WE ARE ALL IN MY FATHER'S NET
Journeying down by the mail-train in the face of a great sunken sunset
broken with cloud, I chanced to ask myself what it was that I seriously
desired to have. My purpose to curb my father was sincere and good; but
concerning my heart's desires, whitherward did they point? I thought of
Janet—she made me gasp for air; of Ottilia, and she made me long for
earth. Sharp, as I write it, the distinction smote me. I might have
been divided by an electrical shot into two halves, with such an equal
force was I drawn this way and that, pointing nowhither. To strangle
the thought of either one of them was like the pang of death; yet it
did not strike me that I loved the two: they were apart in my mind,
actually as if I had been divided. I passed the Riversley station under
sombre sunset fires, saddened by the fancy that my old home and
vivacious Janet were ashes, past hope. I came on the smell of salt air,
and had that other spirit of woman around me, of whom the controlled
seadeeps were an image, who spoke to my soul like starlight. Much wise
counsel, and impatience of the wisdom, went on within me. I walked like
a man with a yawning wound, and had to whip the sense of passion for a
drug. Toward which one it strove I know not; it was blind and stormy as
the night.
Not a boatman would take me across. The lights of the island lay like a
crown on the water. I paced the ramparts, eyeing them, breathing the
keen salt of thundering waves, until they were robbed of their magic by
the coloured Fast.
It is, I have learnt, out of the conflict of sensations such as I then
underwent that a young man's brain and morality, supposing him not to
lean overmuch to sickly sentiment, becomes gradually enriched and
strengthened, and himself shaped for capable manhood. I was partly
conscious of a better condition in the morning; and a sober morning it
was to me after my long sentinel's step to and fro. I found myself
possessed of one key—whether the right one or not—wherewith to read the
princess, which was never possible to me when I was under stress of
passion, or of hope or despair; my perplexities over what she said, how
she looked, ceased to trouble me. I read her by this strange light:
that she was a woman who could only love intelligently—love, that is,
in the sense of giving herself. She had the power of passion, and it
could be stirred; but he who kindled it wrecked his chance if he could
not stand clear in her intellect's unsparing gaze. Twice already she
must have felt herself disillusioned by me. This third time, possibly,
she blamed her own fatally credulous tenderness, not me; but it was her
third awakening, and could affection and warmth of heart combat it? Her
child's enthusiasm for my country had prepared her for the impression
which the waxen mind of the dreamy invalid received deeply; and so,
aided by the emotional blood of youth, she gave me place in her
imagination, probing me still curiously, as I remembered, at a season
when her sedate mind was attaining to joint deliberations with the
impulsive overgenerous heart.
Then ensued for her the successive shocks of discernment. She knew me
to have some of the vices, many follies, all the intemperateness of men
who carve a way for themselves in the common roads, if barely they do
that. And resembling common men (men, in a judgement elective as hers,
common, however able), I was not assuredly to be separated by her from
my associations; from the thought of my father, for example. Her look
at him in the lake-palace library, and her manner in unfolding and
folding his recent letter to her, and in one or two necessitated
allusions, embraced a kind of grave, pitiful humour, beyond smiles or
any outward expression, as if the acknowledgement that it was so quite
obliterated the wonder that it should be so—that one such as he could
exercise influence upon her destiny. Or she may have made her reckoning
generally, not personally, upon our human destinies: it is the more
likely, if, as I divine, the calm oval of her lifted eyelids
contemplated him in the fulness of the recognition that this world, of
which we hope unuttered things, can be shifted and swayed by an
ignis-fatuus. The father of one now seen through, could hardly fail of
being transfixed himself. It was horrible to think of. I would rather
have added a vice to my faults than that she should have penetrated
him.
Nearing the island, I was reminded of the early morning when I landed
on the Flemish flats. I did not expect a similar surprise, but before
my rowers had pulled in, the tall beaconhead of old Schwartz notified
that his mistress might be abroad. Janet walked with her. I ran up the
steps to salute them, and had Ottilia's hand in mine.
'Prince Ernest has arrived?'
'My father came yesterday evening.'
'Do you leave to-day?'
'I cannot tell; he will decide.'
It seemed a good omen, until I scanned Janet's sombre face.
'You will not see us out for the rest of the day, Harry,' said she.
'That is your arrangement?'
