by Grant Allen
This feeble little girl was named Woodbine Weatherley; she had been at school with Sabine, and, being ‘intellectual,’ as they call it, had afterwards gone to Girton, where her mind, such as it was, had wholly got the better of her frail small body. She was Woodbine by name, and Woodbine by nature. She seemed specially intended by Providence to cling for support to somebody or something; but, unhappily, so far as Basil could perceive, Providence had unkindly neglected to provide her with anybody or anything in particular to cling to. Mr. Venables insisted she should take the part of Celia; and she was well cast for it — if she was to be cast at all — for there was no other character in the whole play she could possibly have been entrusted with. Basil accepted her aid politely, though with a very bad grace, and did his best to mould her by continued training into a passable Celia. She would have preferred a Greek play herself, she said; she thought she could act Antigone; but, failing that, she really did her level best for Shakespeare.
All through the rehearsals, however, no matter what else went right or wrong, Old Affability, regardless for the moment of the thrilling fact that Consols had closed at ninety-four and seven-eights for the account, appeared to concern himself about two things alone — whether Lord Adalbert and Sabine were conferring together enough over their respective parts, and whether Woodbine Weatherley was having full justice done to her talent by stage-manager and fellow-actors or actresses.
‘Papa’s so kind to her,’ Sabine said, when Basil made some laughing remark to the heiress one day about his obvious solicitude that Miss Weatherley should receive her due share of applause. ‘He’s very good, you know, in his way, to poor people, papa is. He likes to befriend them. Woodbine’s an orphan, I suppose you’ve heard, and she wants to be a high school teacher, or something of the sort — all the girls nowadays are mad to be high school teachers or else hospital nurses; it’s the craze of the moment. They call it a mission. But papa thinks she’s not quite strong enough for missions, and he’d like to find her some easier work. Poor little thing, she has a hard life of it, I’m afraid! There’s not enough of her for any man ever to fall in love with, of course; so she’s not likely to marry: and she isn’t strong enough to earn her own living, I think; so I dare say in the end we shall have to keep her. She won’t cost much to keep, that’s one good thing. It’s positively dreadful to see her at dinner. She takes a tiny little slice off a chicken’s breast, and then leaves the best part of it, and never digests the remainder. She’s a sort of chameleon, I believe, or is it a salamander? She lives off air, flavoured with notes on the Greek tragedians.’
‘Is she so learned, then?’ Basil asked, with a superior smile.
‘Learned!’ Sabine rejoined. ‘Why, I should rather think so. She’s nothing else. She’s got the classics on the brain, and all she thinks about on earth is Æschylus and the practice of the Christian virtues. As if those were the kind of things men ever care for!’
An heiress is always much franker in admissions of this sort than any other unmarried woman. She’s so accustomed to being openly hunted herself as fair game that she accepts marriage with bland acquiescence as the obvious end of all feminine pursuits and all feminine existence.
CHAPTER IX.
IN DUCAL CIRCLES.
No true woman will ever believe that a man can be in love with two of her sex at once; she judges him by herself, for a woman’s love is always truly monogamic. So Linda, being quite certain in her own heart that Basil Maclaine admired and liked her very much indeed, had few qualms, if any, when he came home night after night and told her, in the simplicity of his British Philistine soul, how well he got on with Bertie Montgomery and the rich Miss Venables. She regarded them both, in fact, as standing for him in the same line; it was one of Basil’s little weaknesses. She knew he liked to be mixed up with that sort of people. Linda would laugh at it all to herself in her own dignified way, but she loved Basil too well ever seriously to doubt him for one moment, for all that.
So she took no heed of his frequent visits to Hurst Croft, or of his openly-expressed admiration for the heiress’s beauty.
