by Grant Allen
And before Paul in his amazement could blurt out a single word in reply he had kissed her hand again with hot tears falling on it, and glided from the door toward the front entry. Next minute he was walking down the garden-path to the gate, erect and sturdy, but crying silently to himself as he had never cried in his life before since Lionel betrayed him.
CHAPTER XLIX.
TO PARIS AND BACK, SIXTY SHILLINGS.
A JOURNALIST’S holiday is always short. Paul had arranged for a fortnight away from London — he could afford no more — and to that brief span he had to cut down his honeymoon. But he was happy now in his full possession of Nea — too happy, indeed, when all was irrevocably done, even to think of the shadow of those outlying claims that still remained unsatisfied in the safe at Hillborough.
In a fortnight a man can’t go very far. So Paul was content to take his bride across to Paris. On their way back he meant to stop for a couple of nights at Hillborough, where he could do his work as well as in town, so that Nea might make his mother’s acquaintance. For Mrs. Gascoyne had wisely refused to be present at the wedding. She preferred, she said, to know Paul’s wife more quietly afterward, when Nea could take her as she was, and learn her for herself, without feeling ashamed of her before her fine relations.
It was late autumn, and the town was delightful. To both Paul and Nea, Paris was equally new ground, and they reveled, as young people will, before they know any better, in the tawdry delights of that meretricious capital. Don’t let us blame them, we who are older and wiser and have found out Paris. At their age, remember, we, too, admired its glitter and its din; we, too, were taken in by its cheap impressiveness; and we, too, had not risen above the common vulgarities of the boulevards and the Bois and the Champs Elysées. We found in the Français that odious form of entertainment— “an intellectual treat”; and we really believed in the Haussmannesque monstrosities that adorn its streets as constituting what we called, in the gibberish of our heyday, “a very fine city.” If we know better now — if we understand that a Devonshire lane is worth ten thousand Palais Royals, and a talk under the trees with a pretty girl is sweeter than all the tents of iniquity — let us, at least, refrain from flaunting our more excellent way before the eyes of a giddy Philistine world, and let us pardon to youth, in the flush of its honeymoon, a too ardent attachment to the Place de la Concorde and the Magasins du Louvre.
Yet, oh, those Magasins du Louvre! How many heartburns they caused poor Paul! And with what unconscious cruelty did Nea drag him through the endless corridors of the Bon Marché on the other side of the water!
“What a lovely silk! Oh, what exquisite gloves! And how charming that chair would look, Paul, wouldn’t it, in our drawing room in London, whenever we get one?”
Ah, yes, whenever! For Paul now began to feel, as he had never felt in his life before, the sting of poverty. How he longed to give Nea all these beautiful gewgaws: and how impossible he knew it! If only Nea could have realized that the pang she gave him each time she admired those pretty frocks and those delightful hats and those exquisite things in Persian or Indian carpets, she would have cut out her own tongue before she mentioned them. For it was to be their fate for the present to live in lodgings in London till that greedy Mr. Solomons was finally appeased, and even then they would have to save up for months and months before they were in a position to furnish their humble cottage, not with Persian rugs and carved oak chairs, but with plain Kidderminster and a good deal suite from the extensive show-rooms of the Tottenham Court Road cabinetmaker.
Revolving these things in his mind, on the day before their return to dear foggy old England, Paul was strolling with Nea down the Champs Elysées, and thinking about nothing else in particular, when, suddenly, a bow and a smile from his wife, delivered toward a fiacre that rolled along in the direction of the Arc de Triomphe, distracted his attention from his internal emotions to the mundane show then passing before him. He turned and looked. A lady in the fiacre, remarkably well-dressed, and pretty enough as forty-five goes, returned the bow and smile, and vainly tried to stop the cabman, who heeded not her expostulatory parasol thrust hastily toward him.
For a moment Paul failed to recognize that perfectly well-bred and glassy smile. The lady was so charmingly got up as almost to defy detection from her nearest friend. Then, next instant, as the tortoiseshell-eyeglasses transfixed him with their glance, he started and knew her. That face he had seen last the day when Lionel Solomons was buried. It was none other than the Ceriolo!