'It is.'
'Your own?'
'Mine, if you like.'
There was something hard in her way of speaking, as though she blamed
me, and the princess were under her protection against me. She
vouchsafed no friendly significance of look and tone.
In spite of my readiness to criticize her (which in our language means
condemn) for always assuming leadership with whomsoever she might be, I
was impressed by the air of high-bred friendliness existing between her
and the princess. Their interchange was pleasant to hear. Ottilia had
caught the spirit of her frank manner of speech; and she, though in a
less degree, the princess's fine ease and sweetness. They conversed,
apparently, like equal minds. On material points, Janet unhesitatingly
led. It was she who brought the walk to a close.
'Now, Harry, you had better go and have a little sleep. I should like
to speak to you early.'
Ottilia immediately put her hand out to me.
I begged permission to see her to her door.
Janet replied for her, indicating old Schwartz: 'We have a protector,
you see, six feet and a half.'
An hour later, Schwartz was following her to the steps of her hotel.
She saw me, and waited. For a wonder, she displayed reluctance in
disburdening herself of what she had to say. 'Harry, you know that he
has come? He and Prince Ernest came together. Get him to leave the
island at once: he can return to-morrow. Grandada writes of wishing to
see him. Get him away to-day.'
'Is the prince going to stay here?' I asked.
'No. I daresay I am only guessing; I hope so. He has threatened the
prince.'
'What with?'
'Oh! Harry, can't you understand? I'm no reader of etiquette, but even
I can see that the story of a young princess travelling over to England
alone to visit... and you..., and her father fetching her away! The
prince is almost at his mercy, unless you make the man behave like a
gentleman. This is exactly the thing Miss Goodwin feared!'
'But who's to hear of the story?' said I.
Janet gave an impatient sigh.
'Do you mean that my father has threatened to publish it, Janet?'
'I won't say he has. He has made the prince afraid to move: that I
think is true.'
'Did the princess herself mention it to you?'
'She understands her situation, I am sure.'
'Did she speak of “the man,” as you call him?'
'Yes: not as I do. You must try by-and-by to forgive me. Whether he set
a trap or not, he has decoyed her—don't frown at words—and it remains
for you to act as I don't doubt you will; but lose no time. Determine.
Oh! if I were a man!'
'You would muzzle us?'
'Muzzle, or anything you please; I would make any one related to me
behave honourably. I would give him the alternative...'
'You foolish girl! suppose he took it?'
'I would make him feel my will. He should not take it. Keep to the
circumstances, Harry. If you have no control over him—I should think I
was not fit to live, in such a position! No control over him at a
moment like this? and the princess in danger of having her reputation
hurt! Surely, Harry! But why should I speak to you as if you were
undecided!'
'Where is he?'
'At the house where you sleep. He surrendered his rooms here very
kindly.'
'Aunty has seen him?'
Janet blushed: I thought I knew why. It was for subtler reasons than I
should have credited her with conceiving.
'She sent for him, at my request, late last night. She believed her
influence would be decisive. So do I. She could not even make the man
perceive that he was acting—to use her poor dear old-fashioned
word—reprehensibly in frightening the prince to further your interests.
From what I gathered he went off in a song about them. She said he
talked so well! And aunty Dorothy, too! I should nearly as soon have
expected grandada to come in for his turn of the delusion. How I wish
he was here! Uberly goes by the first boat to bring him down. I feel
with Miss Goodwin that it will be a disgrace for all of us—the
country's disgrace. As for our family!... Harry, and your name!
Good-bye. Do your best.'
I was in the mood to ask, 'On behalf of the country?' She had, however,
a glow and a ringing articulation in her excitement that forbade
trifling; a minute's reflection set me weighing my power of will
against my father's. I nodded to her.
'Come to us when you are at liberty,' she called.
I have said that I weighed my power of will against my father's.
Contemplation of the state of the scales did not send me striding to
meet him. Let it be remembered—I had it strongly in memory that he
habitually deluded himself under the supposition that the turn of all
events having an aspect of good fortune had been planned by him of old,
and were offered to him as the legitimately-won fruits of a politic
life. While others deemed him mad, or merely reckless, wild, a creature
living for the day, he enjoyed the conceit of being a profound schemer,
in which he was fortified by a really extraordinary adroitness to take
advantage of occurrences: and because he was prompt in an emergency,
and quick to profit of a crisis, he was deluded to imagine that he had
created it. Such a man would be with difficulty brought to surrender
his prize.
