by Grant Allen
Douglas Harrison shook his head slowly. This was all Greek to him.
‘She could never be more beautiful in anything,’ he murmured, half to himself, ‘than in the simple black dress and pretty white apron we first knew her in, as she brushed the crumbs off this very table.’
‘Well, that’s a matter of taste,’ Basil went on volubly. ‘For my part, I think there’s no woman in the world who doesn’t look the better for a handsome dress and a diamond necklace.’ (People of Basil Maclaine’s type always genuinely admire diamonds, they’re so very expensive.) ‘At any rate, she’s undoubtedly a deuced fine girl, and lights up well; and she’s worth at least half a dozen of that Sabine Venables he used to be such nuts upon.’
It was Hubert’s turn to draw himself up internally now, and assume an air of offended dignity.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said stiffly, for he didn’t care to hear Basil Maclaine describe his own particular possession by her Christian name, ‘that, also, is a matter of taste, and I beg leave to say of very bad taste on your part, my dear fellow. Miss Venables can hold her own against all comers.’
‘Oh, I forgot your fancy in that direction,’ Basil answered with a light smile, knocking off his ash and consulting his timepiece. ‘Well, we won’t quarrel about comparisons. They’re known to be odious. But, anyhow, Powysland saw Linda in New York to great advantage — very great advantage. She was rich, she was beautiful, and she had untold money. They met at the Vanderbilts’. He couldn’t do better for himself anywhere than there, and he asked her to marry him. Of course she jumped at it. It isn’t every day that a girl, however rich, gets a chance of becoming an English Duchess; and I wouldn’t think much myself, I’m bound to say, of any girl that looked twice at it.’
‘Probably not,’ Hubert Harrison answered with cutting coldness.
‘But that can’t be how it came about, you know,’ Douglas put in earnestly, with his face still white as death, and his lips still quivering. ‘I’m sure it can’t have been like that. I’ll never believe it. Linda wasn’t at all the sort of girl to marry any man for position or title. There must be some other explanation — something else at the bottom of it. One can hardly suppose she married Powysland for love! what is there in Powysland for a girl like her to admire or cling to? But that she married him or any man for anything else, I, for one, will never believe it.’
Hubert leaned back on his tilted chair, with the poker in his hand, and stared long at the fire.
‘Perhaps,’ he suggested at last, giving it a vigorous dig, ‘she may just have been carried away by the first flush and glory of the thing. After all, she’s a woman. Remember, Douglas, she’d got rich by magic, as they often do over yonder in America. Her head must have been turned by it — though I grant you Linda’s wasn’t what you call an easy sort of head to turn; it had too much ballast. Still, from what Maclaine says, she must have got at once into the very thick of New York society. Young men by the score must have flattered her and nibbled round her. She’d hold them all off at arm’s length with a certain haughty disdain— “Hands off, gentlemen!” Then the Duke went over — with all his faults, a high-bred English gentleman, well-spoken, well-mannered, and undeniably handsome. Look the thing in the face and consider the position. He was the great catch of the season — an English magnifico of the first water, known to have come out in search of a wife, and every heiress in New York must have set her cap at him, all agog for his attentions. To which would his magnificence choose to throw the handkerchief? that was the question. Linda came upon the scene, and the Duke was taken with her — perhaps even fell in love with her. Recollect that open admiration counts for much with women. There’s no woman on earth’ — and Hubert spoke with feeling, for he was thinking of poor Sabine— ‘who isn’t flattered in her inmost heart, whether she likes him or not, by a Duke’s attentions. Well, suppose the Duke singled out Linda from all that wealthy society for his special admiration, what more rational than that Linda should feel flattered and pleased accordingly? She imagined she loved him: she imagined he loved her; the glamour of rank blinded her eyes; and the rest’s natural.’
‘I’m not so sure about that,’ Basil Maclaine put in with an unconvinced air, glancing complacently down at his evening shoes and red silk stockings. He was quite ready to believe Linda had married to wear a coronet; but it hurt his self-respect deeply to think, after him, she could have fallen in love with such a man as Powysland.
Douglas Harrison, however, shook his head once more.
