The next day Mr. Grant hired a saddle-horse, and rode up to London,
where, among other business, he made the call at Bendibow Bank, which
has been already mentioned. His affair with that institution having been
arranged, presumably to the satisfaction of both parties, Mr. Grant set
out on his return home. As it was already six o’clock, however, he
stopped at the “Holy Lands” hotel in the Strand, where he dined. By the
time he was ready to resume his journey it was nearly dark, the rather
as the night was moonless, and the sky was overlaid with heavy clouds.
Partly by chance, partly because he fancied it would save him some
distance, he took the northern or Uxbridge road, instead of that which
goes through Kensington. After passing the northwest corner of
Kensington Gardens, this road lay through a region which was, at that
epoch, practically uninhabited. Mr. Grant rode easily along, absorbed in
thought, and only occasionally taking note of his direction. He was a
practiced horseman, and riding was as natural to him as walking. It was
a very still night, though a storm might be brewing; and the only sounds
audible to Mr. Grant’s ears were the steady tramp of his horse’s feet,
the slight creaking of the saddle, and the rattle of the bit as the
animal flung up his head. By-and-by, however, the rider fancied he heard
the noise of another horse’s hoofs beating the road at a gallop, and
coming up behind him. He drew his left rein a little, and glanced over
his shoulder.
Meanwhile, at Mrs. Lockhart’s house in Hammersmith, dinner was ready at
the usual time; but as Mr. Grant did not appear, it was resolved to
wait for him. He had informed Mrs. Lockhart, previous to setting out,
that it was his intention to go to London, and added that he might be
detained some hours by business. No anxiety was felt, therefore: but, as
Marion observed, dinner would not seem like dinner without Mr. Grant;
and it was not worth while sitting down to table so long as any chance
remained of his being present. Accordingly, the dishes were put to warm
in front of the kitchen fire; and Marion and Lancaster went to the
piano, and tried to set to music some words that the latter had written.
But singing conduces to appetite; and appetite will get the better even
of sentiment. When more than half an hour had added itself to the abyss
of the past, it was generally admitted that Mr. Grant was hopelessly
derelict, and neglectful of his social duties: the dishes were brought
in from the kitchen, and the trio seated themselves at table, with Mr.
Grant’s chair gaping vacantly at them all.
Now, whether a man be well or ill spoken of behind his back, depends not
so much upon the man himself as upon those who speak of him; but
probably the worst thing that can happen to him is not to be spoken of
at all. Mr. Grant fared well in all respects; he was spoken of, he was
well spoken of, he was well spoken of by honest people; and it may not
be too much to add that he was not undeserving of having honest people
speak well of him. The goodness of some good men is a long time in
getting the recognition that it deserves; that of others is appreciated
at once; nor does it follow that the latter’s virtues are necessarily
shallower or less honorable than those of the former. Ten days ago, for
example, Mr. Grant had been as good as non-existent to the three persons
who were now discussing him with so much interest and even affection.
There was something in his face, in his glance, in the gradual, kindly
brightening of his smile, in the pleasant melody of his voice, in the
manly repose of his general walk and conversation, that inevitably
inspired respect and liking in such persons as were disinterestedly
susceptible of those sentiments. And yet Mr. Grant was far from being
handsome either in face or figure; and no one knew what his life had
been, what was his social position, whether he were rich or poor, or
wherefore he was living in lodgings at Hammersmith; none of which
subjects of inquiry are apt to be disregarded in the life of a country
so compact and inquisitive as England. But even in England, sheer and
naked individuality has vast weight, altogether unaccountable upon any
general theory whatever: and Mr. Grant was in this way the passive
subject of a special social dispensation.
“He told me last night,” remarked Lancaster, “that he had been living in
India for the last twenty years. I had been puzzling myself whom he
reminded me of--physically, I mean; and that enlightened me. You have
probably seen the man I mean, Mrs. Lockhart. I saw him the year he was
acquitted, when I was eight or nine years old; and I never forgot his
face--Warren Hastings.”
Mrs. Lockhart replied that she had never seen Mr. Hastings, but she was
sure Mr. Grant bore no resemblance to him in character. Mr. Hastings was
a cruel and ambitious man; whereas Mr. Grant was the most humane man she
had ever known, except the Major, and as simple as a child.
