Читать книгу: «Armorel of Lyonesse: A Romance of To-day», страница 26

'Oh, yes! Quite sure. Of course I knew all along. But you must keep it up more religiously than ever, because the business is going to be so much – so very much – bigger. Now for my conditions.'

'Any conditions – any!'

'You will insert this advertisement for six days, beginning to-morrow, in the Times.'

He read it aloud. He read it without the least change of countenance, so wooden was his face, so hard his heart.

'On Wednesday, April 21, 1887, at St. Leonard's, Worthing, Alexander Feilding, of the Grove Studio, Marlborough Road, to Zoe, only daughter of the late Peter Evelyn, formerly of Kensington Palace Gardens.'

'I believe,' he said, folding the paper, 'that was the date. It was three years ago, wasn't it? I say, Zoe, won't it be awkward having to explain things – long interval, you know – engagement as companion – wrong name?'

'I have thought of that. But it would be more awkward pretending that we were married to-day and being found out. No. There are not half-a-dozen people who will ever know that I was Armorel's companion. Then, a circumstance, which there is no need ever to explain, forbade the announcement of our marriage – hint at a near relation's will – I was compelled to assume another name. Cruel necessity!'

'You are a mighty clever woman, Zoe.'

'I am. If you are wise, now, you will assume a joyful air. You will go about rejoicing that the bar to this public announcement has been at length removed. Family reasons – you will say – no fault of yours or of mine. It is your business, of course, how you will look – but I recommend this line. Be the exultant bridegroom, not the downcast husband. Will you walk so?' – she assumed a buoyant dancing step with a smiling face – 'or so?' she hung a dejected head and crawled sadly.

'By gad, it's wonderful!' he cried, looking at her with astonishment. And, indeed, who would recognise the quiet, sleepy, indolent woman of yesterday in the quick, restless, and alert woman of to-day?

'Henceforth I must work, Alec. I cannot sit down and go to sleep any longer. That time has gone. I think I have murdered sleep.'

'Work away, my girl. Nobody wants to prevent you. Are there any other conditions?'

'You will sell your riding-horses and buy a Victoria. Your wife must have something to drive about in. And you will lead, in many respects, an altered life. I must have, for the complete working out of my plans, an ideal domestic life. Turtle-doves we must be for affection, and angels incarnate for propriety. The highest Art in the home is the highest standard of manners that can be set up.'

'Very good. Any more conditions?'

'Only one more condition. J'y suis. J'y reste. You will call your servant and inform him that I am your wife, and the mistress of this establishment. I think there will be no more earthquakes and broken panels. Alec' – she laid her hand upon his arm – 'you should have done this three years ago. I should have saved you. I should have saved myself. Now, whatever happens, we are on the same level – we cannot reproach each other. We shall walk hand in hand. It was done for you, Alec. And I would do it again. Yes – yes – yes. Again!' She repeated the words with flashing eyes. 'Fraud – sham – pretence – these are our servants. We command them. By them we live, and by them we climb. What matter – so we reach the top – by what ladders we have climbed?' She looked around with a gesture of defiance, fine and free. 'The world is all alike,' she said. 'There is no truth or honour anywhere. We are all in the same swim.'

The man dropped into his vacant chair. 'We are saved!' he cried.

'Saved!' she echoed. 'Saved! Did you ever see a Court of Justice, Alec? I have. Once, when our company was playing at Winchester, I went to see the Assizes. I remember then wondering how it would feel to be a prisoner. Henceforth I shall understand his sensations. There they stand, two prisoners, side by side – a man and a woman – a pair of them. Found out at last, and arrested and brought up for trial. There sits the Judge, stern and cold: there are the twelve men of the jury, grave and cold: there are the policemen, stony-hearted: there are the lawyers, laughing and talking: there are the people behind, all grave and cold. No pity in any single face – not a gleam of pity – for the poor prisoners. Some people go stealing and cheating because they are driven by poverty. These people did not: they were driven by vanity and greed. Look at them in the box: they are well dressed. See! they are curiously like you and me, Alec' – she was acting now better than she ever acted on the stage – 'The man is like you, and the woman – oh! you poor, unlucky wretch! – is like me – curiously, comically like me. They will be found guilty. What punishment will they get? As for her, it was for her husband's sake that she did it. But, I suppose, that will not help her. What will they get, Alec?'