As to Bertie Montgomery, Basil Maclaine and he were quite sworn friends now. It was easy enough for any man to scrape acquaintance with Bertie Montgomery if he cared to do it. Basil went to see him frequently at the Die and Hazard, and on one such occasion, when a well-known plunger offered to cut the Duke’s brother at cards three times running for a tenner a cut, Bertie Montgomery, not having that sum about him at the moment (as he airily explained), condescended to borrow three ten-pound notes in succession with easy nonchalance from his new friend, each of which he lost straight off on the turn of a card to his valorous opponent. Basil was somewhat disconcerted a few minutes later, however, after Bertie had left the room for a game of billiards, when the plunger, smiling broadly, remarked to him in a very confidential tone, ‘I say, I didn’t like to hint at it before Montgomery just now, though I tried to give you a friendly tip with my eye, but you oughtn’t to have lent him thirty quid like that, you know. You’ll never see the colour of your money again. He’s not a bad sort of chap, Bertie ain’t, if you take him in the right way; but he’s got a beastly short memory where coin’s concerned. As sure as eggs is eggs, he’ll forget all about it.’
‘You don’t mean to say so!’ Basil answered, taken aback.
‘Oh yes, I do, though,’ the plunger replied, with a sagacious nod. ‘Runs in the family, don’t you know. It’s the blood that does it. Duke’s just the same. Always see the money posted when you bet with Powysland. That’s why he has to play nothing but roulette now. No private person cares to put his own good hard gold against Powysland’s word or Powysland’s paper. At a public table, it’s all money down; and that’s why he can only get any fun as things stand at present in the Casino at Monte Carlo or the Cercles at Homburg.’
Even so, however, Basil Maclaine didn’t wholly grudge those thirty pounds. It was something to have bound one’s self by ties of unexhausted pecuniary gratitude to the heir-presumptive of a dukedom, like Bertie Montgomery. For the present Duke, though married, was childless, as Basil had discovered by reference to the peerage on the evening of his first meeting with the next successor to the strawberry leaves; and Basil was not the man to grudge even thirty pounds, well spent in cementing a desirable friendship with the Very Best People.
Time flies, and the day of the pastoral play arrived at last. Basil got leave of absence for that afternoon from the head of the office. A mighty gathering of the dwellers in great houses among the Surrey hills assembled on the lawn at Hurst Croft, and money to the extent of several millions was represented, as Hubert Harrison ironically remarked, among the young ladies who sat on the front benches to witness the performance. Happily, the meteorological office favoured the event. According to Mr. Robert Scott, an anti-cyclone brooded over North-western Europe. ‘Variable airs and calms: fair, warm, brighter,’ ran the official forecast with its accustomed laconic brevity; and fair and warm and bright it was, indeed, that afternoon on the velvety slope of the downs near Leatherhead.
Everything went off as well as it could go. The open-air theatre had put on its very best scenery and properties for the grand occasion. The shade of the great spreading beeches and the dark gloom of the yews made the poet’s ideal Arden live again visibly before the eyes of the spectators. Thrushes and linnets sang emulous from the elms to drown the noise of their human rivals. Sabine Venables, as Rosalind, looked a picture to behold; and Hubert Harrison, as the philosophic Jaques, seemed as poetically melancholy as the part demanded of him. Basil Maclaine’s fantastic Touchstone had wit and lightness beyond what anybody expected; he had caught the very ‘false gallop of verse,’ and made all his points with practised skill and ease, being perhaps more applauded than anybody else in the whole entertainment. When all was over, and Sabine, coming up in her page’s dress, congratulated him on his success and praised his elocution, he felt that at last he was really scoring. He said a pretty thing or two in reply,
with distinguished readiness, and Sabine, accustomed to sitting at the receipt of pretty things as her natural due, accepted them so graciously that he began to think Bertie Montgomery was nowhere now, and that he himself was in the front running for the great heiress’s hand and heart and fortune.
If there was a hitch in the proceedings anywhere, it arose from the fact that the Celia was almost too frightened to speak her part; but as nobody was particularly interested in Celia, Basil said to himself, except Mr. Venables, that really was a point of very small importance.
The peculiarity of private theatricals is that they take six weeks at least to prepare for, and are over at last in two short hours. They leave, as a rule, an aching void behind them.
After the play was done, indeed, the company dispersed itself aimlessly about among the trees, and formed little groups beneath the shade of the imagined Arden, to discuss the actors, who mingled among them incongruously enough in the dresses they had worn in the course of the performance. One such group gathered round Old Affability himself, who, standing near the Italian terrace, with his hands behind his back, was loud in his praise of Woodbine Weatherley’s Celia. ‘The prettiest bit of acting in all the piece,’ he observed warmly, ‘and, in my opinion, the most thoroughly artistic.’