“There is mystery about him, too,” said Lancaster.
“Not the kind of mystery that makes you suspicious though,” said Marion.
“I feel that what he hides would make us like him better if we knew it.”
“What I hide is of another color,” observed Lancaster.
“I’m sure it can be nothing bad,” said Mrs. Lockhart.
Marion broke out, “So am I! Mr. Lancaster thinks it would be picturesque
and poetical to be wicked, and so he is always talking about it. If he
had really done anything wicked, he would be too vain to make a mystery
of it; he could not help telling. But he has only been good so far, and
he has not outgrown being ashamed of it. If he had committed more sins,
the people in his poetry would have committed much fewer.”
When Marion struck, she struck with all her might, and reckless of
consequences. Mrs. Lockhart sat appalled, and Lancaster winced a little;
but he was able to say good-humoredly, “I shall give up being a
hypocrite; everybody finds me out. If I were a whited sepulchre,
detection would not humiliate me; but when a bottle labeled ‘Poison’ is
found to contain nothing worse than otto of roses, it can never hold up
its head again.”
“Anybody can say what they please,” rejoined Marion; “but what they do
is all that amounts to anything.”
“That is to say you are deaf, but you have eyes.”
“That is a more poetical way of putting it, I suppose. But some words
are as good as deeds, and I can hear those.”
“It is not your seeing or hearing that troubles me, but your being able
to read. If I had only been born an Arab or an ancient Hebrew, I might
have written without fear of your criticism.”
“I suppose you wish me to say that I would learn those languages for the
express purpose of enjoying your poetry. But I think you are lucky in
having to write in plain English. It is the most difficult of all
languages to be wicked in--genteelly wicked, at least.”
“You convince me, however, that it must have been the original language
spoken by Job’s wife, when she advised him to curse God and die. If she
had been as much a mistress of it as you are, I think he would have done
it.”
“If he had been a poet, ’tis very likely.”
“I hope,” said Mrs. Lockhart with gentle simplicity, “that nothing has
happened to Mr. Grant.”
Lancaster and Marion both turned their faces toward the window, and then
Lancaster got up from the table--they had finished dinner--and looked
out. “It has grown dark very suddenly,” he remarked. “I fear Mr. Grant
will get wet if he does not return soon.”
Marion also arose and stood at the other side of the window. After a
while she said, “I should like to be out in such a night as this.”
“I hate darkness,” returned Lancaster. “Come what come may, as long as I
have a light to see it by.”
“I love darkness, because then I can see my mind. When father was alive,
and I had more time to do what I wished, I used to lie awake at night as
much as in the day-time.”
“Your mind must be fuller of light than most people’s, if you can see it
only in the darkness.”
“I am light-minded--is that what you mean?”
“No, I am serious. You never are serious except when you are angry.”
“If I am never serious, I must be light-minded. Very likely I am
light-headed, too, sometimes; mother has often told me so. I like to be
out in the rain, and to get my feet wet and muddy. I should like to have
been a soldier in my father’s regiment; he said I would make a good
soldier.”
“And shoot Frenchmen?”
“I prefer killing with a sword. Washing dishes and marketing becomes
tiresome after a while. I shall probably kill the baker or the
greengrocer some day; I have a terrible tongue, and if I don’t let it
have its way once in a while it will become worse. Hitherto I have only
broken dishes; but that is not terrible enough.”
“I’ll be hanged if I can understand you,” said Lancaster, after a pause.
“You are such a handsome man you don’t need to understand people. The
object of understanding people is to get the better of them; but when
one is handsome, people open their doors at once.”
“Then why don’t you open yours?”
“If I don’t, it is as much on your account as on mine.”
“How is that?”
“When I tell you that, I shall have told you a great deal. But why
didn’t you protest that you had no notion you were handsome, and that I
was a flatterer?”
“I know I’m handsome, and I’m glad of it.”
“Do you often speak the truth like that?”
“You get more truth out of me than I suspected of being in me. But if,
some day, you provoke me to some truth that I had better have kept to
myself, it will be your fault.”
“I don’t think there is much danger. I like this first truth of yours.