He sat up in the chair and heaved a great sigh of relief.

'What are you talking about, my dear? I was not listening. Well; we are saved. It has been a mighty close shave. Another day, and I must have thrown up the sponge. We have a world of work before us; but if you are only half or quarter as clever as you think yourself, we shall do splendidly.' He laid his arm round her waist, and drew her gently and kissed her again. 'So – now you are sensible – what were you talking about prisoners for? No more separations now. Let me kiss away these tears. And now, Zoe – now – time presses. I am anxious to repair my losses. Where are we to find these ghosts? Sit down. To work! To work!'

CHAPTER XXIII
THE HOUR OF TRIUMPH

A man may do a great many things without receiving from the world the least sign of regard or interest. He may write the most lovely verses – and no one will read them. He may design and invent the most beautiful play – which no one will act: he may advocate a measure certain to bring about universal happiness – but no one will so much as read it. There is one thing, however, by which he may awaken a spirit of earnest curiosity and interest concerning himself: he may get married. Everybody will read the announcement of his marriage in the paper: everybody will immediately begin to talk about him. The bridegroom's present position and future prospects, his actual income and the style in which he will live: the question whether he has done well for himself, or whether he has thrown himself away: the bride's family, her age, her beauty, her dot, if she has got any: the question whether she had not a right to expect a better marriage – all these points are raised and debated when a man is married. Also, which is even more remarkable, whatever a man does shall be forgotten by the world, but the story of his marriage shall never be forgotten. A man may live down calumny; he may hold up his head though he has been the defendant in a disgraceful cause; he may survive the scandal of follies and profligacies; he may ride triumphant over misfortune: but he can never live down his own marriage. All those who have married 'beneath' them – whether beneath them in social rank, in manners, in morals, character, in spiritual or in mental elevation, will bear unwilling and grievous testimony to this great truth.

When, therefore, the Times announced the marriage of Mr. Alexander Feilding, together with the fact that the announcement was no less than three years late, great amazement fell upon all men and all women – yea, and dismay upon all those girls who knew this Universal Genius – and upon all who knew or remembered the lady, daughter of the financial City person who let in everybody to so frightful a tune, and then, like another treacherous person, went away and hanged himself. And as many questions were asked at the breakfast-tables of London as there were riddles asked at the famous dinner-party at the town of Mansoul. To these riddles there were answers, but to those none. For instance, why had Alec Feilding concealed his marriage? Where had he hidden his wife? And (among a very few) how could he permit her to go about the country in a provincial troupe? To these replies there have never been any answers. The lady herself, who certainly ought to know, sometimes among her intimate friends alludes to the cruelty of relations, and the power which one's own people have of making mischief. She also speaks of the hard necessity, owing to these cruelties, of concealing her marriage. This throws the glamour and magic of romance – the romance of money – over the story. But there are some who remain unconvinced.

The bridegroom wrote one letter, and only one, of explanation. It was to Mr. Jagenal, the family solicitor.

'To so old a friend,' he wrote, 'the fullest explanations are due concerning things which may appear strange. Until the day before yesterday there were still existing certain family reasons which rendered it absolutely necessary for us to conceal our marriage and to act with so much prudence that no one should so much as suspect the fact. This will explain to you why we lent ourselves to the little harmless – perfectly harmless – pretence by which my wife appeared in the character of a widow. It also explains why she was unwilling – while under false colours – to go into general society. The unexpected disappearance of these family reasons caused her to abandon her charge hurriedly. I had not learned the fact when you called yesterday. Now, I hope that we may receive, though late, the congratulations of our friends. – A. F.'

'This,' said Mr. Jagenal, 'is an explanation which explains nothing. Well, it is all very irregular; and there is something behind; and it is no concern of mine. Most things in the world are irregular. The little windfall of which I told him yesterday will be doubly welcome now that he has a wife to spend his money for him. And now we understand why he was always dangling after Armorel – because his wife was with her – and why he did not fall in love with that most beautiful creature.'

