by Grant Allen
Sabine, however, was naturally ignorant of these undercurrents of parental thought, and knew only that papa had always thrown cold water, as far as possible, upon poor dear Hubert’s visits. It was only natural, therefore, she should hesitate a little before knocking at the study door — nobody ever entered that private chapel, sacred to the genius of Eries and Egyptians, without a preliminary knock — and that her heart should beat hard with suspense and timidity while she waited for an answer. Papa would be awfully angry, she knew, but still she’d brave it.
‘Come in,’ Old Affability said, in his most affable voice; and Sabine entered.
‘What! you, my child!’ her father exclaimed, laying down the Economist, as she stood nervously near the door. ‘What do you want with me, Sabine? Is it anything particular? For — eh — to tell you the truth, I was just expecting a visit;’ and he hesitated visibly.
‘Oh, any other time would do just equally well, papa,’ Sabine blurted out timidly, her usual boldness forsaking her altogether under these trying circumstances. ‘Don’t let me interfere with Imperial Ottomans. I only wanted to speak to you about — about my own private business.’
Old Affability glanced up at her with a curious smile. He was sitting by the desk in his revolving oak chair, and he swung it round quickly to face her as she spoke. ‘Not about Hubert Harrison?’ he said, his lips relaxing ever more and more widely.
Sabine’s voice faltered and stuck in her throat.
‘Yes ... about Hubert Harrison,’ she answered, all crimson. She had no idea till that moment she could blush so deeply. ‘But it doesn’t matter now, if you’re expecting a visitor. There’s no hurry. Any other time’ll do just as well, of course. I’d better run away, in fact, before — your visitor, whoever he is, comes in and catches me.’
Old Affability’s mouth broadened slowly at each word till nothing but a smile was left of his countenance. ‘Well, if you must know,’ he said at last, unable to conceal his amusement at the odd coincidence, ‘the visitor I’m expecting is Hubert Harrison.’
‘Hubert Harrison?’ Sabine repeated, bewildered. ‘Why, he never comes here.’
‘Well, yes,’ her father answered, leaning back in his chair, before the big leather-covered desk, and twirling his solid thumbs reflectively upon his ample knee, like a prosperous British financier that he was; ‘I’m expecting Hubert. We may as well call him plain Hubert in the bosom of the family now, I suppose, Sabine, after that unrehearsed little episode I witnessed the other night when he came to see you. Of course there was no mistaking what all that pointed to. You’d arrived at an understanding together already privately. So I wrote to ask him, yesterday, if he could spare time from his multifarious duties, now he’s a politician as well as a journalist, just to step round and look me up this morning, as there are one or two little questions of detail — unimportant detail — I’d like to talk over with him at leisure beforehand.’
‘Beforehand!’ Sabine echoed, astonished, observing mutely the surprising fact that papa was blushing, actually blushing. ‘I — ah — I don’t quite understand you.’
‘Well ... eh ... before we commit ourselves to anything definite, you know,’ Old Affability replied, looking up at her nervously. As a matter of fact, he felt just as shy about the subject as she did.
‘But ... he’s never exactly proposed to me,’ Sabine cried, aghast.
‘He may not exactly have proposed to you,’ her father retorted with a bashful smile: ‘but, at any rate, I — well, I regarded your performance the other night, when we all thought you were at death’s door, as a sufficient proof that, proposal or no proposal, you two young people had arrived already at a tolerably certain Mutual Understanding.’
‘Oh, you thought so, papa?’ Sabine murmured very low, her heart standing still in her breast within her.
Her father rose and took her two hands gently in his with unwonted tenderness. ‘My child,’ he said, looking down into her eyes with fatherly pride, ‘I always loved you; I always admired you; I was always proud of you. But I never loved you or admired you, or was so proud of you in my life — no, not half so much as I’ve been ever since this terrible illness of our dear Arthur’s. And when I saw you that night rush, as it were, into young Harrison’s arms, I said to myself, “This girl of mine loves him. What right have I, then, to stand in her way one minute, knowing what she is and how much I owe to her? More than that, even, I can see she’s a long way too proud herself to take the one and only course to make herself happy. Very well, then. I’ll take it instead, for her. If she lives and gets well, I’ll arrange all this myself with Harrison.”’ Mr. Venables paused and looked anxiously into her eyes. ‘And so he’s coming round this morning,’ he went on, half abashed, ‘to arrange it with me accordingly.’
