It now becomes our duty to follow for a time the fortunes of Mr. Thomas
Bendibow. This honest and prosperous young gentleman, had he been as
familiar with the text of Shakspeare as he was with those of some other
dramatic authors, might have compared his plight to that of Prince
Hamlet, when the noble Dane was in a state of collapse at the scene of
domestic revolution which followed so hard upon his father’s decease.
Though never exceptionally dutiful in his filial relations, he had a
genuine fondness for the author of his being, and allowed no liberties
to be taken with his name and character by any one beside himself. But
since the reception at the house of the Marquise Desmoines, and the
conversation that he had overheard there, his mental attitude had
undergone a dolorous transformation. Whatever his other failings, Tom
had always possessed the honesty and fearless candor that belonged to
his idea of a gentleman, and had never thought of questioning his
father’s proficiency in the same virtues. Even now he could not bring
himself fully to adopt the inferences that obtruded themselves upon him.
Further information might modify the aspect of the case. Nevertheless,
an uncertainty as to whether the modification would be for the better or
for the worse, hindered the young gentleman from putting it to the test.
Moreover, he recoiled, when it came to the point, from directly
questioning his father on a subject involving the latter’s honor. The
degradation of such a situation would be mutual. Therefore poor Tom
nursed his despondency in secret; when all at once it occurred to him,
as an illumination from on high, to seek sympathy and perchance
enlightenment from the Marquise. He did not give this inspiration time
to cool, but acted upon it at once. With his ostensible purpose in
visiting her may have mingled another, not the less dear because not
openly avowed; and which we, as well as he, may leave to its own
development. So, at about the hour when Merton Fillmore and Mr. Grant
were having their interview in the lawyer’s office, Thomas Bendibow,
Esquire, caused himself to be announced at Madame Desmoines’.
Perdita was in a delightful humor. She had, indeed, a singularly even
and cheerful temper, the result of an habitually good digestion and a
general sense of the adequacy of her means to her ends. Yet she, too,
had her moments of especial loveliness, and this was one of them. She
was sitting in a chair by the window, with her hair drawn up on the top
of her head, and arranged in flat curls on her forehead. She wore a
thin, black silk gown, charmingly disposed about the throat and
shoulders; a book lay open on her lap, and in her white hands she idly
held a piece of embroidery, on which she might be supposed to be at
work, though in reality she had taken hardly a dozen stitches in it that
afternoon. She was languorous and dreamy.
“Oh, Tom!” she said, stretching her arms above her head, and parting her
smiling lips in a pretty yawn. “How pleasant to see you. Poor boy, my
pleasure is your pain.”
“Eh? Why do you say that?” he demanded, stopping midway in the
ceremonious obeisance he was making.
“Your face told me. So pale and sorrowful! Poor child, what is it?”
“I am not a child, Madame Desmoines,” said Tom with dignity.
“You are not civil, sir.”
“Not civil--to you!”
“It is not civil to remind a lady of her age. I like to remember the
time when you and I were children together, Tom, and to forget the years
since then.”
“Oh, to be sure! I didn’t look at it in that way; and I hope you’ll
forgive me,” said the youth repentantly. “I wouldn’t hurt your feelings
for the world, Perdita; upon my soul, now, I wouldn’t! But about my
being a child, you know--in a certain way I shouldn’t mind--for your
sake, I mean, so that you needn’t imagine you’re any older. But in
another way--as a matter of fact--of course I can’t help being a man,
and feeling it. And in that way I’d like you to feel it, too; because
what I feel for you isn’t at all what a child would feel; and ... I hope
you understand me!”
“There’s a great deal of feeling in what you say,” responded the
Marquise, with innocent gravity, “but I’m not sure I know what the
feeling is about. Is it about yourself?”
“I don’t believe there’s a fellow alive who could feel anything about
himself when he’s with you: that is, except to feel that he felt ... you
might feel....”
“There! see how mysterious you are. I’m afraid you’re chaffing me!” put
in the lady, delivering Tom a glance that might have upset an ascetic of
seventy.
“Oh, this is too bad, and I can’t stand it!” cried Mr. Bendibow with a
groan. Then he burst out: “ ’Tis you I feel about, Perdita! and I don’t
care who knows it! I’ve met lots of women in my life, and--all that sort
of thing; but never a woman like you, and I don’t believe there is
another like you in the whole world. And if you’d only ... look here!
Can’t you feel that way for me? Oh, do!”