‘Oh no, Hubert!’ he exclaimed. ‘It can’t be that. I’m sure it can’t be. Linda’s not a girl to be so easily pleased. Only two things in the world are possible. Either she married the man because she loved him — which is absurd; I don’t see how she could love that fellow — or else there was some other powerful reason at the back that we can’t get at, and what it can have been is a mystery to me — a perfect mystery.’
‘Well, for my part,’ Basil repeated, ‘I see no mystery in the matter at all. She wanted to be a Duchess. That’s the whole secret. Nothing else, I’m convinced’ — and he straightened his back with a self-conscious air— ‘would ever have led her to marry anyone.’
Douglas Harrison gazed at him hard. What extraordinary callousness! Why, he was actually pluming himself! Had the man no remorse, then, for the pain he had caused her? Did he look back only with conceited self-satisfaction on his conduct to Linda?
‘There’s a mystery in it,’ he said, sighing, ‘an obvious mystery. I’ll see her myself, and I’ll get the whole truth from her.’
It would be a hard trial for him, indeed, to face Linda married — the downfall of his own hopes, the grave of his future — but, for Linda’s sake, he would nerve himself and see her.
They sat up late, talking it all over, each from his own point of view, as is the wont of humanity, and naturally getting no nearer a solution or a consensus of opinion between themselves than ever, for each was at cross-purposes with both his neighbours. Basil could only see that Linda had married another man, after being in love with himself, and must therefore clearly have married him for the sake of his title. Hubert could only see that the Duke had married Linda, after having seen Sabine, and that Linda must have been momentarily dazzled by the splendour of his position, precisely like Sabine. And Douglas could only see that his peerless Linda had thrown herself away upon the Wrong Man, and must obviously have had some sufficient reason in the background for doing so.
At last, after many searchings of heart, Hubert rose to go. ‘Well, good-night,’ he said, as he put on his ulster, ‘I must run home and try for a little sleep in between whiles; for I shall have to be out all day to-morrow hard at work canvassing.’
‘Canvassing for whom?’ Basil asked languidly, for this was an election sprung upon him unawares.
‘Oh, I forgot to mention it to you,’ Hubert cried. ‘Haven’t you heard the news? That was what I came round to tell Douglas. A lift in life for me — but your Duchess supervened to change the current. There’s an unexpected vacancy to-day in South Hampstead. Lord Chard is dead — killed in India, pig-sticking — and Beattie-Ellis, the sitting member, goes to the Lords, of course, to replace him. We had no candidate ready, Chard being so young and vigorous; but this afternoon the Prime Minister’s private secretary called round at the office of the Daily Telephone’ (the Liberal-Conservatives under Gladsbury being then in office), ‘and asked if I’d undertake to contest the constituency. It’s an uphill fight for us, for we’re weak in South Hampstead; but I mean to try, and if I succeed my fortune’s made, for they’ll give me the first good thing that’s going under the present Cabinet.’
‘You don’t mean to say so,’ Basil exclaimed, astonished, and beginning to feel he must be polite to Hubert, if Hubert was so soon to be a member of Parliament. It’s very good form, don’t you know, to be hand in glove with members of Parliament.
‘Yes, I do,’ Hubert answered. ‘And, what’s more, I ride to win! After which I shall marr
y and settle down in life as a professional politician.’
‘And there’s no reason,’ Douglas added, in a dreamy sort of way, ‘why he shouldn’t get a place in no time in the Cabinet.’
CHAPTER XXIV.
A SUDDEN ATTACK.
Meanwhile, Sabine Venables had driven home by herself in her own carriage to her father’s town house, having dropped her chaperon by the way at a fashionable square in Westminster.