‘To arrange what?’ Sabine cried, feeling the solid earth almost falling beneath her feet at this sudden removal of all her doubts and difficulties.
Her father gazed hard at her with an abstracted air, and twirled his thumbs more deliberately than ever. ‘Well, when a great heiress gets married,’ he said, humming and hawing a little, ‘one naturally expects there will be a certain amount of business arrangements, don’t you know, to settle between the families. There’s the Property to consider, of course; there’s the Property — there’s the Property.’
‘But I’m not a great heiress, papa,’ Sabine burst out, unable to conceal her astonishment— ‘at least, not any longer. I was, I know, before dear little Arthur came. But that’s all over now, and Hubert doesn’t want to marry me for the sake of the property.’
Mr. Venables gazed at her in a maze of surprise, with a sort of wondering pity. ‘Not a great heiress now!’ he repeated to himself, as if he hardly understood her. ‘That’s all over since Arthur came! Why, what on earth do you mean by such nonsense, Sabine, my child?... There’s some mistake somewhere. Why, dear, you’re a bigger heiress to-day than ever you were in your life before. Arthur has never made any difference in any way to you.... Perhaps I ought to have spoken to you clearly about all this long since, but a certain natural delicacy’ — he twirled his thumbs faster than ever now— ‘you understand me, Sabine?’
‘Oh, please, papa, don’t say anything more about it,’ Sabine cried, feeling most uneasy. ‘I can’t bear to hear it. I can’t bear you to talk about it. I can’t bear you to think Hubert was looking out for money.’
Her father sat silent for half a second; then he went on in a very deliberate tone: ‘No, I think I ought to tell you,’ he said. ‘I ought to explain it all to you. There’s clearly been some misunderstanding on both your parts, which might have given rise to unpleasant results. Of course, Sabine, I didn’t care to proclaim to the world what my intentions were towards you, or what I meant to do for you. I didn’t care to say to Lord This or Lord That, “My daughter’s worth her half-million any day.” I didn’t care to advertise you, as it were, because, my dear child, I don’t think you stand in need of any extraneous advertising. And so, perhaps, through natural delicacy in the matter — perhaps even through excessive delicacy’ — men of Mr. Venables’ stamp, one may observe, are always extremely strong on the delicacy point— ‘I may have overdone it a little, and abstained from telling you what I ought to have told you.’ And saying this, Mr. Venables gazed at his daughter once more with an expansive smile of abstract benevolence.
‘I see, papa,’ Sabine murmured, taken aback and trembling violently.
‘Well, the fact is,’ her father went on, still regarding her fixedly, and picking his words with great deliberation, for he felt this was an important domestic economy, ‘before I married my poor lost angel, Woodbine, and before I even thought of marrying her at all, I had made a will, by which I left one moiety of my property to you, and as to the other moiety, I bequeathed it in equal shares to my brother Arthur’s two girls in Australia. So that originally you would have benefited, you see, by one half my fortune — which was as large a sum as I thought necessary for any girl’s happiness, Sabine.
You follow me, don’t you?’
‘Perfectly, papa,’ Sabine answered, all crimson; ‘but I’d really rather you didn’t tell me.’
‘Well, then,’ Mr. Venables went on, disregarding her protest, ‘when I married my poor dear Woodbine, that will became naturally null and void. You’re aware, of course, that any will made before marriage becomes ipso facto null and void by the mere performance of the wedding ceremony.’
‘I dare say,’ Sabine answered dutifully, with her head swimming.