‘Except Miss Venables’,’ Basil put in with a quiet smile. ‘Her Rosalind was — what shall I say? — well, just Shakespeare’s.’
‘Yes, my daughter was good,’ the typical British Philistine admitted candidly; ‘she played her part well: she’d been admirably coached; but for native soul and reflectiveness, I must confess I prefer Miss Weatherley.’
As Mrs. Bouverie-Barton showed a disposition to contest this point at her accustomed length — she had ‘views’ on the drama — Basil Maclaine slipped off carelessly to a second group, who were talking near the tent about some case of suicide reported as the passing ‘mystery’ in that morning’s papers. Bertie Montgomery stood here, and so did the two Harrisons. ‘For my part,’ Hubert was saying, as the civil servant sauntered up to join the group, ‘I think the man behaved most abominably. If he wanted to kill himself, he might at least have taken the trouble to leave a note behind and tell us why he did it, so as to exculpate others. For a fellow to commit suicide, and leave it in doubt whether he wasn’t murdered, is a gross injustice to many innocent people.’
‘Oh, hang it all, Harrison!’ Bertie Montgomery interposed, lighting a cigarette as he spoke, ‘you’re too down upon him altogether, poor old broken-down wretch! Why should he go and try to bring disgrace on his family? For my part, I think he acted quite right; and when I commit suicide, as I shall do some day, I suppose, like all the rest of us, when luck goes against me too hard, I’m not going to leave a scrap of paper behind me to incriminate myself and satisfy other people’s curiosity. I’ll let ’em guess who did it, as much as they like; and if they can’t find out, why, then they may whistle for it.... Talking of whistles, I don’t mind if I wet mine after all this thirsty Orlando business. Precious dry work, spouting in the open air. Strains the voice so terribly. I’m as hoarse as a bull-frog. Any of you fellows come along to the tent and have a brandy split with me?’
Basil Maclaine was just going to volunteer for the honour of sharing the sub-ducal soda-water, when Charlie Simmons, by a rapid flank movement, got in before him, and walked off arm-in-arm towards the tent with Lord Adalbert. So Basil remained behind perforce to hear the rest of the colloquy, which degenerated forthwith into half a whisper as the two others disappeared under the big marquee. ‘That was an unfortunate subject for Charlie to introduce just then,’ Hubert Harrison said, in an undertone, as he looked askance after the two retreating young men, ‘considering that Montgomery’s father committed suicide himself, and never left a word or a line behind to say why he did it.’
‘No, you don’t mean that!’ Basil exclaimed in surprise; ‘I never heard of it.’
‘Oh, it’s well known to everybody!’ Hubert went on, more openly. ‘The way of the tribe. It’s a family habit. Gambling and suicide are hereditary with the Montgomeries. Didn’t you hear Lord Adalbert say himself, “Like all the rest of us?” They run through their money, and then they cut their throats. That’s the regular routine. As soon as one’s down the next man in succession marries an heiress again, gambles and drinks, and begins da capo. The minute her money’s all gone, or he’s tired of her or jealous of her — the same old game again, cut throat and exit.’
As he spoke he was interrupted by a late guest, just down from town to dine at Hurst Croft, with the very freshest news, hot from press, in his pocket.
‘Seen this, Harrison?’ the new-comer asked, holding out an evening paper in his hand as he spoke. ‘Latest thing out this evening. Surprised to see Montgomery’s here, all the same. He can’t have heard it. Somebody or other ‘ll have to break the news to him.’
All the bystanders crowded round and stared hard at the sheet over one another’s shoulders. There it was, to be sure, in the very biggest and darkest of leaded type:
‘Fourth Edition. — Suicide of a Nobleman. Unhappy End of the Duke of Powysland.’
Hubert Harrison read it out aloud for the benefit of the party:— ‘Homburg, July 20th, 11 a.m. — The Duke of Powysland was found dead in his bed here this morning, with his throat cut and the jugular vein severed. Nothing exact is known with regard to the circumstances as yet, but as the Duke’s affairs were in a very embarrassed and encumbered state, it is generally believed he must have committed suicide. No papers or writing of any sort have been found in his room, but a hasty medical examination suggests the idea that the deceased nobleman must have inflicted the wound himself by means of a razor.’