Sabine’s thoughts as she went were not wholly unpleasant ones. She was half inclined to relent at last and give up her pride. Things were turning out so differently from what she had expected. So the Duke was married at last to that beautiful woman whom Mr. Maclaine had known before! Well, Sabine hardly envied her her bargain after all, for how keenly he looked, and how closely he watched her! A jealous man at heart, Sabine felt sure, as she thought it all over; there was a quick, suspicious air in the Duke’s eye, as of a caged tiger, every time he glanced across the room towards his newly-married wife in her superb beauty, that didn’t escape Sabine’s sharp observation. All the Montgomeries were devoured by a perfect demon of jealousy, she remembered to have heard; and Adalbert Montgomery, ninth Duke, was no exception to the rule, she felt certain, from the evidence of her own senses to-night. He had watched the Duchess with such cold, hard eyes as she sat talking to Mr. Maclaine all through that pathetic song of Madame Van Zandt’s. Sabine really pitied the Duchess when she came to think of it all. She was glad she herself had met Hubert in time — well, in time to save her from becoming Duchess of Powysland.
For Basil was mistaken in supposing they would all jump at it.
But the Duchess herself was simply charming. She greeted Sabine so warmly, as Hubert Harrison’s friend, and as Thorndyke Venables’ daughter. ‘Mr. Venables is head of Cecil’s European syndicate, you know,’ she cried quite affectionately; and though Sabine hadn’t the very faintest idea in her own mind what manner of wild beasts these syndicates her father talked about might be, she could plainly see that to the Duchess, at least, they were a genuine introduction.
At the vestibule the footman met her with a very serious face.
‘If you please, miss,’ he said, as he opened the door, ‘Master Arthur’s worse. He’s been took awfully bad since you’ve been gone. Nurse has sent for the doctor, and he’s been and seen him. He says it’s a very serious case indeed, and he’s coming round again fust thing in the morning.’
In a moment Sabine had forgotten the Duchess, the party, the guests, the music — everything, in fact, but her neglected duty.
‘Worse, William!’ she cried, with a terrified face. Poor Tata! poor Tata! And I’ve gone out and left him! Oh, dear little lamb! How could I ever have done it? What does the doctor say’s the matter with him? Did he call it anything particular?’
‘Well, he says, miss,’ the servant answered, with some hesitation, ‘Master Arthur has got a bad attack of the dip-theria.’
‘Diphtheria!’ Sabine repeated, aghast. ‘Oh no, William; not diphtheria! You can’t mean to tell me it’s really that.’
‘Well, that’s what he said it was, miss,’ William replied stolidly, assuming the injured air of a man who resents being doubted.
Sabine clasped her hands together with a gesture of despair.
‘And papa’s in Paris!’ she cried. ‘And I don’t even know where to find him, for he hadn’t decided when he left what hotel he was going to. This is too, too dreadful! Poor dear Tata! Oh! whatever shall I do, whatever shall I do for him, the sweet little darling?’
In a moment she had rushed upstairs in her evening dress and light wrap as she stood, and burst eagerly into the nursery where her little brother lay ill. The nurse held up a warning finger as she entered, and whispered low to her: ‘He’s sleeping a bit now, miss; dozing like, off and on. But he’s been very bad, and he’s very bad still. It looks as if it’d throttle him every now and again. He wakes up with a start and sets to crying and choking. He don’t seem able to catch his breath, somehow. I’m so glad you’ve come, for I didn’t rightly know what I ought to do with him.’
Sabine gazed upon her small charge as he lay half asleep in his cot, drawing his breath hard, in a perfect agony of remorse, despair, and horror. In a second she took it all in. There was no possibility of mistaking it. Little Arthur lay in the very grip of death. While she had been away, amusing herself at the Simpsons’, that helpless child, Woodbine’s motherless baby, to whom she had promised to be a mother indeed, had been seized with one of the most terrible and rapid of known diseases, and had been fighting for life with all his feeble little might — for he was Woodbine’s child, and had inherited the weakness of Woodbine’s constitution. Sabine flung herself down on the bed in her utter despair. Arthur was dying — and her father was in Paris.
Oh, how could she ever have been foolish enough to go out and leave him, with that sore throat coming on? What a breach of trust she had committed! How could she ever forgive herself for it? Poor Woodbine’s child, and Woodbine had entrusted her with it!
