A COMPLICATION.
“La plus grande punition infligée à l'homme, c'est faire souffrir ce
qu'il aime, en voulant frapper ce qu'il hait.”
Cornish had, as he told Mrs. Vansittart, been living a week at
Scheveningen in one of the quiet little inns in the fishing-town, where
a couple of apples are displayed before lace curtains in the window of
the restaurant as a modest promise of entertainment within. Knowing no
Dutch, he was saved the necessity of satisfying the curiosity of a
garrulous landlady, who, after many futile questions which he
understood perfectly, came to the conclusion that Cornish was in
hiding, and might at any moment fall into the hands of the police.
There are, it appears, few human actions that attract more curiosity
for a short time than the act of colonization. But no change is in the
long run so apathetically accepted as the presence of a colony of
aliens. Cornish soon learnt that the malgamite works were already
accepted at Scheveningen as a fact of small local importance. One or
two fish-sellers took their wares there instead of going direct to The
Hague. A few of the malgamite workers were seen at times, when they
could get leave, on the Digue, or outside the smaller _cafés_.
Inoffensive, stricken men these appeared to be, and the big-limbed,
hardy fishermen looked on them with mingled contempt and pity. No one
knew what the works were, and no one cared. Some thought that fireworks
were manufactured within the high fence; others imagined it to be a
gunpowder factory. All were content with the knowledge that the
establishment belonged to an English company employing no outside
labour.
Cornish spent his days unobtrusively walking on the dunes or writing
letters in his modest rooms. His evenings he usually passed at the Café
de l'Europe, where an occasional truant malgamite worker would indulge
in a mild carouse. From these grim revelers Cornish elicited a good
deal of information. He was not actually, as his landlady suspected, in
hiding, but desired to withhold as long as possible from Von Holzen and
Roden the fact that he was in Holland. None of the malgamite workers
recognized him; indeed, he saw none of those whom he had brought across
to The Hague, and he did not care to ask too many questions. At length,
as we have seen, he arrived at the conclusion that Von Holzen's schemes
had been too deeply laid to allow of attack by subtler means, and as a
preliminary to further action called on Mrs. Vansittart.
The following morning he happened to take his walk within sight of the
Villa des Dunes, although far enough away to avoid risk of recognition,
and saw Percy Roden leave the house shortly after nine to proceed
towards the works. Then Tony Cornish lighted a cigarette, and sat down
to wait. He knew that Dorothy usually walked to The Hague before the
heat of the day to do her shopping there and household business. He had
not long to wait. Dorothy quitted the little house half an hour after
her brother. But she did not go towards The Hague, turning to the right
instead, across the open dunes towards the sea. It was a cool morning
after many hot days, and a fresh, invigorating breeze swept over the
sand hills from the sea. It was to be presumed that Dorothy, having
leisure, was going to the edge of the sea for a breath of the brisk air
there.
Cornish rose and followed her. He was essentially a practical
man--among the leaders of a practical generation. The day, moreover,
was conducive to practical thoughts and not to dreams, for it was grey
and yet of a light air which came bowling in from a grey sea whose
shores have assuredly been trodden by the most energetic of the races
of the world. For all around the North Sea and on its bosom have risen
races of men to conquer the universe again and again.
Cornish had come with the intention of seeing Dorothy and speaking with
her. He had quite clearly in his mind what he intended to say to her.
It is not claimed for Tony Cornish that he had a great mind, and that
this was now made up. But his thoughts, like all else about him, were
neat and compact, wherein he had the advantage of cleverer men, who
blundered along under the burden of vast ideas, which they could not
put into portable shape, and over which they constantly stumbled.
He followed Dorothy, who walked briskly over the sand hills, upright,
trim, and strong. She carried a stick, which she planted firmly enough
in the sand as she walked. As he approached, he could see her lifting
her head to look for the sea; for the highest hills are on the shore
here, and stand in the form of a great barrier between the waves and
the low-lying plains. She swung along at the pace which Mrs. Vansittart
had envied her, without exertion, with that ease which only comes from
perfect proportions and strength.
Cornish was quite close to her before she heard his step, and turned
sharply. She recognized him at once, and he saw the colour slowly rise
to her face. She gave no cry of surprise, however, was in no foolish
feminine flutter, but came towards him quietly.
“I did not know you were in Holland,” she said.
He shook hands without answering. All that he had prepared in his mind
had suddenly vanished, leaving not a blank, but a hundred other things
which he had not intended to say, and which now, at the sight of her
face, seemed inevitable.
“Yes,” he said, looking into her steady grey eyes, “I am in
Holland--because I cannot stay away--because I cannot live without you.
I have pretended to myself and to everybody else that I come to The
Hague because of the Malgamite; but it is not that. It is because you
are here. Wherever you are I must be; wherever you go I must follow
you. The world is not big enough for you to get away from me. It is so
big that I feel I must always be near you--for fear something should
happen to you--to watch over you and take care of you. You know what my
life has been....”
She turned away with a little shrug of the shoulders and a shake of the
head. For a woman may read a man's life in his face--in the twinkling
of an eye--as in an open book.
“All the world knows that....” he continued, with a sceptical laugh.
“Is it not written ... in the society papers? But it has always been
aboveboard--and harmless enough....”
Dorothy smiled as she looked out across the grey sea. He was, it
appeared, telling her nothing that she did not know. For she was wise
and shrewd--of that pure leaven of womankind which leaveneth all the
rest. And she knew that a man must not be judged by his life--not even
by outward appearance, upon which the world pins so much faith--but by
that occasional glimpse of the soul of him, which may live on, pure
through all impurity, or may be foul beneath the whitest covering.