In an agony of alarm he seized his wife’s arm. He could never again permit his spotless Nea to be contaminated by that horrible woman’s hateful presence. Why, if she succeeded in turning the cab in time to meet them, the creature would actually try to kiss Nea before his very eyes — she, that vile woman, whose vileness he had thoroughly felt on the evening of poor Lionel Solomons’ funeral.
“Nea, darling,” he cried, hurrying her along with his hand on her arm, “come as fast as you can! I don’t want that woman there to stop and speak to you!”
“Why, it’s madame!” Nea answered, a little surprised. “I don’t care for her, of course; but it seems so unfriendly — and just now above all — to deliberately cut her!”
“I can’t help it,” Paul answered. “My darling, she’s not fit company for you.” And then, taking her aside along the alley at the back, beyond the avenue and the merry-go-rounds, he explained to her briefly, what she already knew in outline at least, the part they all believed Mme. Ceriolo to have borne in luring on Lionel Solomons to his last awful enterprise.
“What’s she doing in Paris, I wonder?” Nea observed reflectively, as they walked on down that less frequented path toward the Rue de Rivoli.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Paul answered. “She seemed very well dressed. She must have some sources of income nobody knows of. She couldn’t afford to drive about in a carriage like that on the strength of Mr. Solomons’ allowance of two hundred.”
Nea shook her head emphatically. “Oh, dear no,” she answered, “not anything like it. Why, she’s dressed in the very height of fashion. Her mantle alone, if it cost a farthing, must have cost every bit of twenty guineas.”
“It’s curious,” Paul muttered in reply. “I never can understand these people’s budget. They seem to pick up money wherever they go. They’ve no visible means of subsistence, to speak of, yet they live on the fat of the land and travel about as much as they’ve a fancy to.”
“It’s luck,” Nea answered. “And dishonesty, too, perhaps. One might always be rich if one didn’t care how one got one’s money.”
‘ By the Place de la Concorde, oddly enough, they stumbled across another old Mentone acquaintance. It was Armitage, looking a trifle less spick-and-span than formerly, to be sure, but still wearing in face and coat and head-gear the familiar air of an accomplished boulevardier.
He struck an attitude the moment he saw them, and extended a hand of most unwonted cordiality. One would have said from his manner that the scallywag had been the bosom friend of his youth, and the best-beloved companion of his maturer years — so affectionate and so warm was his smile of greeting.
“What, Gascoyne!” he cried, coming forward and seizing his hand. “You here, my dear fellow! And Lady Gascoyne too! Well, this is delightful. I saw all about your marriage in the Whisperer, you know, and that you had started for Paris, and I was so pleased to think it was I in great part who had done you the good turn of first bringing you and Lady Gascoyne together. Well, this is indeed a pleasure — a most fortunate meeting! I’ve been hunting up and down for you at every hotel in all Paris — the Grand, the Continental, the Windsor, the Ambassadeurs — but I couldn’t find you anywhere. You seem to have buried yourself. I wanted to take you to this reception at the Embassy.”
“You’re very kind,” Paul answered in a reserved tone, for such new-born affection somewhat repelled him by its empressement. “We’ve taken rooms in a very small hotel behind the Palais de l’In
dustrie. We’re poor, you know. We couldn’t afford to stop at such places as the Grand or the Continental.”
Armitage slipped his arm irresistibly into Paul’s. “I’ll walk with you wherever you’re going,” he said. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you both again. And how long, Lady Gascoyne, do you remain in Paris?”
Nea told him, and Armitage, drawing down the corners of his mouth at the news, regretted their departure excessively. There were so many things coming off this next week, don’t you know. And the Lyttons would of course be so delighted to get them an invitation for that crush at the Elysées.
“We don’t care for crushes, thanks,” Paul responded frigidly.
“And who do you think we saw just now, up near the Rond Pointe, Mr. Armitage?” Nea put in, with perfect innocence. “Why, Mme. Ceriolo.”
“Got up younger than ever,” Paul went on with a smile. It was Armitage’s turn to draw himself up now.