If I were handsome I should be glad of it, too. Ugly women are
suspicious, designing and jealous. They talk about the charms of a
cultivated intelligence being superior, in the long run, to beauty. But
beauty does not wait for the long run--it wins at once, and lets the
cultivated intelligence run on to Jericho, if it likes. I imagine most
cultivated intelligences would be thankful to be fools, if they could
afford it.”
“But beauty doesn’t always imply folly.”
“Oh, I am speaking of women!”
“Thank you. But, speaking of women, what have you to say to the Marquise
Desmoines, for instance?”
“So you know her?”
“I heard you speak of her last night as being both beautiful and
clever.”
“But you know her?”
“I ran across her abroad,” said Lancaster, with an indifferent air. But
before saying it he had hesitated for a moment, and Marion had noticed
the hesitation.
“How did you like the Marquis?” she inquired.
“He was a very distinguished old gentleman, very punctilious and very
bilious. He always wore a red ribbon in his button-hole and sat in a
large arm-chair, and four times a day he had a glass of absinthe. ’Tis
a wonder he lived so long.”
“Oh, did he die?”
“He is dead.”
“What did you do then?”
“I did not know of it until a few days ago. He has been dead six
months.”
“Then Perdita is in England!” said Marion rapidly, meeting Lancaster’s
glance with her own. Except when she was angry, or for some other reason
forgot herself, she habitually avoided another person’s glance. For she
was of an extremely sensitive, nervous temperament, and the “personal
equation” of those with whom she conversed affected her more than
physical contact would affect other people.
At this point the dialogue was interrupted by a startling glare of
lightning, succeeded almost immediately by a crash of thunder so loud
and so heavy as to rattle the window in its frame and jar the floor on
which they stood. Marion laughed, and opening the window leaned out.
Mrs. Lockhart, who had fallen into a gentle doze in her chair, awoke
with a little jump and an exclamation.
“Oh, Marion ... what has gone off? Mr. Grant? Why is the window open?
Dear heart! is that the rain? He will be drenched to the skin, Mr.
Lancaster.”
“So will you if you don’t shut the window,” said Lancaster to Marion.
She looked round and appeared to answer, but her words were inaudible in
the thunderpeal that accompanied them. The rain drove straight downwards
with such force and weight that the drops might have been liquid lead.
The sky was black.
“I shall take an umbrella and go out and meet him,” Marion was now heard
to say.
“Oh, my child, you are mad!” cried Mrs. Lockhart. “Do put down the
window, Mr. Lancaster.”
Lancaster complied. Marion glanced at him with an odd, quizzical kind of
a smile. He did not know what she meant; but he joined Mrs. Lockhart in
denouncing Marion’s project as impossible.
“He would be as wet as he is capable of being before you found him,” he
said; “besides, he couldn’t use an umbrella on horseback; and even if
you knew where he was and which road he was coming by, it’s a hundred to
one you’d miss him in a night like this.”
“La! what a regiment of reasons!” she answered, with her short,
irregular laugh. “I only wanted a reason for going out. As to being of
use to Mr. Grant, ’twould be but a chance, of course; but so is
everything for that matter.”
She did not persist in her intention, however, but began to move
carelessly about the room, and made no answer to several remarks that
her mother and Lancaster addressed to her.
When nearly half an hour had passed away, her bearing and aspect
suddenly changed; she went swiftly out of the room, shutting the door
behind her. Then the outside door was heard to open, and Marion’s step
going down to the gate, which was likewise flung back; then, after a
minute’s silence, the sound of voices, and Lancaster, peering out of the
window, saw, by the aid of an accommodating flash of lightning, Marion
and Mr. Grant (who was without his hat) coming up the paved way to the
porch.
“What a strange thing!” he exclaimed. “How could she possibly have known
he was coming?”
“Marion has wonderful ears,” said Mrs. Lockhart with a sigh, as if the
faculty were in some way deleterious to the possessor of it. But
Lancaster thought that something else besides fine hearing was involved
in this matter.
The girl now came in, her cheeks flushed, her hair, face and shoulders
wet, conducting Mr. Grant, with her arm under his. He was splashed and
smeared with mud and looked very pale; but he smiled and said with his
usual courteousness: “I am not going to spoil your carpet and chairs,
dear madam. I do but show you my plight, like a truant schoolboy who has
tumbled into the gutter, and then I retire for repairs.”
