‘I’d rather you wouldn’t, and perhaps you wouldn’t mind not talking quite so loud. Mr Challoner seems to be wondering what you’re shouting about.’
‘You shouldn’t torture me.’
She opened and shut her fan,—as she looked down at it I am disposed to suspect that she smiled.
‘I am glad we have had this little explanation, because, of course, you are my friend.’
‘I am not your friend.’
‘Pardon me, you are.’
‘I say I’m not,—if I can’t be something else, I’ll be no friend.’
She went on,—calmly ignoring me,—playing with her fan.
‘As it happens, I am, just now, in rather a delicate position, in which a friend is welcome.’
‘What’s the matter? Who’s been worrying you,—your father?’
‘Well,—he has not,—as yet; but he may be soon.’
‘What’s in the wind?’
‘Mr Lessingham.’
She dropped her voice,—and her eyes. For the moment I did not catch her meaning.
‘What?’
‘Your friend, Mr Lessingham.’
‘Excuse me, Miss Lindon, but I am by no means sure that anyone is entitled to call Mr Lessingham a friend of mine.’
‘What!—Not when I am going to be his wife?’
That took me aback. I had had my suspicions that Paul Lessingham was more with Marjorie than he had any right to be, but I had never supposed that she could see anything desirable in a stick of a man like that. Not to speak of a hundred and one other considerations,—Lessingham on one side of the House, and her father on the other; and old Lindon girding at him anywhere and everywhere—with his high-dried Tory notions of his family importance,—to say nothing of his fortune.
I don’t know if I looked what I felt,—if I did, I looked uncommonly blank.
‘You have chosen an appropriate moment, Miss Lindon, to make to me such a communication.’
She chose to disregard my irony.
‘I am glad you think so, because now you will understand what a difficult position I am in.’
‘I offer you my hearty congratulations.’
‘And I thank you for them, Mr Atherton, in the spirit in which they are offered, because from you I know they mean so much.’
I bit my lip,—for the life of me I could not tell how she wished me to read her words.
‘Do I understand that this announcement has been made to me as one of the public?’
‘You do not. It is made to you, in confidence, as my friend,—as my greatest friend; because a husband is something more than friend.’ My pulses tingled. ‘You will be on my side?’
She had paused,—and I stayed silent.
‘On your side,—or Mr Lessingham’s?’
‘His side is my side, and my side is his side;—you will be on our side?’
‘I am not sure that I altogether follow you.’
‘You are the first I have told. When papa hears it is possible that there will be trouble,—as you know. He thinks so much of you and of your opinion; when that trouble comes I want you to be on our side,—on my side.’
‘Why should I?—what does it matter? You are stronger than your father,—it is just possible that Lessingham is stronger than you; together, from your father’s point of view, you will be invincible.’
‘You are my friend,—are you not my friend?’
‘In effect, you offer me an Apple of Sodom.’
‘Thank you;—I did not think you so unkind.’
‘And you,—are you kind? I make you an avowal of my love, and, straightway, you ask me to act as chorus to the love of another.’
‘How could I tell you loved me,—as you say! I had no notion. You have known me all your life, yet you have not breathed a word of it till now.’
‘If I had spoken before?’
I imagine that there was a slight movement of her shoulders,—almost amounting to a shrug.
‘I do not know that it would have made any difference.—I do not pretend that it would. But I do know this, I believe that you yourself have only discovered the state of your own mind within the last half-hour.’
If she had slapped my face she could not have startled me more. I had no notion if her words were uttered at random, but they came so near the truth they held me breathless. It was a fact that only during the last few minutes had I really realised how things were with me,—only since the end of that first waltz that the flame had burst out in my soul which was now consuming me. She had read me by what seemed so like a flash of inspiration that I hardly knew what to say to her. I tried to be stinging.
‘You flatter me, Miss Lindon, you flatter me at every point. Had you only discovered to me the state of your mind a little sooner I should not have discovered to you the state of mine at all.’
‘We will consider it terra incognita.’
‘Since you wish it.’ Her provoking calmness stung me,—and the suspicion that she was laughing at me in her sleeve. I gave her a glimpse of the cloven hoof. ‘But, at the same time, since you assert that you have so long been innocent, I beg that you will continue so no more. At least, your innocence shall be without excuse. For I wish you to understand that I love you, that I have loved you, that I shall love you. Any understanding you may have with Mr Lessingham will not make the slightest difference. I warn you, Miss Lindon, that, until death, you will have to write me down your lover.’
She looked at me, with wide open eyes,—as if I almost frightened her. To be frank, that was what I wished to do.
‘Mr Atherton!’
‘Miss Lindon?’
‘That is not like you at all.’
‘We seem to be making each other’s acquaintance for the first time.’
She continued to gaze at me with her big eyes,—which, to be candid, I found it difficult to meet. On a sudden her face was lighted by a smile,—which I resented.
‘Not after all these years,—not after all these years! I know you, and though I daresay you’re not flawless, I fancy you’ll be found to ring pretty true.’