“Oh! Tom, is it really about me?” cried the lovely Marquise, in the
tenderest warble of a voice. She folded her hands in her lap and gazed
at him with hesitating wonder, as if, in the first place, she had that
instant realized the fact that such a person as herself existed; and
secondly, was struggling to comprehend so incredible a circumstance as
that another person should exist who could regard her otherwise than
with indifference. Miranda upon Setebos would have seemed a
sophisticated woman of the world beside the Marquise Desmoines at that
moment.
Having allowed this shaft time to rankle, she proceeded. “But why do you
ask me whether I feel for you? You know I love you, Tom. Have I ever
disguised it?”
“You love me? O Perdita!” cried the gentleman, fairly breaking into a
giggle of unanticipated bliss.
“Why, who could help loving you?”
Tom suddenly became grave, with a momentary misgiving. “But you
understand I mean marrying,” said he; “husband and wife, you know!”
She replied with a smile of radiant sympathy, “Ah! well, now I do
understand you. You mean to marry, and you are come to tell me all about
it! Sit down here beside me and begin. Is she worthy of you, Tom? But
first, tell me her name!”
“Her name?” faltered Mr. Bendibow. “Why, it’s--you!”
“See how stupid I am!” exclaimed the Marquise, laughing with an air of
perplexity. “I meant to ask you what is the name of the lady you intend
to marry?”
“Don’t I tell you ’tis you? Who else, since we both love”--
The Marquise threw up her hand; her eyes flashed: there was an instant’s
dead silence. Then she said in a low voice of mingled amazement and
indignation, “You, Thomas Bendibow, marry me!” And she added, with a
tragic tone and gesture, “You trifle with me, sir!”
“ ’Pon my soul, Perdita,” asseverated the wretched Thomas, quaking at he
knew not what, “I never was further from trifling in my life. I mean an
honest thing, and I mean it with all my heart. And I can’t think what
you’re so angry”--
“You have shocked me, Tom--and grieved me! I can’t tell you what you’ve
made me suffer. You--my brother--to betray your sister’s confidence and
twist her words like that! I shall never trust another man as long as I
live--no, never!”
“But I never thought ... and besides, you’re not my sister at all!”
stammered Tom, from pale becoming very red. “You know that my father is
no more yours than--than I am; nor my mother neither! But if you don’t
want to have me, you should put it on some fairer ground than that. I
offered you the most a man can give a woman; and I’m in right dead
earnest, too!”
The Marquise, having played out her little comedy to her satisfaction,
was now ready to deal with her victim on a less fanciful basis.
“Sit down here, Tom,” she said, “and look at me, my dear. Yes, I am a
beautiful woman; and I am wise: at least ten times as wise as you will
ever be. And I’ve seen the world--the great world; and ... I’m a widow!
All the finest gentlemen in Europe have made love to me. I knew you’d
fancy you’d lost your heart to me too; and for both our sakes I wished
the affair over as soon as possible. You could no more be my husband, my
dear, than you could wear the moon on your watch-chain. My husband--if I
ever have another--will be a man wiser, stronger, and handsomer than I
am: a man who can rule me with a word or a look: a king of men--and
that’s more than a king of nations. How near do you come to being such a
man as that? You and I might go to church together, and a priest might
pronounce the marriage service over us; but it would take more than a
priest and a marriage service, Tom, to make you and me man and wife! The
man who can be my husband will have no need of forms of law and religion
to keep me safe; though we’d have those, too,” she added with an odd
smile, “because it’s proper!”
Tom pulled up his stock ruefully, and strove to maintain as manly a
bearing as possible. “I know I’m nothing very great,” he said; “but
loving a woman like you makes a fellow ever so much better, and more of
a fellow than he was before. If it hadn’t been for that, maybe I
wouldn’t have dared say anything. But if you won’t have me, Perdita, I
suppose.... I shall have ... to do without you! And I wish I’d never
been born! I beg your pardon. I think I’d better go!”
“No; you must stay until you are happy,” said Perdita, firmly, laying
her hand on the youth’s arm as he was about to rise. At her touch he
subsided, helpless.
“There’s something you’ll enjoy better than being my husband,” continued
the Marquise, looking at him kindly, “and you’ll have no rivals! I need
a brother, Tom, much more, perhaps, than a husband. I want a friend; no
woman can be my friend, and no man, unless you will. Don’t you think it
might be pleasant to be my friend? Would you rather be that
or--nothing?”
“I don’t know what I want if I can’t have you. I’m awfully miserable.
