THE POWER OF THE STORM
The rumours grew, and spread everywhere. The story was discussed in
all the clubs, in all the drawing-rooms, in every country house.
Allusions, carefully calculated to escape the law of libel by the
narrowest margin, appeared in many newspapers. All about peaceful
Kencote it buzzed hotly, assuming many shapes, showing itself in
awkward withholding of eyes, that bore the look of the cut direct, or
in still more awkward geniality. It peered out at the Squire wherever
he went, and he now went everywhere within the orbit in which he had
moved, a respected, honoured figure, all the days of his life.
He fought gamely; his head was once more erect, his step firm. But he
fought a losing battle. Dick, with his clear sight, had seen the weak
spot from the first. There was no answer to make.
There was, indeed, nothing to answer. In the first flush of his
determination to take the field, he had been for going straight to old
Brooks the saddler, with whom he had had friendly dealings ever since
his schooldays, and asking him, in effect, what he meant by it. But
cool-headed Dick had restrained him.
"What can you do more than I did? I laughed, and said, 'That's a
pretty story to have told about you'; and he said, 'Yes, Captain, you
ought to stop it. I'll tell everybody exactly what you tell me to tell
them,' and waited with his head on one side for my version. What's
your version going to be when you've told him the story he heard is a
lie, which he knows well enough already?"
So the Squire went to Brooks, the saddler, because he always did go in
to have a chat with him at the commencement of the hunting season, but
said nothing to him at all of what they were both thinking about. The
chat was lively on both sides, but when he went out of the shop he knew
that Brooks knew why he had come. To brazen it out.
No need to go through the places he went to, and the people he talked
to. He went everywhere he had been accustomed to go, and he talked to
everybody he had been accustomed to talk to. And because he was unused
to playing a part, he overdid this one. He had been a hearty man with
his equals. Now he was almost noisy. He had been a cordially
condescending man with his inferiors. Now he was effusively
patronising. He would have done better to sulk in his tent until the
storm of rumour had died down. And he felt every curious look, every
unasked question.
It was ominous that none of his friends--for he had many lifelong
friends amongst his country neighbours, though no very intimate
ones--said to him that ugly rumours were going about, and that they
thought he ought to know of them so that he could contradict them. It
was obvious that he knew of them, and that they thought he could not
contradict them, or they would have spoken. Nobody could tell anybody
else that he had heard the truth of these absurd stories from Clinton
himself, and it was so and so. Nobody cut him, nobody even avoided
him; it was, indeed, difficult to do so, he was so ubiquitous; but the
unasked, unanswered questions behind all the surface sociality poisoned
the air. The Squire was in torment in all his comings and goings.
Dick fared better, because he took things more naturally. But nobody
asked him questions either. He was not an easy man to ask questions
of. If they had done so, he would have been ready with his answer: "I
can't tell you the truth of the story, because it's a family matter.
But I'll tell you this much: Mrs. Amberley tried to blackmail my
father, and he told her to go to the devil." It would not have
answered much, but it would have made some impression.
But the trouble was, and Dick felt it deeply, that he could take no
steps of his own. He could go to nobody and say, "I know there are
ugly rumours going about against us. Tell me, as a friend, what they
are, and I'll answer them." The answer, in that case, would have had
to be different, and must have contained the truth of the story, if it
were to be satisfying.
The Squire grew thinner and older, almost noticeably so, every day.
Mrs. Clinton was in the deepest distress about him, but could do
nothing. He would come home, from hunting, or from Petty Sessions,
which he now attended regularly, and keep miserable silence, all his
spirit gone. She and Joan were companionable with him, as far as he
would let them be, and he liked to have them with him; but he would not
talk, or if he roused himself to do so, it was with such painful effort
that it was plain that it was only to please them, and brought no
relief to himself. He would have no one asked to the house. He was
afraid of refusals.
One morning a letter came to him with the stamp of a Government office,
franked by the Minister at the head of that office. He opened it in
surprise. It ran as follows:
DEAR MR. CLINTON,
My nephew, Inverell, has made a communication to me concerning which I
should like to have a conversation with you. If you will do me the
honour of calling on me when you are next in London I will do my best
to meet you at any hour you may arrange for. But as my time is apt to
be occupied a good deal ahead, if you can make it convenient to see me
here at 12 o'clock next Tuesday morning, I shall run no risk of
disappointment.
Yours very truly,
CHEVIOT.
"Now I shall have something to take hold of," said the Squire,
brightening.
He dressed that morning in better spirits than he had shown for some
time. Poor little Joan! It had hurt him terribly that her happy love
story had been cut off short, snuffed out altogether, as it had seemed,
by the postponement of her young lover's visit. He had made no sign,
and it was now a month ago and more since the letter had been written
to him. Joan must have given up hope by this time. She must be sick
at heart, poor child! Yet she never showed it. She was tender of
_his_ wounds, anxious to brighten his life. But what did his life, now
almost within sight of its end--broken, dishonoured--matter beside her
young life, just opening into full flower, only to be stricken by the
same blight of dishonour? He would have given anything--life
itself--to lift the weight off her, so tender had his conscience become
under the pummelling of fate, so big his heart for those to whom he
owed love and shelter. As bitter as death itself it was to feel that
he who had surrounded his dear ones--dear all through, though
subjugated to his whims and prejudices--with everything that wealth and
ease could provide for refuge, should see them stripped of his succour,
and himself powerless to protect them.