She lay there gazing hard at that helpless mite, who, through no fault of his own, had unwittingly supplanted her. For two long years and more, in a certain serious, mechanical, half-official way, she had watched over him and tended him with all her might. After all, he was her brother; and as far as she could she had always tried very hard to love him. But love is a difficult feeling to pump up to order; she could never quite get rid of the abiding sense that Arthur had come as an interloper and an intruder in the family. Ever since Arthur was born he had been everything in the house, and she had been nothing. He was the heir, and she was only Miss Venables. It was natural, of course, as such things go in England; but still it galled her. Sabine would hardly have been human, indeed, if she had felt otherwise. She couldn’t see herself superseded without a lasting pang by Woodbine’s child, her own half-brother.
Well, yes, if he’d come earlier, when she herself was younger and understood things less, it might, of course, have been all very different. She might have adapted herself then to the change while her ideas were still plastic. But as it was, she’d grown accustomed to her position as the heiress of Hurst Croft before Arthur was dreamt of to oust and supplant her. And it had been hard, very hard, to give up all that — with Hubert into the bargain — to a tiny, sprawling, speechless newcomer.
But now, as she lay there watching her poor, frail little charge in his uneasy sleep, while he started and coughed, and turned on his side wearily, she knew she loved him, and all else was forgotten. The bitterness passed away from her like an ugly dream. One thing alone she remembered: Arthur was ill — desperately ill, and she had promised Woodbine to be a mother to that motherless child of hers. As she leant her head on her hand and watched him tenderly, tears stood in her eyes — big tears that gathered but never fell. Oh, darling Tata! She felt for the first time now in all his poor small life how much she loved him.
Some little tin soldiers lay loose upon the floor. Her eye fell on them sadly. Yes; she had learned to love him. Harbouring all the while in her heart that undying grudge; feeling towards him every day as to a supplanter and an interloper; remembering in the midst of her most careful and tender nursing that he had robbed her of her birthright, and, what was ten thousand times more to her, of Hubert as well; she had still slowly and unconsciously grown to love him. Day after day she had busied herself about his food, his dress, his childish ailments. Day after day she had seen him expand and watched his mind grow; she had kissed him the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night; she had done for him all that a mother could do for him. Day after day the gentle feeble little thing had clung to her with something of Woodbine’s tenacious clinging. And now that there was a chance of her losing him for ever — now that that tiny life lay wavering in the balance — now that that faint, small lamp flickered and fell — she was conscious only of a great hungry love for him. The mother that dwells instinctive in all good women was aroused within her. She felt her whole existence
hang upon a single thread. Come what might, she must save Tata.
Just at first, she thought most of her father being away; of her own seeming neglect; of her fault in leaving him; of the blow it would be to that lonely old man if he were to lose Arthur. For he loved his boy — poor Woodbine’s boy — with an exceeding great love; and the bare thought of losing him would, she knew, be terrible. But as time wore on, and she lay there watching the child longer and longer, the sense of her own love for him grew deeper upon her each moment. It was for her own sake now that the tears, breaking bounds, were trickling slowly, slowly, one by one, down her cheek. What on earth would she ever do if she were to lose Arthur!
The little tin soldiers lay there idle still. Tata would never want them. The broken drum stood silent in the corner. Tata would never try to beat it again. The thought drove her wild. In watching and tending him, she had learnt all unawares to feel almost like a mother to him. She realized now how that pale-faced, shrinking, timid little creature had wound the tendrils of his love round her woman’s heart, and how terrible a blow it would be to her to lose him. She could see he was ill — seriously, dangerously ill. She wrung her hands in her despair as she watched him convulsed with those terrible throes. If Arthur died, all the world would indeed be a blank to her.
At last the poor little morsel woke up with a sudden start of pain. He was fighting fiercely for breath. The final throes of the disease were fairly upon him. For a moment he gasped out a few childish words. ‘Has Sabine come home?’ he asked. ‘Tata wants Sabine.’ Then he caught sight of her familiar face by his side, leaning over the cot, and stretched out his little arms to her with a smile of recognition. It was a painful smile, and his arms were so thin. Sabine felt as if her heart would break at that pathetic gesture. Poor wee motherless mite! He was a lovable little soul, for Woodbine’s spirit was in him. How could she ever have felt anything but the purest love and the tenderest pity for him?