Again, there was his love for me. 'Pater est, Pamphile;—difficile est.'
How was this vast conceit of a not unreal paternal love to be
encountered? The sense of honour and of decency might appeal to him
personally; would either of them get a hearing if he fancied them to be
standing in opposition to my dearest interests? I, unhappily, as the
case would be sure to present itself to him, appeared the living
example of his eminently politic career. After establishing me the heir
of one of the wealthiest of English commoners, would he be likely to
forego any desperate chance of ennobling me by the brilliant marriage?
His dreadful devotion to me extinguished the hope that he would, unless
I should happen to be particularly masterful in dealing with him. I
heard his nimble and overwhelming volubility like a flood advancing.
That could be withstood, and his arguments and persuasions. But by what
steps could I restrain the man himself? I said 'the man,' as Janet did.
He figured in my apprehensive imagination as an engine more than as an
individual. Lassitude oppressed me. I felt that I required every access
of strength possible, physical besides moral, in anticipation of our
encounter, and took a swim in sea-water, which displaced my drowsy fit,
and some alarming intimations of cowardice menacing a paralysis of the
will: I had not altogether recovered from my gipsy drubbing. And now I
wanted to have the contest over instantly. It seemed presumable that my
father had slept at my lodgings. There, however, the report of him was,
that he had inspected the rooms, highly complimented the owner of them,
and vanished.
Returning to the pier, I learnt that he had set sail in his hired yacht
for the sister town on the Solent, at an early hour:—for what purpose?
I knew of it too late to intercept it. One of the squire's horses
trotted me over; I came upon Colonel Hibbert Segrave near the
Club-house, and heard that my father was off again:
'But your German prince and papa-in-law shall be free of the Club for
the next fortnight,' said he, and cordially asked to have the date of
the marriage. My face astonished him. He excused himself for speaking
of this happy event so abruptly. A sting of downright anger drove me
back at a rapid canter. It flashed on me that this Prince Ernest, whose
suave fashion of depressing me, and philosophical skill in managing his
daughter, had induced me to regard him as a pattern of astuteness, was
really both credulous and feeble, or else supremely unsuspecting: and I
was confirmed in the latter idea on hearing that he had sailed to visit
the opposite harbour and docks on board my father's yacht. Janet shared
my secret opinion.
'The prince is a gentleman,' she said.
Her wrath and disgust were unspeakable. My aunt Dorothy blamed her for
overdue severity. 'The prince, I suppose, goes of his own free will
where he pleases.'
Janet burst out, 'Oh! can't you see through it, aunty? The prince goes
about without at all knowing that the person who takes him—Harry sees
it—is making him compromise himself: and by-and-by the prince will
discover that he has no will of his own, whatever he may wish to
resolve upon doing.'
'Is he quite against Harry?' asked my aunt Dorothy.
'Dear aunty, he's a prince, and a proud man. He will never in his
lifetime consent to... to what you mean, without being hounded into it.
I haven't the slightest idea whether anything will force him. I know
that the princess would have too much pride to submit, even to save her
name. But it's her name that's in danger. Think of the scandal to a
sovereign princess! I know the signification of that now; I used to
laugh at Harry's “sovereign princess.” She is one, and thorough! there
is no one like her. Don't you understand, aunty, that the intrigue,
plot—I don't choose to be nice upon terms—may be perfectly successful,
and do good to nobody. The prince may be tricked; the princess, I am
sure, will not.'
Janet's affectation of an intimate and peculiar knowledge of the
princess was a show of her character that I was accustomed to: still,
it was evident they had conversed much, and perhaps intimately. I led
her to tell me that the princess had expressed no views upon my father.
'He does not come within her scope, Harry.' 'Scope' was one of Janet's
new words, wherewith she would now and then fall to seasoning a
serviceable but savourless outworn vocabulary of the common table. In
spite of that and other offences, rendered prominent to me by the
lifting of her lip and her frown when she had to speak of my father, I
was on her side, not on his. Her estimation of the princess was soundly
based. She discerned exactly the nature of Ottilia's entanglement, and
her peril.