He folded up the note; put it, with a few words of his own, into an envelope, and sent it to Philippa. Then he went on with the cases in his hands. Among these were the materials for many other studies into the workings of the feminine heart and the masculine brain. The solicitor's tin boxes: the doctor's notebook: the priest's memory: should furnish full materials for that exhaustive psychological research which science will some day insist upon conducting.

In the afternoon of the same day was the Private View of the Grosvenor Gallery. There was the usual Private View crowd – so private now that everybody goes there. It would have been incomplete without the presence of Mr. Alec Feilding.

Now, at the very thickest and most crowded time, when the rooms were at their fullest, and when the talk was at its noisiest, he appeared, bearing on his arm a young, beautiful, and beautifully dressed woman. He calmly entered the room where half the people were talking of himself and of his marriage, concealed for three years, with as much coolness as if he had been about in public with his wife all that time: he spoke to his friends as if nothing had happened: and he introduced them to his wife as if it was by the merest accident that they had not already met. Nothing could exceed the unconsciousness of his manner, unless it was the simple and natural ease of his wife. No one could possibly guess that there was, or could be, the least awkwardness in the situation.

The thing itself, and the manner of carrying it through, constituted a coup of the most brilliant kind. This public appearance deprived the situation, in fact, of all its awkwardness. No one could ask them at the Grosvenor Gallery what it meant. There were one or two to whom the bridegroom whispered that it was a long and romantic story: that there had been a bar to the completion of his happiness, by a public avowal: that this bar – a purely private and family matter – had only yesterday been removed: nothing was really explained: but it was generally felt that the mystery added another to the eccentricities of genius. There was a something, they seemed to remember dimly, about the marriages and love-passages of Shelley, Coleridge, and Lord Byron.

Mrs. Feilding, clearly, was a woman born to be an artist's wife: herself, artistic in her dress, her manner, and her appearance: sympathetic in her caressing voice: gracious in her manners: and openly proud of a husband so richly endowed.

Alec presented a great many men to her. She had, it seemed, already made acquaintance with their works, which she knew by name: she betrayed involuntarily, by her gracious smile, and the interested, curious gaze of her large and limpid eyes, the genuine admiration which she felt for these works, and the very great pleasure with which she made the acquaintance of this very distinguished author. If any of them were on the walls, she bestowed upon them the flattery of measured and appreciative praise: she knew something of the technique.

'Alec is not exhibiting this year,' she said. 'I think he is right. He had but one picture: and that was in his old style. People will think he can do nothing but sea-coast, rock, and spray. So he is going to send his one picture away – if you want to see it you must make haste to the studio – and he is going – this is a profound secret – to break out in a new line – quite a new line. But you must not know anything about it.'

A paragraph in a column of personal news published the fact, the very next day, which shows how difficult it is to keep a secret.

Before Mrs. Feilding left the gallery she had made twenty friends for life, and had laid a solid foundation for her Sunday evenings.

In the evening there was a First Night. No First Nights are possible without the appearance of certain people, of whom Mr. Alec Feilding was one. He attended, bringing with him his wife. Some of the men who had been at the private view were also present at the performance, but not many, because the followers of one art do not – as they should – rally round any other. But all the dramatic critics were there, and all the regular first-nighters, including the wreckers – who go to pit and gallery – and the friends of the author and those of the actors. Between the acts there was a good deal of circulation and talking. Alec presented a good many more gentlemen to his wife. Before they went home Mrs. Feilding had made a dozen more friends for life, and placed her Sunday evenings on a firm and solid basis. Her social success – at least among the men – was assured from this first day.

CHAPTER XXIV
THE CUP AND THE LIP

Two days after the Private View Alec Feilding repaired, by special invitation, to Mr. Jagenal's office.

'I have sent for you, Alec,' said the solicitor, ami de famille, 'in continuance of our conversation of the other day – about that little windfall, you know.'

'I am not likely to forget it. Little windfalls of a thousand pounds do not come too often.'

'They do not. Meantime another very important event has happened. I saw the announcement in the paper, and I received your note – '

'You are the only person – believe me – to whom I have thought it right to explain the circumstances – '

'Yes? The explanation, at all events, is one that may be given in the same words – to all the world. I have no knowledge of Mrs. Feilding's friends, or of any obstacles that have been raised to her marriage! But I am rather sorry, Alec, that you sent her to me under a false name, because these things, if they get about, are apt to make mischief.'