‘Oh yes,’ her father continued, gaining increased confidence as his explanation went on, and he reached the more familiar business details, ‘it becomes ipso facto null and void by the contracting of marriage. So, then, I naturally drew up another to supersede it. By that second will I gave and devised one half of my fortune to you, as aforesaid, and one half to my poor dear Woodbine, leaving only small legacies to your uncle Arthur’s two girls, who by that time, as you recollect, had married well in Melbourne, and no longer needed bolstering up by external assistance. That was Will Number Two, my dear, executed within three days of my marriage to Woodbine.’
‘I see,’ Sabine responded dutifully once more, not knowing very well what other comment she could make upon these interesting disclosures.
‘Well, then,’ Mr. Venables went on, staring hard at the fire and trying to keep his eyes clear from tears, ‘my poor darling died — you know what a blow that was to me, Sabine — I shall never recover from it — I shall never recover — and left us our dear little Arthur, to whom you’ve always been, as you promised to be, a perfect mother.’
‘I love him so,’ Sabine cried spontaneously, with a sudden outburst of affection. ‘Oh, papa, till the other night I never knew how much I loved him!’
‘So when dear little Arthur came,’ her father went on, making hardly any decent effort now to restrain that rising moisture, ‘I drew up and executed Will Number Three — the will that is still in force, and that I pledge myself, so far as you are concerned, my child, never any further to modify or alter. And by that will — now here in my desk for Hubert’s inspection — I gave and devised one half my estate to my dear son Arthur, if he should survive me, with remainder — but we needn’t go into that at present; and the other half to my beloved daughter Sabine, dividing and apportioning the whole to the best of my ability between the two impartially, as seems to me fair and common justice.’
‘Oh, papa,’ Sabine cried, flushing fiery red with a sudden sense of the wrong she had so long been doing him in her own mind, ‘you didn’t really do that! You didn’t really make me from the very first an equal sharer with Arthur!’
‘Why not, my dear child?’ her father asked demonstratively. ‘Here’s the will to prove it, date and all as stated.’
‘Why, nobody does it, papa,’ Sabine exclaimed, astonished. ‘It’s just and right, I know; it’s what ought always to be done; but nobody ever does it, and least of all people in your position; they leave it all to the eldest son. They’re so anxious to become the founders of a county family.’
A shade of positive pain came over Mr. Venables’ face. ‘My dear,’ he said gravely, taking her hands in his, ‘you misunderstand me very much if you think the desire to found a family, or any other desire of the sort, would ever for one moment interfere in my mind with the plain demands of nature, right, and justice. Arthur and you are both my children; my duties towards both of you are equal and similar. At this moment, my affairs are worth more than they’ve ever been — considerably more, through my connection with Amberleys — and so at this moment you’re a greater heiress than you were before dear Arthur was born; and under these circumstances I had hoped you might have made a match of proportionate splendour and dignity, such as my position in the county now entitles you to. However, in that I’ve been disappointed — I’ve been disappointed, and I mean to bear my disappointment like a man. You have chosen otherwise, and in many ways, Sabine, I can’t help admiring you for your disinterested choice. My dear, I’m proud of you. On the day when you marry Hubert Harrison, I will settle on you precisely the self-same sum which I intended to settle upon you if you’d married my friend the Duke of Powysland.’
Sabine rushed into his arms in a torrent of tears. It wasn’t the money — she was far too true a woman to care twopence just then about that, for no girl of her age is ever really mercenary; it was her father’s unexpected goodness and tenderness that overcame her. She could hardly have believed it of the typical British Philistine. All these long years, brooding over it to herself, she had taken it for granted that Mr. Venables would follow the almost universal habit of his kind, and leave the vast bulk of his fortune to his only son, so that Arthur’s birth had reduced her practically from the position of a great heiress to that of a nobody; and now she learnt for the first time from his own lips, not only that her father had never, at any moment, contemplated such a cruel course, but also that he intended to treat her wishes now with the rarest and profoundest respect and deference. Till a week or two since she had never known how much she loved Arthur; till that moment she never knew how much she loved and respected her father.
She fell on his neck and cried like a child. Mr. Venables, pleased at her confidence, soothed her tenderly with his hand. It was not in human nature that he should not feel a certain self-satisfaction at her reception of his statement. He drew himself up with conscious pride, and patted himself mentally on the back for his paternal rectitude.