Look here--don’t marry any other fellow! I could stand anything but
that! Well, I’ll see if I can be your friend. Better break my heart with
you than away from you, I suppose. Only I won’t have you call me your
brother--that would be too desperate! Look here, do you know who your
father is?”
“I know who he was.”
“Well, he is still. He’s back here. Don’t you know? You talked with him
long enough the other day. Didn’t he tell you?”
Perdita lifted her head high and looked at him intently. “Who do you
mean?” she demanded.
“Why, old Grant, to be sure! Grantley is his real name, and he is your
father.”
Perdita looked aside, with a thoughtful expression, and said, “He didn’t
tell me.”
“Well, he is.”
“Who told you so?”
“I heard my father and Fillmore saying it in the dining-room. That’s
what’s been plaguing me ever since. I hoped you’d know about it.
Because, if he’s the thief and scoundrel, my father said, why isn’t he
arrested? Instead of that, father acts as if he was afraid of him. ’Tis
as if father was the scoundrel and Grant the honest man. I’d ask father
myself, only it wouldn’t be decent.”
“I see!” murmured Perdita, meditating. “But why did he not tell me? It
may be an imposture. But he would have no motive for that. Besides, he
couldn’t impose on Sir Francis. Yes, it does seem strange. Let me
think.”
She leaned back in her chair, her eyes downcast, folding and unfolding
the work in her lap. She had evidently forgotten all about Tom. That
unfortunate youth sat staring at her with burning eyes. How little he
cared about his father, or anything else, in comparison with her! And
she would never be his. Tom suppressed a groan and felt the hollowness
of life. He longed to do something extraordinary, frantic, heroic. Not
to forget himself in dissipation--he loved her too truly for that, but
to rise to the level of such a man as might worthily possess her. Since
that happiness could never be his, to deserve it would be the next best
thing. And, perhaps, after all, no achievement could be so arduous and
heroic as to be her friend--her true and unselfish friend. Some day she
should esteem him at his true value and thank him. She should be made to
feel that he was not a child, and that he was something more than a
brother. Hereupon Tom felt an aching in his throat, and two tears
trickled down his face. He surreptitiously wiped them away.
“Will you do something for me, my dear?” asked Perdita, looking up.
Tom nodded, not wishing just then to trust his voice.
“This thing will have to be cleared up some day,” she continued, “and it
might as well be now. You can help me already, you see. I can do nothing
without you. You shall be my friend and my confidant. If that man is my
father I must see him again and find out ... whatever he has to tell
me.”
“What shall you do when you find out?”
“Then we can consult together, since we are both interested.”
“If there should be anything wrong about my father”--
“We will arrange to keep it secret. Mr. Grant--or whoever he is--cannot
profit by any public revelation, and I’m sure I wish Sir Francis nothing
but good. I should have preferred not to have the matter come up at all,
and I told Mr. Grant as much; but I must know about it, since others do,
and it must be settled definitely.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Go to Mr. Grant and tell him ... or stop! I’ll write a note for you to
take to him. You’ll find him, I suppose, at the Lockharts’ house in
Hammersmith. Give the letter only into his own hands. Will you do that
for me?”
“I wish I could die for you, Perdita,” was his reply, with a lack of
outward emphasis that made it impressive.
She glanced sidelong at him and drew in her breath with a half sigh. He
was an honest fellow and he loved her truly. Perhaps she was sorry, for
a moment, that she could not love him. For it is the pleasure of fate to
turn the affairs of lovers topsy-turvey; and even so redoubtable a
Marquise as Perdita might one day find herself discomfited in somewhat
the same way that Tom was now. However, fate is fate and cannot be
defeated.
She followed up her sigh with a smile. “I love myself too well,” she
said, “to send you on any deadly errand. Shall I write the note now?”
“Yes, if you’ll be so kind. My mare needs exercise and I shall like to
ride over to Hammersmith this evening. ’Tis not six o’clock yet.”
So Perdita sat down and wrote her letter and gave it to Tom, and also
gave him her hand to kiss. But he said, “Not yet, if you please; I
couldn’t kiss it the right way.”
Perdita said nothing. But after her rejected suitor had departed with
her letter stowed away in the breast of his coat, she looked in her
glass and murmured, with a queer little laugh:
“Is that a blush I see?”
Tom marched home with a solemn and dignified air, and, having caused his
mare to be saddled, he mounted her and set out toward Hammersmith, on
the errand which, neither to him nor to Perdita, seemed to involve any
deadly peril.