He shaved himself by the window looking out on to his broad, well-treed
park, where his horses were being exercised. He looked at them with
some stirring of interest. Somehow, he had not cared to look at them
of late, whether it was that the mirth of the stable-lads, subdued by
reason of their being in sight of the windows of the house, but none
the less patent in its youthful irresponsibility, jarred on his sombre
mood; or that such signs of his own wealth as a string of little-used
hunters, kept on because he had always kept them, hurt him because of
the futility of his wealth to help in the present distress.
What, after all, could young Inverell have done? Mrs. Clinton's letter
had, on instructions, been entirely non-committal. He had been asked
to postpone his visit. No reason had been given; no future time
suggested. He could only have waited--in surprise and dismay--for a
renewal of the invitation. He could not, after that letter, have
written to Joan. Perhaps he might, after a week or two had elapsed,
have written to the Squire himself. But by that time the blight had
begun to spread. It must have reached his ears pretty quickly. The
higher the rank the fresher the gossip; and the name of Clinton would
not have passed him by, if it had been whispered ever so lightly.
Well, what then? The Squire, sensitive now to the very marrow, drooped
again. He had held aloof. There was no gainsaying that. Five weeks
had passed, and Joan had been left unhappy, to lose some little shred
of hope every day. It was natural perhaps. He was almost a young
prince--not one of those of his rank who marry lightly to please their
fancy of the moment. He would be right to wait for a time if the house
from which he had chosen his bride was under a cloud, to see what that
cloud was and whether it would pass. If it continued to hang black and
threatening over those who made no effort to lift it, he might come to
ask himself in time whether he could not snatch his lady from under its
dark canopy; but he would not ask it until time had been given for its
removal. Oh, the bitterness of the thought that it was Kencote, of all
houses, over which the cloud lay thick and heavy--Kencote, which had
basked in the mild sunshine of honour and dignity for as long as, or
longer than his own house had attracted its more radiant beams!
But now he had moved. This letter must mean that a chance was to be
given for the head of the house to clear himself. Whatever came of it,
it was the first chance that the Squire had had, and he was eager to
take it.
He regarded the letter from all points of view, and was inclined to
think favourably of it. It bore a great name--that of a man of the
highest honour in the counsels of the nation, known to everyone. It
was courteously written. "Dear Mr. Clinton." The Squire could not
remember ever having met him. He was of a younger generation than the
great men he had foregathered with in his youth and theirs. Dick would
probably have some slight acquaintance with him, but even Dick, who had
been so much in the swim, had not habitually consorted with Cabinet
Ministers of the first rank. The Squire would know many of his friends
and relations, of course. His own name would be known to the great
man--Clinton of Kencote--there was still virtue in it. It was not as
if the young man had gone to his guardian and told him that he wanted
to marry the daughter of this or that country gentleman whose status
would have to be explained and examined. This was a letter to an
equal. It was nothing that he was asked to go up and present himself
before the writer. The Squire was quite ready to pay due deference to
a man whose claim to deference was founded on distinction of a sort
that he did not claim himself. It was hardly to be expected that a
Secretary of State in the middle of an Autumn Session should wait upon
him. Nothing more could have been desired than that he should put his
request with courtesy, which he had done.
Dick, when he showed him the letter, was not so sure. "Of course you
would have to go to London to meet him," he said. "But it's really no
less than a summons, for a time and place that he doesn't consult you
about. However, we won't worry ourselves about that. What are you
going to say to him?"
The Squire hadn't thought that out yet. He should know when he got
there, and heard what Lord Cheviot wanted of him.
"I think it's pretty plain what he wants," said Dick. "You've got to
show my lord that you're a fit and proper person to form an alliance
with. That's what we're brought to. It's the most humiliating thing
that has happened yet. If it weren't for poor little Joan I should say
chuck his letter into the fire, and don't answer it, and don't go."
It was significant of the change that had been wrought in the Squire
that it was Dick who should be expressing angry resentment at the hint
of a slight to the Kencote dignity, and he who should say, "I don't
take it in that way. And in any case I would sink my own feelings for
the sake of Joan."
"You'll have to be careful," said Dick. "He will want to overawe you
with his position. That's why you are to go and see him at his office.
Why couldn't he have asked you to his house or his club, or called on
you at yours? This is a private matter, and privately we're as good as
he is; or, at any rate, we want nothing from him."
"But we do," said the Squire. "We want Joan's happiness."
"If Inverell wants Joan, he will take her. She's good enough for him,
or anybody, not only in herself but in her family."
"She would be if we were not under this cloud."
"She is in any case. Don't lose sight of that when you are talking to
him. He has a sort of cold air of immense dignity about him; he is
polite and superior at the same time."
"Do you know him?"