'I assure you that this plan was only adopted in order the more effectually to divert suspicion. It was with the greatest reluctance that we consented to enter upon a path of deception. I knew, however, in whose hands I was. At any moment I was in readiness to confess the truth to you. In the case of a stranger the thing would have been impossible. You, however, I knew, would appreciate the motive of our action, and sympathise with the necessity.'

Mr. Jagenal laughed gently – behind the specious words he discerned – something – the shapeless spectre which suspicion calls up or creates. But he only laughed. 'Well, Alec,' he said, 'marriage is a perfectly personal matter. You are a married man. You had reasons of your own for concealing the fact. You are now enabled to proclaim the fact. That is all anybody need know. We condone the little pretence of the widowhood. Armorel Rosevean has lost her companion; whether she has also lost her friend I do not know. The rest concerns yourself alone. Very good. You are a married man. All the more reason that this little windfall should be acceptable.'

'It will be extremely acceptable, I assure you.'

'Whether it is money or money's worth?'

'To save trouble I should prefer money.'

'You must take it as it comes, my dear boy.'

'Well, what is it?'

'It is,' replied Mr. Jagenal solemnly, 'nothing short of the sea giving up its treasures, the dead giving up her secrets, and the restoration of what was never known to be lost.'

'You a maker of conundrums?'

'You shall hear. Before we come to the thing itself – the treasure, the windfall, the thing picked up on the beach – let me again recall to you two or three points in your own family history. Your mother's maiden name was Isabel Needham. She was the daughter of Henry Needham and Frances his wife. Frances was the daughter of Robert Fletcher.'

'Very good. I believe that is the case.'

'Your money came to you from this Robert Fletcher, your maternal great-grandfather. You should, therefore, remember him.'

'I recognise,' said Alec, sententiously, 'the respect that should be paid to the memory of every man who makes money for his children.'

'Very good. Now, this Robert Fletcher as a young man, went out to India in search of fortune. He was apparently an adventurous young man, not disposed to sit down at the desk after the usual fashion of young men who go out to India. We find him in Burmah, for instance – then a country little known by Englishmen. While there he managed to attract the notice and the favour of the King, who employed him in some capacity – traded with him, perhaps; and, at all events, advanced his interests – so that, while still a young man, he found himself in the possession of a fortune ample enough for his wants – '

'Which he left to his daughters.'

'Don't be in a hurry. That was quite another fortune.'

'Oh! Another fortune? What became of the first?'

'Having enough, he resolved to return to his native country. But in Burmah there were then no banks, merchants, drafts, or cheques. He therefore converted his fortune into portable property, which he carried about his person, no one, I take it, knowing anything at all about it. Thus, carrying his treasure with him, he sailed for England. Have you heard anything of this?'

'Nothing at all. The beginning of the story, however, is interesting.'

'You will enjoy the end still better. The ship in which he sailed met with disaster. She was wrecked on the Isles of Scilly. It is said – but this I do not know – that the only man saved from the wreck was your great-grandfather: he was saved by one Emanuel Rosevean, great-great-grandfather to Armorel, the girl whose charge your own wife undertook.'

'Always that cursed girl!' murmured Alec.

'Robert Fletcher was clinging to a spar when he was picked up and dragged ashore. He recovered consciousness after a long illness, and then found that the leather case in which all his fortune lay had slipped from his neck and was lost. Therefore, he had to begin the world again. He went away, therefore. He went away – ' Mr. Jagenal paused at this point, rattled his keys, and looked about him. He was not a story-teller by profession, but he knew instinctively that every story, in order to be dramatic – and he wished this to be a very dramatic history – should be cut up into paragraphs, illustrated by dialogue, and divided into sections. Dialogue being impossible, he stopped and rattled his keys. This meant the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.

'Do pray get along,' cried his client, now growing interested and impatient.

'He went away,' the narrator repeated, 'his treasure lost, to begin the world again. He came here, became a stockbroker, made money – and the rest you know. He appears never to have told his daughters of his loss. I have been in communication with the solicitors of the late Eleanor Fletcher, your great-aunt, and I cannot learn from them that she ever spoke of this calamity. Yet had she known of it she must have remembered it. To bring all your fortune – a considerable fortune – home in a bag tied round your neck, and to lose it in a shipwreck is a disaster which would, one thinks, be remembered to the third and fourth generations.'