Her manner was almost sisterly,—elder-sisterly. I could have shaken her. Hartridge coming to claim his dance gave me an opportunity to escape with such remnants of dignity as I could gather about me. He dawdled up,—his thumbs, as usual, in his waistcoat pockets.
‘I believe, Miss Lindon, this is our dance.’
She acknowledged it with a bow, and rose to take his arm. I got up, and left her, without a word.
As I crossed the hall I chanced on Percy Woodville. He was in his familiar state of fluster, and was gaping about him as if he had mislaid the Koh-i-noor, and wondered where in thunder it had got to. When he saw it was I he caught me by the arm.
‘I say, Atherton, have you seen Miss Lindon?’
‘I have.’
‘No!—Have you?—By Jove!—Where? I’ve been looking for her all over the place, except in the cellars and the attics,—and I was just going to commence on them. This is our dance.’
‘In that case, she’s shunted you.’
‘No!—Impossible!’ His mouth went like an O,—and his eyes ditto, his eyeglass clattering down on to his shirt front. ‘I expect the mistake’s mine. Fact is, I’ve made a mess of my programme. It’s either the last dance, or this dance, or the next, that I’ve booked with her, but I’m hanged if I know which. Just take a squint at it, there’s a good chap, and tell me which one you think it is.’
I ‘took a squint’—since he held the thing within an inch of my nose I could hardly help it; one ‘squint,’ and that was enough—and more. Some men’s ball programmes are studies in impressionism, Percy’s seemed to me to be a study in madness. It was covered with hieroglyphics, but what they meant, or what they did there anyhow, it was absurd to suppose that I could tell,—I never put them ther
e!—Proverbially, the man’s a champion hasher.
‘I regret, my dear Percy, that I am not an expert in cuneiform writing. If you have any doubt as to which dance is yours, you’d better ask the lady,—she’ll feel flattered.’
Leaving him to do his own addling I went to find my coat,—I panted to get into the open air; as for dancing I felt that I loathed it. Just as I neared the cloak-room someone stopped me. It was Dora Grayling.
‘Have you forgotten that this is our dance?’
I had forgotten,—clean. And I was not obliged by her remembering. Though as I looked at her sweet, grey eyes, and at the soft contours of her gentle face, I felt that I deserved well kicking. She is an angel,—one of the best!—but I was in no mood for angels. Not for a very great deal would I have gone through that dance just then, nor, with Dora Grayling, of all women in the world, would I have sat it out.—So I was a brute and blundered.
‘You must forgive me, Miss Grayling, but—I am not feeling very well, and—I don’t think I’m up to any more dancing.—Good-night.’
CHAPTER XI
A MIDNIGHT EPISODE
THE WEATHER OUT OF DOORS was in tune with my frame of mind,—I was in a deuce of a temper, and it was a deuce of a night. A keen north-east wind, warranted to take the skin right off you, was playing catch-who-catch-can with intermittent gusts of blinding rain. Since it was not fit for a dog to walk, none of your cabs for me,—nothing would serve but pedestrian exercise.
So I had it.
I went down Park Lane,—and the wind and rain went with me,—also, thoughts of Dora Grayling. What a bounder I had been,—and was! If there is anything in worse taste than to book a lady for a dance, and then to leave her in the lurch, I should like to know what that thing is,—when found it ought to be made a note of. If any man of my acquaintance allowed himself to be guilty of such a felony in the first degree, I should cut him. I wished someone would try to cut me,—I should like to see him at it.
It was all Marjorie’s fault,—everything! past, present, and to come. I had known that girl when she was in long frocks—I had, at that period of our acquaintance, pretty recently got out of them; when she was advanced to short ones; and when, once more, she returned to long. And all that time,—well, I was nearly persuaded that the whole of the time I had loved her. If I had not mentioned it, it was because I had suffered my affection, ‘like the worm, to lie hidden in the bud,’—or whatever it is the fellow says.
At any rate, I was perfectly positive that if I had had the faintest notion that she would ever seriously consider such a man as Lessingham I should have loved her long ago. Lessingham! Why, he was old enough to be her father,—at least he was a good many years older than I was. And a wretched Radical! It is true that on certain points I, also, am what some people would call a Radical,—but not a Radical of the kind he is. Thank Heaven, no! No doubt I have admired traits in his character, until I learnt this thing of him. I am even prepared to admit that he is a man of ability,—in his way! which is, emphatically, not mine. But to think of him in connection with such a girl as Marjorie Lindon,—preposterous! Why, the man’s as dry as a stick,—drier! And cold as an iceberg. Nothing but a politician, absolutely. He a lover!—how I could fancy such a stroke of humour setting all the benches in a roar. Both by education, and by nature, he was incapable of even playing such a part; as for being the thing,—absurd! If you were to sink a shaft from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, you would find inside him nothing but the dry bones of parties and of politics.
What my Marjorie—if everyone had his own, she is mine, and, in that sense, she always will be mine—what my Marjorie could see in such a dry-as-dust out of which even to construct the rudiments of a husband was beyond my fathoming.