She and my aunt Dorothy passed the afternoon with Ottilia, while I
crossed the head of the street, looking down at the one house, where
the princess was virtually imprisoned, either by her father's express
injunction or her own discretion. And it was as well that she should
not be out. The yachting season had brought many London men to the
island. I met several who had not forgotten the newspaper-paragraph
assertions and contradictions. Lord Alton, Admiral Loftus, and others
were on the pier and in the outfitters' shops, eager for gossip, as the
languid stretch of indolence inclines men to be. The Admiral asked me
for the whereabout of Prince Ernest's territory. He too said that the
prince would be free of the Club during his residence, adding:
'Where is he?'—not a question demanding an answer. The men might have
let the princess go by, but there would have been questions urgently
demanding answers had she been seen by their women.
Late in the evening my father's yacht was sighted from the pier. Just
as he reached his moorings, and his boat was hauled round, the last
steamer came in. Sharp-eyed Janet saw the squire on board among a
crowd, and Temple next to him, supporting his arm.
'Has grandada been ill?' she exclaimed.
My chief concern was to see my father's head rising in the midst of the
crowd, uncovering repeatedly. Prince Ernest and General Goodwin were
behind him, stepping off the lower pier-platform. The General did not
look pleased. My grandfather, with Janet holding his arm, in the place
of Temple, stood waiting to see that his man had done his duty by the
luggage.
My father, advancing, perceived me, and almost taking the squire into
his affectionate salutation, said:
'Nothing could be more opportune than your arrival, Mr. Beltham.'
The squire rejoined: 'I wanted to see you, Mr. Richmond; and not in
public.'
'I grant the private interview, sir, at your convenience.'
Janet went up to General Goodwin. My father talked to me, and lost a
moment in shaking Temple's hand and saying kind things.
'Name any hour you please, Mr. Beltham,' he resumed; 'meantime, I shall
be glad to effect the introduction between Harry's grandfather and his
Highness Prince Ernest of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld.'
He turned. General Goodwin was hurrying the prince up the steps, the
squire at the same time retreating hastily. I witnessed the spectacle
of both parties to the projected introduction swinging round to make
their escape. My father glanced to right and left. He covered in the
airiest fashion what would have been confusion to another by carrying
on a jocose remark that he had left half spoken to Temple, and involved
Janet in it, and soon—through sheer amiable volubility and his taking
manner—the squire himself for a minute or so.
'Harry, I have to tell you she is not unhappy,' Janet whispered
rapidly. 'She is reading of one of our great men alive now. She is glad
to be on our ground.' Janet named a famous admiral, kindling as a fiery
beacon to our blood. She would have said more: she looked the
remainder; but she could have said nothing better fitted to spur me to
the work she wanted done. Mournfulness dropped on me like a cloud in
thinking of the bright little princess of my boyhood, and the Ottilia
of to-day, faithful to her early passion for our sea-heroes and my
country, though it had grievously entrapped her. And into what hands!
Not into hands which could cast one ray of honour on a devoted head.
The contrast between the sane service—giving men she admired, and the
hopping skipping social meteor, weaver of webs, thrower of nets, who
offered her his history for a nuptial acquisition, was ghastly, most
discomforting. He seemed to have entangled us all.
He said that he had. He treated me now confessedly as a cipher. The
prince, the princess, my grandfather, and me—he had gathered us
together, he said. I heard from him that the prince, assisted by him in
the part of an adviser, saw no way of cutting the knot but by a
marriage. All were at hand for a settlement of the terms:—Providence
and destiny were dragged in.
'Let's have no theatrical talk,' I interposed.
'Certainly, Richie; the plainest English,' he assented.
This was on the pier, while he bowed and greeted passing figures. I
dared not unlink my arm, for fear of further mischief. I got him to my
rooms, and insisted on his dining there.
'Dry bread will do,' he said.
My anticipations of the nature of our wrestle were correct. But I had
not expected him to venture on the assertion that the prince was for
the marriage. He met me at every turn with this downright iteration.
'The prince consents: he knows his only chance is to yield. I have him
fast.'
'How?' I inquired.
'How, Richie? Where is your perspicuity? I have him here. I loosen a
thousand tongues on him. I—'
'No, not on him; on the princess, you mean.'