And as they two stood there, father and daughter, in that outburst of fresh confidence, on one another’s necks, a sharp little ring at the electric bell, breaking in upon the silence, announced the sudden arrival of Hubert Harrison.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
DOUBTS AND FEARS.
From the moment when that briefless barrister, poor Douglas Harrison, heard Linda Figgins was once more in England, and married to the Duke of Powysland, one fervent desire alone possessed his soul. At all hazards he must manage to see her and speak with her.
In a certain sense, of course, this ought to be easy enough. What just cause or impediment could be urged why Douglas, who had known the Duchess so intimately before her marriage, and who had even met the Duke himself as well at the Venables’ at Hurst Croft, should not call upon her openly any day, like any other friend, at her temporary address in Onslow Gardens? Certainly the recluse of Bloomsbury was the last man on earth to be deterred from visiting Linda in her new home by mere considerations of the immense change that had taken place so unexpectedly in her worldly position. To Douglas Harrison, at least, Linda would always be Linda still, were she twenty thousand times a British peeress. He had loved and respected her so much for herself in the lodgings at Clandon Street, that he couldn’t possibly respect her one atom the more because she had thrown herself away, against all reasonable probability, upon Adalbert Owen Trefaldwyn Montgomery, ninth Duke of Powysland.
But then other difficulties and dangers blocked the path. Douglas hardly felt sure himself how far Linda would be prepared to receive his visit. Her marriage with such a man as her new husband had taken him so completely by surprise that he couldn’t just at first make up his mind in what relations they really stood to one another. Had Linda told the Duke the whole truth about Clandon Street? Had he married her merely as the brilliant comet of a New York season, or did he know her also as the former mistress of the London lodging-house? Douglas couldn’t believe, of course, that Linda had accepted the man under false pretences; his knowledge of her character was far too deep and too clear for that; but then, he couldn’t have believed, on the other hand, if it hadn’t been forced upon him by the undeniable facts of the case, that she could ever have married the Duke at all. His whole conception of Linda was so upset by the event, that he hardly knew how to reconcile her action in any way with his preconceived ideas of her nature and feelings.
Perhaps she might have thought a certain amount of reticence as to her past history justifiable under the circumstances. If so, would it be wise of him
to call at her house, where he might meet the Duke, and awkward questions might be asked, which he had no means of knowing how he ought to answer? Decidedly, until he understood Linda’s position in this matter, it would be unwise and unkind of him to risk an open visit.
But, more than all that, Douglas Harrison could not conceal from himself the fact that he wanted to see Linda above all things alone, to be able to ask her about her marriage and her feelings; to clear up this mystery, which, so far as he was concerned, enveloped her relations with her impossible husband. He wanted to ask her plainly, in so many words, ‘Why did you marry that man?’ The question is perhaps an unconventional one to put to a bride; but till he got his answer to it, Linda could never be to him quite the same old, unapproachable Linda as ever. If he thought she could have sold herself to a Duke for a coronet — but no, the bare idea was, to Douglas Harrison, perfect sacrilege.
For it was as Linda’s lover, as Linda’s devoted admirer, that he wished to see her still, in spite of everything. The mere fact that Linda was married to somebody else could never make any difference to his absolutely pure and chivalrous devotion. He had loved her once, and he must love her for ever. To Douglas Harrison, indeed, Linda was as a beautiful unattainable gem, which he might not possess, but which he could at least admire and worship from a distance.
Yet, disinterested as was his love for her, Douglas nevertheless felt a certain natural reluctance — not unknown among men — to calling openly at any man’s house with the deliberate object of asking his wife what on earth she could ever have meant by marrying him. The question is a delicate one, and involves its responsibilities. A certain amount of respect and a little law is due to husbands, even when they have deprived you of the one peerless woman you had chosen beforehand for your own partner in life. It’s rough on your fellow-man to use his undoubted castle (in Onslow Gardens) as the theatre of your interrogatories, addressed to his wife, on her reasons for venturing to accept him instead of you.