'I should think so. But you said something about the sea giving up its treasure.'

'That we come to next. Five years ago, by the death of a very aged lady, her great-great-grandmother, Armorel Rosevean succeeded to an inheritance which turned out to be nothing less than the accumulated savings of many generations. Among other possessions she found in this old lady's room a sea-chest containing things apparently recovered from wrecks, or drowned men, or washed ashore by the sea – a very curious and interesting collection: there were snuff-boxes, watches, chains, rings, all kinds of things. Among these treasures she turned out, at the bottom of the chest, a case of shagreen with a leather thong. On opening this Armorel found it to contain a quantity of precious stones, and a scrap of paper which seemed to show that they had formerly been the property of one Robert Fletcher. We may suppose, if we please, that the case containing the jewels was cast up on the beach after the storm, and tossed into the chest without much knowledge of its contents or their value. We may suppose that Emanuel Rosevean found the case. We may suppose what we please, because we can prove nothing. For my own part, I think there is no reasonable doubt that the case actually contained the fortune of Robert Fletcher. The dates of the story seem to correspond: the handwriting appears to be his: we have letters of his speaking of his intention to return, and of his property being in convenient portable shape.'

'Well – then – this portable fortune belongs to Robert Fletcher's heirs.'

'Not so quick. How are you going to prove your claim? You have nothing to go by but a fragment of writing with part of his name on it. You cannot prove that he was shipwrecked, and if you could do that you could not prove that these jewels belonged to him.'

'If there is no doubt, she ought to give them up. She is bound in honour.'

'I said that in my mind there is no reasonable doubt. That is because I have heard a great deal more than could be admitted in evidence. But now – listen again without interrupting. When, five years ago, the young lady placed the management of her affairs in my hands through the Vicar of her parish, I had every part of her very miscellaneous fortune valued and a part of it sold. I had these rubies examined by a merchant in jewels.'

'And how much were they worth?'

'One with another – some being large and very valuable indeed, and others small – they were said, by my expert, to be worth thirty-five thousand pounds. They might, under favourable circumstances and if judiciously placed in the market realise much more. Thirty-five thousand pounds!'

'What?' He literally opened his mouth. 'How much do you say?'

'Thirty-five thousand pounds.'

'Oh! But the stones are not hers – they belong – they belong – to us – to the descendants of Robert Fletcher.' No one would have called that face wooden, now. It was full of excitement – the excitement of a newly awakened hope. 'Does she propose to buy me off with a thousand pounds? Does she think I am to be bought off at any price? The jewels are mine – mine – that is, I have a share in them.'

'Gently – gently – gently! What proof have you got of this story? Nothing. You never heard of it: your great-grandfather never spoke of it. Nothing would have been heard of it at all but for this old lady from whom Armorel inherited. The property is hers as much as anything else. If she gives up anything it is by her own free and uncompelled will. She need give nothing. Remember that.'

'Then she offers me a miserable thousand pounds for my share – which ought to be at least a third. Jagenal' – he turned purple and the veins stood out on his forehead – 'That infernal girl hates me! She has done me – I cannot tell you how much mischief. She persecutes me. Now she offers to buy me out of my share of thirty-five thousand pounds – a third share – nay – a half, because my great-aunt left no children – for a thousand pounds down!'

'I did not say so.'

'You told me that the windfall would amount to a thousand pounds.'

'That was in joke, my boy. You are perfectly wrong about Armorel hating you. How can she hate you? You are so far wrong in this instance that she has instructed me to give you the whole of this fortune – actually to make you a free gift of the whole property – the whole, mind – thirty-five thousand pounds!'

'To me! Armorel gives me – me – the whole of this fortune?' Blank astonishment fell upon him. He stood staring – open-mouthed. 'To ME?' he repeated.

'To you. She does not, to be sure, know to whom she gives it. She is only desirous of restoring the jewels which she insists in believing to belong to Robert Fletcher's family. Therefore, as it would be obviously impossible to find out and to divide this fortune among all the descendants of Robert Fletcher, who are scattered about the globe, she was resolved to give them to the eldest descendant of the second daughter.'