'On him. The princess is the willing party; she and you are one. On
him, I say. 'Tis but a threat: I hold it in terrorem. And by heaven,
son Richie, it assures me I have not lived and fought for nothing. “Now
is the day and now is the hour.” On your first birthday, my boy, I
swore to marry you to one of the highest ladies upon earth: she was, as
it turns out, then unborn. No matter: I keep my oath. Abandon it? pooh!
you are—forgive me—silly. Pardon me for remarking it, you have not that
dashing courage—never mind. The point is, I have my prince in his trap.
We are perfectly polite, but I have him, and he acknowledges it; he
shrugs: love has beaten him. Very well. And observe: I permit no
squire-of-low-degree insinuations; none of that. The lady—all earthly
blessings on her!—does not stoop to Harry Richmond. I have the
announcement in the newspapers. I maintain it the fruit of a life of
long and earnest endeavour, legitimately won, by heaven it is! and with
the constituted authorities of my native land against me. Your grandad
proposes formally for the princess to-morrow morning.'
He maddened me. Merely to keep him silent I burst out in a flux of
reproaches as torrent-like as his own could be; and all the time I was
wondering whether it was true that a man who talked as he did, in his
strain of florid flimsy, had actually done a practical thing.
The effect of my vehemence was to brace him and make him sedately
emphatic. He declared himself to have gained entire possession of the
prince's mind. He repeated his positive intention to employ his power
for my benefit. Never did power of earth or of hell seem darker to me
than he at that moment, when solemnly declaiming that he was prepared
to forfeit my respect and love, die sooner than 'yield his prince.' He
wore a new aspect, spoke briefly and pointedly, using the phrases of a
determined man, and in voice and gesture signified that he had us all
in a grasp of iron. The charge of his having plotted to bring it about
he accepted with exultation.
'I admit,' he said, 'I did not arrange to have Germany present for a
witness besides England, but since he is here, I take advantage of the
fact, and to-morrow you will see young Eckart down.'
I cried out, as much enraged at my feebleness to resist him, as in
disgust of his unscrupulous tricks.
'Ay, you have not known me, Richie,' said he. 'I pilot you into
harbour, and all you can do is just the creaking of the vessel to me.
You are in my hands. I pilot you. I have you the husband of the
princess within the month. No other course is open to her. And I have
the assurance that she loses nothing by it. She is yours, my son.'
'She will not be. You have wrecked my last chance. You cover me with
dishonour.'
'You are a youngster, Richie. 'Tis the wish of her heart. Probably
while you and I are talking it over, the prince is confessing that he
has no escape. He has not a loophole! She came to you; you take her. I
am far from withholding my admiration of her behaviour; but there it
is—she came. Not consent? She is a ruined woman if she refuses!'
'Through you, through you!—through my father!'
'Have you both gone mad?'
'Try to see this,' I implored him. 'She will not be subjected by any
threats. The very whisper of one will make her turn from me...'
He interrupted. 'Totally the contrary. The prince acknowledges that you
are master of her affections.'
'Consistently with her sense of honour and respect for us.'
'Tell me of her reputation, Richie.'
'You pretend that you can damage it!'
'Pretend? I pretend in the teeth of all concerned to establish her
happiness and yours, and nothing human shall stop me. I have you
grateful to me before your old dad lays his head on his last pillow.
And that reminds me: I surrender my town house and furniture to you.
Waddy has received the word. By the way, should you hear of a good
doctor for heart-disease, tell me: I have my fears for the poor soul.'
He stood up, saying, 'Richie, I am not like Jorian, to whom a
lodging-house dinner is no dinner, and an irreparable loss, but I must
have air. I go forth on a stroll.'
It was impossible for me to allow it. I stopped him.
We were in the midst of a debate as to his right of personal freedom,
upon the singularity of which he commented with sundry ejaculations,
when Temple arrived and General Goodwin sent up his card. Temple and I
left the general closeted with my father, and stood at the street-door.