“No: you shall sit down here,” said Marion determinedly but quietly; and
in despite of himself she led him to the stuffed easy chair which her
mother had just quitted, and forced him into it. “Mr. Grant has had some
hurt,” she added to the others; and to Lancaster, “Go up to his room and
bring down his dressing-gown. Mother, get some water heated in the
kitchen. I will attend to him.”
Her manner to the old man was full of delicate and sympathetic
tenderness; to the others, of self-possessed authority. Lancaster went
on his errand with a submissive docility that surprised himself. He had
seen a great deal of Marion in the last few hours; but he was not sure
that he had seen into her very far.
When he returned with the dressing-gown, Marion had got Mr. Grant’s coat
off, and was wiping the mud from a bruised place on his right hand with
her wetted handkerchief. “Nothing dangerous, thank God!” she was saying,
in a soothing undertone, as Lancaster approached.
“You got a fall?” asked the latter of the elder man, who nodded in
reply.
Marion said brusquely, “Don’t you see that he is too exhausted to talk?
Wait, and you will know everything.”
In truth, Mr. Grant appeared a good deal shaken, and for several minutes
could do little more than accept passively the ministrations that were
bestowed upon him. Marion continued to direct the operations, the others
assisting with abundant good will. At last Mr. Grant said:
“It is very pleasant to find you all so kind--to be so well taken care
of. I fear I’m ruining your chair, Mrs. Lockhart. There was really no
need for this. I am none the worse, except for the loss of a hat. Thank
you, my dear; you are very good.”
“Have you had your dinner?” inquired Mrs. Lockhart.
“Yes, I am obliged to you, madam. I was belated, and.... But you must
hear my adventure. I thought the highwaymen days were over in this
neighborhood.”
“I wish I had been with you!” murmured Marion resentfully.
“Highwaymen? oh!” faltered Mrs. Lockhart.
“My highwayman was not so ceremonious as the best of the old-fashioned
ones,” continued Mr. Grant smiling. “He came upon me just before the
storm broke. I heard his horse overtaking me at a gallop, and I drew
aside to let him pass. But he rode right against me--he was mounted on a
very powerful animal--and nearly threw me down. As I turned toward him,
he held a pistol in his hand, and fired at me. The ball knocked off my
hat, and missed me. I had a heavy riding-whip, and I struck at him with
it. I think I must have hit him across the wrist; at all events, he
dropped the pistol. Neither of us had spoken a word. It was at that
moment that the first flash of lightning came. It showed me that he was
a large man, dressed in dark clothes; he put his arm across his face, as
if to prevent my seeing it. The thunder was very loud, and my horse
plunged and burst his girths; and I slipped to the ground. What with the
rain and the noise, and the suddenness of it all, I was confused, and
hardly knew what happened for a few moments. When I got on my feet
again, I was alone; my highwayman had disappeared; and so had my horse,
though I picked it up on the road later.”
“He may have thought, from your falling, that he had not missed his shot
after all,” said Lancaster.
“It was the lightning that frightened him away,” said Marion. “He
counted on darkness, and dared not risk recognition.”
“How did you get home? did you have to walk?” asked Mrs. Lockhart.
“Only a short distance. A wagon happened to come along, and the driver
gave me a lift as far as the corner. And there Marion met me. What
spirit told you I was coming, my dear?”
Marion replied only by a smile.
“It seems singular,” remarked Lancaster “that he should have ridden at
you and fired at once, instead of going through the customary formality
of inquiring whether you preferred your life to your purse. Those
fellows are usually more cautious for their own sakes.”
“He was as much afraid of having his voice heard as of having his face
seen,” said Marion. “He wished to kill Mr. Grant more than to rob him.
You didn’t have much money with you, did you?”
“Not much, as it happened, my dear; though, as I had been to the Bank,
whoever had taken the trouble to follow my movements might have inferred
that I did have.”
“The Bendibow Bank?” demanded Marion.
“Yes; I introduced myself to your friend Sir Francis.”
Lancaster chanced to be looking at Marion, and noticed a troubled
expression pass across her face. She laid her hand lightly on Mr.
Grant’s shoulder, and passed it down his arm; the action seemed at once
affectionate and reproachful. “You disapprove of that, don’t you?” the
young man said to her, smiling.
The question appeared to annoy her: “I am glad he got home,” she said
coldly. Then she got up and went out of the room.