deal surprised that Margaret should be willing to accept this invitation. He had called to ask her, because he was not the man to let the grass grow under his feet at any time, much less when he was laying siege to a woman. For with women time is sometimes everything. And being of a reasonable mind, when Mr. Barker observed that he was surprised, he concluded that there must be some good reason for his astonishment, and still more that there must be some very good reason why Margaret should accept his first invitation to a tête-à-tête afternoon. From one reflection to another, he came at last to the conclusion that she must be anxious to learn some details concerning the Doctor’s departure, from which again he argued that Claudius had not taken her into his confidence. The hypothesis that she might be willing to make an effort with him for Claudius’s justification Mr. Barker dismissed as improbable. And he was right. He waited, therefore, for her to broach the subject, and confined himself, as they drove along, to remarks about the people they passed, the doings of the Newport summer, concerning which he had heard all the gossip during the last few hours, the prospect of Madame Patti in opera during the coming season, horses, dogs, and mutual friends — all the motley array of subjects permissible, desultory, and amusing. Suddenly, as they bowled out on an open road by the sea, Margaret began.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 47