He had seen the princess, having at her request been taken to present
his respects to her by Janet. How she looked, what she said, he was
dull in describing; he thought her lively, though she was pale. She had
mentioned my name, 'kindly,' he observed. And he knew, or suspected,
the General to be an emissary from the prince. But he could not
understand the exact nature of the complication, and plagued me with a
mixture of blunt inquiries and the delicate reserve proper to him so
much that I had to look elsewhere for counsel and sympathy. Janet had
told him everything; still he was plunged in wonder, tempting me to
think the lawyer's mind of necessity bourgeois, for the value of a
sentiment seemed to have no weight in his estimation of the case. Nor
did he appear disinclined to excuse my father. Some of his remarks
partly swayed me, in spite of my seeing that they were based on the
supposition of an 'all for love' adventure of a mad princess. They
whispered a little hope, when I was adoring her passionately for being
the reverse of whatever might have given hope a breath.
General Goodwin, followed by my father, came down and led me aside
after I had warned Temple not to let my father elude him. The General
was greatly ruffled. 'Clara tells me she can rely on you,' he said. 'I
am at the end of my arguments with that man, short of sending him to
the lock-up. You will pardon me, Mr. Harry; I foresaw the scrapes in
store for you, and advised you.'
'You did, General,' I confessed. 'Will you tell me what it is Prince
Ernest is in dread of?'
'A pitiable scandal, sir; and if he took my recommendation, he would
find instant means of punishing the man who dares to threaten him. You
know it.'
I explained that I was aware of the threat, not of the degree of the
prince's susceptibility; and asked him if he had seen the princess.
'I have had the honour,' he replied, stiffly. 'You gain nothing with
her by this infamous proceeding.'
I swallowed my anger, and said, 'Do you accuse me, General?'
'I do not accuse you,' he returned, unbendingly. 'You chose your path
some ten or twelve years ago, and you must take the consequences. I
foresaw it; but this I will say, I did not credit the man with his
infernal cleverness. If I speak to you at all, I must speak my mind. I
thought him a mere buffoon and spendthrift, flying his bar-sinister
story for the sake of distinction. He has schemed up to this point
successfully: he has the prince in his toils. _I_ would cut through
them, as I have informed Prince Ernest. I daresay different positions
lead to different reasonings; the fellow appears to have a fascination
over him. Your father, Mr. Harry, is guilty now—he is guilty, I
reiterate, now of a piece of iniquity that makes me ashamed to own him
for a countryman.'
The General shook himself erect. 'Are you unable to keep him in?' he
asked.
My nerves were pricking and stinging with the insults I had to listen
to, and conscience's justification of them.
He repeated the question.
'I will do what I can,' I said, unsatisfactorily to myself and to him,
for he transposed our situations, telling me the things he would say
and do in my place; things not dissimilar to those I had already said
and done, only more toweringly enunciated; and for that reason they
struck me as all the more hopelessly ineffectual, and made me despair.
My dumbness excited his ire. 'Come,' said he; 'the lady is a spoilt
child. She behaved foolishly; but from your point of view you should
feel bound to protect her on that very account. Do your duty, young
gentleman. He is, I believe, fond of you, and if so, you have him by a
chain. I tell you frankly, I hold you responsible.'
His way of speaking of the princess opened an idea of the world's, in
the event of her name falling into its clutches.
I said again, 'I will do what I can,' and sang out for Temple.
He was alone. My father had slipped from him to leave a card at the
squire's hotel. General Goodwin touched Temple on the shoulder kindly,
in marked contrast to his treatment of me, and wished us good-night.
Nothing had been heard of my father by Janet, but while I was sitting
with her, at a late hour, his card was brought up, and a pencilled
entreaty for an interview the next morning.
'That will suit grandada,' Janet said. 'He commissioned me before going
to bed to write the same for him.'
She related that the prince was in a state of undisguised distraction.
From what I could comprehend—it appeared incredible—he regarded his
daughter's marriage as the solution of the difficulty, the sole way out
of the meshes.
'Is not that her wish?' said Temple; perhaps with a wish of his own.
'Oh, if you think a lady like the Princess Ottilia is led by her
wishes,' said Janet. Her radiant perception of an ideal in her sex (the
first she ever had) made her utterly contemptuous toward the less
enlightened.
We appointed the next morning at half-past eleven for my father's
visit.
'Not a minute later,' Janet said in my ear, urgently. 'Don't—don't let
him move out of your sight, Harry! The princess is convinced you are
not to blame.'
I asked her whether she had any knowledge of the squire's designs.