“I beg your pardon,” he said stiffly, “but I think — a — you labor under a misapprehension. Her name’s not Ceriolo any longer, you know. Perhaps I ought to have explained before. The truth is, you see” — he stroked his beard fondly — f well — to cut it short — in point of fact, she’s married.”
“Oh, yes, we know all that,” Paul answered, with a careless wave of the hand. “She’s Mrs. Lionel Solomons now, by rights, we’re well aware. I was present at her husband’s funeral. But, of course, she won’t be guilty of such an egregious piece of folly as calling herself by her new name. Ceriolo’s a much better name to trade upon than Solomons, any day.”
Armitage dropped his arm — a baronet’s arm — with a little sudden movement, and blushed brilliant crimson.
“Oh, I don’t mean that,” he said, looking just a little sheepish. “Marie’s told me all that, I need hardly say. It was a hasty episode — mistaken, mistaken! Poor child, I don’t blame her, she was so alone in the world — she needed companionship. I ought to have known it. And the old brute of an uncle behaved most shamefully to her, too, afterward. But no matter about that. It’s a long story. Happily, Marie’s a person not easily crushed. What I meant was this. I thought, perhaps, you’d have seen it in the papers.” And he pulled out from his card case a little printed paragraph which he handed to Paul. “She was married at the Embassy, you see,” he went on, still more sheepishly than before. “Married at the Embassy, the very same day as you and Lady Gascoyne. In point of fact the lady you were speaking of-is at this present moment — Mrs. Armitage.”
“So she’s caught you at last!” was what Paul nearly blurted out in his astonishment on the spur of the moment, but with an effort he refrained and restrained himself.
I’m sorry I should have said anything,” he replied instead, “that might for a moment seem disrespectful to the lady you’ve made your wife. You may be sure I wouldn’t have done so had I in the least anticipated it.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” Armitage answered a little crestfallen, but with genial tolerance, like one well accustomed to such trifling criticisms. “It doesn’t surprise me in the least that you misjudge Marie. Many people misjudge her who don’t know her well. I misjudged her once myself, I’m free to confess, as I daresay you remember. But I know better now. You see, it was difficult at first to accept her romantic story in full — such stories are so often a mere tissue of falsehoods — but it’s all quite true in her case. I’ve satisfied myself on that point. She’s put my mind quite at ease as to the real position of her relations in the Tyrol. They’re most distinguished people, I assure you, the Ceriolos of Ceriolo — most distinguished people. She’s lately inherited a very small fortune from one of them — just a couple of hundred a year or thereabouts. And with her little income and my little income, we mean to get along now very comfortably on the Continent. Marie’s a great favorite in society in Paris, you know. If you and Lady Gascoyne were going to stop a week longer here, I’d ask you to dine with us to meet the world at our flat in the Avenue Victor Hugo.”
And when Armitage had dropped them opposite Galignani’s, Paul observed with a quiet smile to Nea:
“Well, she’s made the best, anyhow, of poor Mr. Solomons’ unwilling allowance.”
CHAPTER L.
A FALL IN CENTRAL SOUTHERNS.
THE shortest honeymoon ends at last (for, of course, the longest one does), and Paul and Nea were expected back one Thursday afternoon at home at Hillborough.
That day Mr. Solomons was all agog with excitement, He was ashamed to let even his office-boy see how much he anticipated Sir Paul and Lady Gascoyne’s arrival. He had talked of Sir Paul indeed, till he was fairly angry with himself. It was Sir Paul here, Sir Paul there, Sir Paul everywhere. He had looked out Sir Paul’s train half a dozen times over in his dog-eared “Bradshaw,” and had then sent out his clerk for another — a new one — for fear the service Sir Paul had written about might be taken off the Central Southern time table for September. At last, by way of calming his jerky nerves, he determined to walk over the Knoll and down upon the station, where he would be the first to welcome Lady Gascoyne to Hillborough. And he set out well in time, so as not to have to mount the steep hill too fast; for the front of the hill is very steep indeed, and Mr. Solomons’ heart was by no means so vigorous these last few weeks as its owner could have wished it to be.