‘Later. — It is now almost certain that the Duke of Powysland deliberately took his own life, as the police find on inquiry he purchased the razor in person late last night at a well-known cutler’s in the town of Homburg.’
There was silence for a moment, then a babel of voices. Everybody pressed forward to discuss the unseasonable news. In the midst of it all, Lord Adalbert and his satellite, refreshed from the tent, strolled up once more to know the cause of this sudden commotion. At the same moment, Old Affability himself, attracted by the obvious marks of profound interest, came down to join them. One or two of the guests made a hasty movement, as if to hide for the moment the disconcerting paper. But Lord Adalbert saw through their flimsy attempt at once. ‘What is it?’ he cried, flinging himself upon the group with some excitement, and holding out his hand for the print they were trying to conceal from him. ‘Anything wrong at Homburg? Eh? Powysland been making a stupid fool of himself?’
Hubert Harrison held out the paper in reply with a significant gesture. ‘There is something very wrong indeed at Homburg,’ he answered in a warning voice. ‘The Duke has been hurt, seriously hurt; you can look for yourself if you like and see it.’
Lord Adalbert took the sheet with a very pale face. As he read, his cheeks grew whiter and even whiter. At last he handed it back with trembling fingers. ‘I thought so,’ he said, in a profoundly sobered voice. ‘At last he’s done it.’
Mr. Venables, in his turn, received the paper from his guest’s hands. As soon as he had hastily glanced over the telegram, he turned round to the young man with an irreproachable face of conventional condolence. ‘Your grace would like to retire awhile,’ he said deferentially. ‘This news has been too much for you. Will you come into the house for the present, till the shock is over, and you’ve had time to realize it?’
‘No, thank you,’ the young man answered, steadying himself for support against one of the garden seats. ‘This is very sudden. Very sudden indeed. But not, for all that, wholly unexpected. I think perhaps I’d better go back to town at once. I’ve not myself alone to think of. I must break it to my mother.’
He spoke with genuine feeling, and tears stood in his eyes. That was only natural. Blood, with all of us, is thicker than water. Mr. Venables looked at him with profound interest. ‘Thomas,’ he cri
ed, turning sharply round to one of the servants, ‘run to the stables, quick. Tell Bridges to bring up the landau at once, to take the Duke of Powysland down to the station.’
At the sound of that title, so lately his brother’s, now for the first time his own, the new Duke looked up with a start of surprise. ‘No, thank you,’ he said once more. ‘It’s very kind of you, but I’d rather walk. Don’t any of you fellows bother to come with me, please. I prefer to be alone. I mean what I say, Maclaine. I shall be obliged if you’ll allow me to go by myself. It’s taken my breath away for the moment, and I’d like to have time to collect my thoughts before I see my mother.’
He walked slowly across the lawn towards the winding carriage-drive that led down the hill. He was profoundly moved. But Old Affability, glancing after him with an admiring gaze as he went, murmured softly to himself, like one who gloats over a delicious morsel, ‘It’s made a Duke of him! What a singular coincidence! To think I should have been the first man in England ever to address him by his proper title as Duke of Powysland!’
CHAPTER X.
A THUNDERBOLT FALLS.
One by one the guests dispersed rapidly, this gloomy termination to the day’s entertainment affording them a natural excuse for somewhat hasty leave-taking; and before long the Hurst Croft house-party were left almost by themselves, with the special exception of the one late guest, and of Hubert Harrison, both of whom had a long-standing engagement to stop to dinner. Bertie Montgomery was also to have been of the party, of course; but, under existing circumstances, his place must needs remain vacant.
Hubert strolled up with Sabine to the house. Mr. Venables followed at a little distance behind with Woodbine Weatherley. The remaining guest took charge of Mrs. Walker. ‘Papa’s always so kind,’ Sabine said, glancing back at her little friend with a patronizing air. ‘Woodbine ought to have gone away from us to-night by rights — she was asked down for a fortnight — but papa wouldn’t hear of letting her go so soon. He’s so wonderfully considerate for girls in her position. He said she’d be tired out after the performance, and it would be sheer cruelty to send her back to that governesses’ home place where she stops in London; she’d find it so dreary after the day’s excitement.’