'Oh!' Alec turned pale, and dropped into a chair, broken up. 'To the eldest descendant of the second – the second daughter. Then – '

'Then to you, as the only grandson of the second daughter – Frances.'

'The second daughter was – ' He checked himself. He sighed. He sat up. His eyes, always small and too close together, grew smaller and closer together. 'The other branch of the family,' he said slowly, 'has vanished – as you say – it is scattered over the face of the globe. I do not know anything about my cousins – if I have any cousins. Perhaps when you have carried on the search a little further – '

'But I am not going to carry it on any further at all. Why should I? We have nothing more to learn. I am instructed by Armorel to give the rubies to you. It is a gift – not a right. It is not an inheritance, remember – it is a free gift. She says, "These rubies used to belong to Robert Fletcher. I will restore them to someone of his kin." You are that someone. Why should I inquire further?'

'Oh!' Alec sank back in his chair and closed his eyes as one who recovers from a sharp pang, and sighed deeply. 'If you are satisfied, then – But if other cousins should turn up – '

'They will have nothing, because nobody is entitled to anything. Come Alec, my boy, you look a little overcome. It is natural. Pull yourself together, and look at the facts. You will have thirty-five thousand pounds – perhaps a little more. At four per cent. – I think I can put you in the way of getting so much with safety – you will have fourteen hundred a year. You will have that, apart from your literary and artistic income. It is not a gigantic fortune, it is true; but let me tell you that it is a very handsome addition indeed to any man's income. You will not be able to live in Kensington Palace Gardens, where your wife lived as a girl; but you can take a good house and see your friends, and have anything in reason. Well, that is all I have to say, except to congratulate you, which I do, my Alec' – he seized the fortunate young man's hand and shook it warmly – 'most heartily. I do, indeed. You deserve your good luck – every bit of the good luck that has befallen you. Everybody who knows you will rejoice. And it comes just at the right moment – just when you have acknowledged your marriage and taken your wife home.'

'Really,' said Alec, now completely recovered, 'I am overwhelmed with this stroke of luck. It is the most unexpected thing in the world. I could never have dreamed of such a thing. To find out, on the same day, that one's great-grandfather once made a fortune and lost it, and that it has been recovered, and that it is all given to me – it naturally takes one's breath away at first.'

'You would like to gaze upon this fortune from the Ruby Mines of Burmah, would you not?' Mr. Jagenal threw open the door of a safe, and took out a parcel in brown paper. 'It is here.' He opened the parcel, and disclosed the shagreen case which we have already seen in the sea-chest. He laid it on the table, and unrolled the silk in which the stones were rolled. 'There they are – look common enough, don't they? One seems to have picked up stones twice as pretty on the sea-shore: here are two or three cut and polished – bits of red glass would look as pretty.'

'Thirty-five thousand pounds!' Alec cried, laying a hand, as if in episcopal benediction, upon the treasure. 'Is it possible that this little bundle of stones should be worth so much?'

'Quite possible. Now – they are yours – what will you do with them.'

'First, I will ask you to put them back in the safe.'

'I will send them to your bank if you please.'

'No – keep them here – I will consult you immediately about their disposition. Thirty-five thousand pounds! Thirty-five – perhaps we may get more for them. What am I to say to this girl? Perhaps when she learns who has got the rubies she will refuse to let them go. I am sure she would never consent.'

'Nonsense – about persecution and annoyance! Armorel hate you? Why should she hate you? The sweetest girl in the world. You men of genius are too ready to take offence. The things are yours. I have given them to you by her instructions. I have written you a letter, formally conveying the jewels to you. Here it is. And now go home, my dear fellow, and when you feel like taking a holiday, do it with a tranquil mind, remembering that you've got fourteen hundred pounds a year given you for nothing at all by this young lady, who wasn't obliged to give you a penny. Why, in surrendering these jewels, she has surrendered a good half of her whole fortune. Find me another girl, anywhere, who would give up half her fortune for a scruple. And now go away, and tell your wife. Let her rejoice. Tell her it is Armorel's wedding present.'