Suchlike agreeable reflections were fit company for the wind and the wet, so they bore me company all down the lane. I crossed at the corner, going round the hospital towards the square. This brought me to the abiding-place of Paul the Apostle. Like the idiot I was, I went out into the middle of the street, and stood awhile in the mud to curse him and his house,—on the whole, when one considers that that is the kind of man I can be, it is, perhaps, not surprising that Marjorie disdained me.
‘May your following,’ I cried,—it is an absolute fact that the words were shouted!—‘both in the House and out of it, no longer regard you as a leader! May your party follow after other gods! May your political aspirations wither, and your speeches be listened to by empty benches! May the Speaker persistently and strenuously refuse to allow you to catch his eye, and, at the next election, may your constituency reject you!—Jehoram!—what’s that?’
I might well ask. Until that moment I had appeared to be the only lunatic at large, either outside the house or in it, but, on a sudden, a second lunatic came on the scene, and that with a vengeance. A window was crashed open from within,—the one over the front door, and someone came plunging through it on to the top of the portico. That it was a case of intended suicide I made sure,—and I began to be in hopes that I was about to witness the suicide of Paul. But I was not so assured of the intention when the individual in question began to scramble down the pillar of the porch in the most extraordinary fashion I ever witnessed,—I was not even convinced of a suicidal purpose when he came tumbling down, and lay sprawling in the mud at my feet.
I fancy, if I had performed that portion of the act I should have lain quiet for a second or two, to consider whereabouts I was, and which end of me was uppermost. But there was no nonsense of that sort about that singularly agile stranger,—if he was not made of india-rubber he ought to have been. So to speak, before he was down he was up,—it was all I could do to grab at him before he was off like a rocket.
Such a figure as he presented is seldom seen,—at least, in the streets of London. What he had done with the rest of his apparel I am not in a position to say,—all that was left of it was a long, dark cloak which he strove to wrap round him. Save for that,—and mud!—he was bare as the palm of my hand. Yet it was his face that held me. In my time I have seen strange expressions on men’s faces, but never before one such as I saw on his. He looked like a man might look who, after living a life of undiluted crime, at last finds himself face to face with the devil. It was not the look of a madman,—far from it; it was something worse.
It was the expression on the man’s countenance, as much as anything else, which made me behave as I did. I said something to him,—some nonsense, I know not what. He regarded me with a silence which was supernatural. I spoke to him again;—not a word issued from those rigid lips; there was not a tremor of those awful eyes,—eyes which I was tolerably convinced saw something which I had never seen, or ever should. Then I took my hand from off his shoulder, and let him go. I know not why,—I did.
He had remained as motionless, as a statue while I held him,—indeed, for any evidence of life he gave, he might have been a statue; but, when my grasp was loosed, how he ran! He had turned the corner and was out of sight before I could say, ‘How do!’
It was only then,—when he had gone, and I had realised the extra-double-express-flash-of-lightning rate at which he had taken his departure—that it occurred to me of what an extremely sensible act I had been guilty in letting him go at all. Here was an individual who had been committing burglary, or something very like it, in the house of a budding cabinet minister, and who had tumbled plump into my arms, so that all I had to do was to call a policeman and get him quodded,—and all that I had done was something of a totally different kind.
‘You’re a nice type of an ideal citizen!’ I was addressing myself, ‘A first chop specimen of a low-down idiot,—to connive at the escape of the robber who’s been robbing Paul. Since you’ve let the villain go, the least you can do is to leave a card on the Apostle, and inquire how he’s feeling.’
I went to Lessingham’s front door and knocked,—I knocked once, I knocked twice, I knocked thrice, and the
third time, I give you my word, I made the echoes ring,—but still there was not a soul that answered.
‘If this is a case of a seven or seventy-fold murder, and the gentleman in the cloak has made a fair clearance of every living creature the house contains, perhaps it’s just as well I’ve chanced upon the scene,—still I do think that one of the corpses might get up to answer the door. If it is possible to make noise enough to waken the dead, you bet I’m on to it.’
And I was,—I punished that knocker! until I warrant the pounding I gave it was audible on the other side of Green Park. And, at last, I woke the dead,—or, rather, I roused Matthews to a consciousness that something was going on. Opening the door about six inches, through the interstice he protruded his ancient nose.
‘Who’s there?’
‘Nothing, my dear sir, nothing and no one. It must have been your vigorous imagination which induced you to suppose that there was,—you let it run away with you.’
Then he knew me,—and opened the door about two feet.
‘Oh, it’s you, Mr Atherton. I beg your pardon, sir,—I thought it might have been the police.’
‘What then? Do you stand in terror of the minions of the law,—at last?’
A most discreet servant, Matthews,—just the fellow for a budding cabinet minister. He glanced over his shoulder,—I had suspected the presence of a colleague at his back, now I was assured. He put his hand up to his mouth,—and I thought how exceedingly discreet he looked, in his trousers and his stockinged feet, and with his hair all rumpled, and his braces dangling behind, and his nightshirt creased.
‘Well, sir, I have received instructions not to admit the police.’
‘The deuce you have!—From whom?’
Coughing behind his hand, leaning forward, he addressed me with an air which was flatteringly confidential.
‘From Mr Lessingham, sir.’
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