'I have not, on my honour,' she answered. 'But I hope... It is so
miserable to think of this disgraceful thing! She is too firm to give
way. She does not blame you. I am sure I do not; only, Harry, one
always feels that if one were in another's place, in a case like this,
I could and would command him. I would have him obey me. One is not
born to accept disgrace even from a father. I should say, “You shall
not stir, if you mean to act dishonourably.” One is justified, I am
sure, in breaking a tie of relationship that involves you in dishonour.
Grandada has not spoken a word to me on the subject. I catch at straws.
This thing burns me! Oh, good-night, Harry. I can't sleep.'
'Good-night,' she called softly to Temple on the stairs below. I heard
the poor fellow murmuring good-night to himself in the street, and
thought him happier than I. He slept at a room close to the hotel.
A note from Clara Goodwin adjured me, by her memory of the sweet,
brave, gracious fellow she loved in other days, to be worthy of what I
had been. The General had unnerved her reliance on me.
I sat up for my father until long past midnight. When he came his
appearance reminded me of the time of his altercation with Baroness
Turckems under the light of the blazing curtains: he had supped and
drunk deeply, and he very soon proclaimed that I should find him
invincible, which, as far as insensibility to the strongest appeals to
him went, he was.
'Deny you love her, deny she loves you, deny you are one—I knot you
fast!'
He had again seen Prince Ernest; so he said, declaring that the Prince
positively desired the marriage; would have it. 'And I,' he dramatized
their relative situations, 'consented.'
After my experience of that night, I forgive men who are unmoved by
displays of humour. Commonly we think it should be irresistible. His
description of the thin-skinned sensitive prince striving to run and
dodge for shelter from him, like a fever-patient pursued by a
North-easter, accompanied by dozens of quaint similes full of his
mental laughter, made my loathing all the more acute. But I had not
been an equal match for him previous to his taking wine; it was waste
of breath and heart to contend with him. I folded my arms tight,
sitting rigidly silent, and he dropped on the sofa luxuriously.
'Bed, Richie!' he waved to me. 'You drink no wine, you cannot stand
dissipation as I do. Bed, my dear boy! I am a God, sir, inaccessible to
mortal ailments! Seriously, dear boy, I have never known an illness in
my life. I have killed my hundreds of poor devils who were for
imitating me. This I boast—I boast constitution. And I fear, Richie,
you have none of my superhuman strength. Added to that, I know I am
watched over. I ask—I have: I scheme—the tricks are in my hand! It may
be the doing of my mother in heaven; there is the fact for you to
reflect on. “Stand not in my way, nor follow me too far,” would serve
me for a motto admirably, and you can put it in Latin, Richie. Bed! You
shall turn your scholarship to account as I do my genius in your
interest. On my soul, that motto in Latin will requite me. Now to bed.'
'No,' said I. 'You have got away from me once. I shall keep you in
sight and hearing, if I have to lie at your door for it. You will go
with me to London to-morrow. I shall treat you as a man I have to
guard, and I shall not let you loose before I am quite sure of you.'
'Loose!' he exclaimed, throwing up an arm and a leg.
'I mean, sir, that you shall be in my presence wherever you are, and I
will take care you don't go far and wide. It's useless to pretend
astonishment. I don't argue and I don't beseech any further: I just sit
on guard, as I would over a powder-cask.'
My father raised himself on an elbow. 'The explosion,' he said,
examining his watch, 'occurred at about five minutes to eleven—we are
advancing into the morning—last night. I received on your behalf the
congratulations of friends Loftus, Alton, Segrave, and the rest, at
that hour. So, my dear Richie, you are sitting on guard over the empty
magazine.'
I listened with a throbbing forehead, and controlled the choking in my
throat, to ask him whether he had touched the newspapers.
'Ay, dear lad, I have sprung my mine in them,' he replied.
'You have sent word—?'
'I have despatched a paragraph to the effect, that the prince and
princess have arrived to ratify the nuptial preliminaries.'
'You expect it to appear this day?'
'Or else my name and influence are curiously at variance with the
confidence I repose in them, Richie.'
'Then I leave you to yourself,' I said. 'Prince Ernest knows he has to
expect this statement in the papers?'
'We trumped him with that identical court-card, Richie.'
'Very well. To-morrow, after we have been to my grandfather, you and I
part company for good, sir. It costs me too much.'
'Dear old Richie,' he laughed, gently. 'And now to bye-bye! My blessing
on you now and always.'
He shut his eyes.