However, by dint of much puffing and panting, Mr. Solomons reached the top at last, and sat down a while on the dry tuff, looking particularly blue about the lips and cheeks, to gain a little breath and admire for the fiftieth time that beautiful outlook. And well he might; for the view from the Knoll is one of the most justly famous among the Surrey Hills. On one side you gaze down upon the vale of Hillborough, with its tall church spire and town of red-tiled roofs, having the station in the foreground, and the long, steep line of the North Downs at their escarpment backing it up behind with a sheer wall of precipitous greensward. On the other side you look away across the Sussex Weald, blue and level as the sea, or bounded only on its further edge by the purple summits of the Forest Ridge to southward. Close by, the Central Southern Railway, coming from Hipsley, intersects with its hard iron line a gorse-clad common, and, passing by a tunnel under the sandstone hogsback of the Knoll, emerges at once on Hillborough station, embosomed in the beeches and elms of Boldwood Manor.
Mr. Solomons paused and gazed at it long. There was Hipsley, distinct on the common southward, with a train at the platform bound in the opposite direction, and soon Sir Paul’s train would reach there too, bringing Sir Paul and Lady Gascoyne to Hillborough. The old moneylender smiled a pitying smile to himself as he thought how eagerly and childishly he expected them. How angry he had been with Paul at first for throwing himself away upon that penniless Cornish girl! and now, how much more than pleased he felt that his protégé had chosen the better part, and not, like Demas and poor Lionel, turned aside from the true way to a fallacious silver mine.
“He’s a good boy. Paul is,” the old man thought to himself, as he got up from the turf once more, and set out to walk across the crest of the Knoll and down upon the station. “He’s a good boy, Paul, and it’s I who have made him.”
He walked forward a while, ruminating, along the top of the ridge, hardly looking where he went, till he came to the point just above the tunnel. There he suddenly stumbled. Something unexpected knocked against his foot, though the greensward on the top was always so fine and clean and close-cropped. It jarred him for a moment, so sudden was the shock. Mr. Solomons, blue already, grew bluer still as he halted and held his hand to his head for a second to steady his impressions. Then he looked down to see what could have lain in his path. Good Heavens! this was queer! He rubbed his eyes.
“Never saw anything at all like this on the top of the Knoll before. God bless me!”
There was a hollow or pit into which he had stepped inadvertently, some eight or ten inches or thereabouts below the general level.
Mr. Solomons rubbed his eyes and looked again. Yes, he was neither daft, no
r drunk, nor dazed, nor dreaming. A hollow in the path lay slowly yawning before him.
Slowly yawning! for the next instant Mr. Solomons became aware that the pit was even now actual in progress. It was sinking, sinking, sinking, inch by inch, and he himself, as it seemed, was sinking with it.
As he looked he saw the land give yet more suddenly toward the center. Hardly realizing even then what was taking place before his very eyes, he had still presence of mind enough left to jump aside from the dangerous spot, and scramble back again to the solid bank beyond it. Just as he did so, the whole mass caved in with a hollow noise, and left a funnel-shaped hole in the very center.
Mr. Solomons, dazed and stunned, knew, nevertheless, what had really happened. The tunnel — that suspected tunnel — had fallen in. The brick roof, perhaps, had given way, or the arch had failed somewhere; but of one thing he was certain — the tunnel had fallen.
As a matter of fact, the engineers reported afterward, rainfall had slowly carried away the sandstone of the hill, a grain at a time, by stream and rivulet, till it had left a hollow space overhead between rock and vaulting. Heavy showers had fallen the night before, and, by waterlogging the soil, had added to the weight of the superincumbent strata. Cohesion no longer sufficed to support the mass; it caved in slowly; and at the very moment when Mr. Solomons saved himself on the firm soil at the side, it broke down the brickwork and filled in the tunnel.
But of all this, Mr. Solomons for the moment was ignorant.
Any other man in his place would probably have thought at once of the danger involved to life and limb by this sudden catastrophe. Mr. Solomons, looking at it with the eye of a speculator and the ingrained habits of so many years of money-grubbing, saw in it instinctively but one prospective fact — a certain fall in Central Southerns.