“Of course,” he continued, “I have wasted my time horribly--I have
never done any good in the world. But--great is the extenuating
circumstance! I never knew what life was until I saw it ... in your
eyes.”
Still she stood with her back half turned towards him, looking out
across the sea. The sun had mastered the clouds and all the surface of
the water glittered. A few boats on the horizon seemed to dream and
sleep there. Beneath the dunes, the sand stretched away north and south
in an unbroken plain. The wind whispered through the waving grass, and,
far across the sands, the sea sang its eternal song. Dorothy and
Cornish seemed to be alone in this world of sea and sand. So far as the
eye could see, there were no signs of human life but the boats dreaming
on the horizon.
“Are you quite sure?” said Dorothy, without turning her head.
“Of what...?”
“Of what you say.”
“Yes; I am quite sure.”
“Because,” she said, with a little laugh that suddenly opened the gates
of Paradise and bade one more poor human-being enter in--“because it is
a serious matter ... for me.”
Then, because he was a practical man and knew that happiness, like all
else in this life, must be dealt with practically if aught is to be
made of it, he told her why he had come. For happiness must not be
rushed at and seized with wild eyes and grasping hands, but must be
quickly taken when the chance offers, and delicately handled so that it
be not ruined by over haste or too much confidence. It is a gift that
is rarely offered, and it is only fair to say that the majority of men
and women are quite unfit to have it. Even a little prosperity (which
is usually mistaken for happiness) often proves too much for the mental
equilibrium, and one trembles to think what the recipient would do with
real happiness.
“I did not come here intending to tell you that,” said Cornish, after a
pause.
They were seated now on the dry and driven sand, among the inequalities
of the tufted grass.
Dorothy glanced at him gravely, for his voice had been grave.
“I think I knew,” she answered, with a sort of quiet exultation.
Happiness is the quietest of human states.
Cornish turned to look at her, and after a moment she met his eyes--for
an instant only.
“I came to tell you a very different story,” he said, “and one which at
the moment seems to present insuperable difficulties. I can only show
you that I care for you by bringing trouble into your life--which is not
even original.”
He broke off with a little, puzzled laugh. For he did not know how best
to tell her that her brother was a scoundrel. He sat making idle holes
in the sand with his stick.
“I am in a difficulty,” he said at length--“so great a difficulty that
there seems to be only one way out of it. You must forget what I have
told you to-day, for I never meant to tell you until afterwards, if
ever. Forget it for some months until the malgamite works have ceased
to exist, and then, if I have the good fortune to be given an
opportunity, I will”--he paused--“I will mention myself again,” he
concluded steadily.
Dorothy's lips quivered, but she said nothing. It seemed that she was
content to accept his judgment without comment as superior to her own.
For the wisest woman is she who suspects that men are wiser.
“It is quite clear,” said Cornish, “that the Malgamite scheme is a
fraud. It is worse than that; it is a murderous fraud. For Von Holzen's
new system of making malgamite is not new at all, but an old system
revived, which was set aside many years ago as too deadly. If it is not
this identical system, it is a variation of it. They are producing the
stuff for almost nothing at the cost of men's lives. In plain English,
it is murder, and it must be stopped at any cost. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“I must stop it whatever it may cost me.”
“Yes,” she answered again.
“I am going to the works to-night to have it out with Von Holzen and
your brother. It is impossible to say how matters really stand--how
much your brother knows, I mean--for Von Holzen is clever. He is a
cold, calculating man, who rules all who come near him. Your brother
has only to do with the money part of it. They are making a great
fortune. I am told that financially it is splendidly managed. I am a
duffer at such things, but I understand better now how it has all been
done, and I see how clever it is. They produce the stuff for almost
nothing, they sell it at a great price, and they have a monopoly. And
the world thinks it is a charity. It is not; it is murder.”
He spoke quietly, tapping the ground with his stick, and emphasizing
his words with a deeper thrust into the sand. The habit of touching
life lightly had become second nature with him, and even now he did not
seem quite serious. He was, at all events, free from that deadly
earnestness which blinds the eye to all save one side of a question.
The very soil that he tapped could have risen up to speak in favour of
such as he; for William the Silent, it is said, loved a jest, and never
seemed to be quite serious during the long years of the greatest
struggle the modern world has seen.
“It seems probable,” went on Cornish, “that your brother has been
gradually drawn into it; that he did not know when he first joined Von
Holzen what the thing really was--the system of manufacture, I mean. As
for the financial side of it, I am afraid he must have known of that
all along; but the older one gets the less desirous one is of judging
one's neighbour. In financial matters so much seems to depend, in the
formation of a judgment, whether one is a loser or a gainer by the
transaction. There is a great fortune in malgamite, and a fortune is a
temptation to be avoided. Others besides your brother have been
tempted. I should probably have succumbed myself if it had not
been--for you.”
She smiled again in a sort of derision; as if she could have told him
more about himself than he could tell her. He saw the smile, and it
brought a flash of light to his eyes. Deeper than fear of damnation,
higher than the creeds, stronger than any motive in a man's life, is
the absolute confidence placed in him by a woman.
“I went into the thing thoughtlessly,” he continued, “because it was
the fashion at the time to be concerned in some large charity. And I am
not sorry. It was the luckiest move I ever made. And now the thing will
have to be gone through with, and there will be trouble.”
But he laughed as he spoke; for there was no trouble in their hearts,
neither could anything appall them.