"No. At least I've been to his house. We nod in the street. He knows
who I am. He came down to Kemsale some years ago. He was a friend of
old Cousin Humphrey's. Didn't you meet him then?"
"Perhaps I did," said the Squire. "I don't remember. Ah, if poor old
Humphrey Meadshire had been alive, a lot of this wouldn't be happening."
Lord Meadshire, a kinsman of the Squire's, had been Lord Lieutenant of
the county, and the leading light in it, for very many years. But he
had died, a very old man, two years before, and the grandson who had
succeeded him was "no good to anybody."
"Don't let him overawe you," was Dick's final advice, significant
enough, as addressed to the Squire, of what had been wrought in him.
There was no attempt made to overawe him, unless by the ceremony that
hedges round a great Secretary of State in his inner sanctuary, when
the Squire presented himself at the time appointed.
Lord Cheviot rose from his seat and came forward to meet him. "It is
good of you, Mr. Clinton," he said, shaking hands, "to come to me here.
If you had been in London I should have called on you."
He was a tall, severe-looking man who seldom smiled, and did not smile
now. He was so much in the public eye, and had for years played a part
of such dignity, that it was impossible for the Squire, bucolic as he
was, not to be somewhat impressed, now that he was in his presence.
But his greeting had removed any feeling that had been aroused by
Dick's criticism of his letter, and he put the Squire still more at his
ease by saying as he took his seat again, "I had the pleasure of
meeting you some years ago at Lord Meadshire's. I think he was a
relation of yours."
"Yes," said the Squire. "Poor old man, we miss him a great deal in my
part of the world."
Lord Cheviot bowed his head. He had finished with the subject of Lord
Meadshire.
"As you know, Mr. Clinton," he said, "I was guardian to my nephew
during his minority. He was brought up as a member of my own family; I
stand as a father to him, more than is the case with most guardians.
That will excuse me to you, I hope, for interfering in a matter with
which, otherwise, I should have had no concern."
The Squire did not quite like the word "interfering," and made no reply.
"He has told me that he wishes to marry your daughter, that she is
everything, in herself, that could be desired as a wife for him, which
I have no sort of hesitation in accepting--in believing."
"In herself!" Again the Squire kept silence, though invited by a
slight pause to speak.
"He tells me that it was understood that he should go to you
immediately after he and this very charming young lady had parted in
Scotland, that he had Mrs. Clinton's invitation, and that it was
withdrawn, and has not since been renewed."
The Squire had to speak now. He made a gulp at it. "There were
reasons," he said, "why I wished the proposal deferred for a time. I
needn't say," he added hurriedly, "that they had nothing to do
with--with your nephew himself."
"You mean that you would not object to a marriage between him and your
daughter?"
Was there a trace of satire in this speech? None was apparent in the
tone in which it was uttered, or in Lord Cheviot's face as he uttered
it, sitting with his finger tips together, looking straight at his
visitor.
If there was satire its sting was removed by the Squire answering
simply: "Such a marriage could only have been gratifying to me"; and
perhaps it was rebuked by his adding, "I have never met your nephew,
but he bears such a character that any father must have been gratified
for his daughter's sake."
This gave the word to Lord Cheviot, whose attitude had been that of one
waiting for an explanation.
He changed his position, and bent forward. "I think, under the
circumstances, Mr. Clinton, we are entitled to ask why you wished the
proposal--otherwise gratifying--to be deferred."
There was a tiny prick in each of his speeches. The Squire was made
more uncomfortable by them than was due even from the general
discomfort of the situation.
He raised troubled eyes to those of his questioner. "I suppose you are
not ignorant," he said, "of what is being said of us?"
"Of 'us'?" queried Lord Cheviot.
"Of me and my family. All the world seems to be talking of us."
Lord Cheviot dropped his eyes. He may not have liked to be put into
the position of questioned, instead of questioner.
"I am not ignorant of it," he said.
"It was for him," said the Squire, "to come or to keep away. As long
as my name was being bandied about in the wicked way it has been, I
would not ask him to my house. I have my pride, Lord Cheviot. If your
nephew marries my daughter, he marries her as an equal. My family has
been before the world as long as his, or your lordship's. It has not
reached the distinction, of late, of either; but that is a personal
matter. If Lord Inverell takes a bride from Kencote he takes her from
a house where men as high in the world as he have taken brides for many
generations past."
Dick, if he had heard this speech, might have been relieved of his fear
that the Squire would be overawed by the Cabinet Minister. He might
also have felt that as an assertion of dignity it would have been more
effective if postponed to a point in the conversation when that dignity
should have been affronted.
"If that were not so, Mr. Clinton," said Lord Cheviot, "I should not
have done myself the honour of seeking an interview with you. Let us
come to the point--as equals--and as men of honour. You have said that
your name is being bandied about in a wicked way. I take that to mean
that accusations are being made which have no truth in them."
"Many accusations are being made," said the Squire, "which have no word
of truth in them. They will not be believed by anybody who knows
me--who knows where I stand. But mud sticks. Many people do not know
me--most people, I may say, who have heard these stories; for they have
spread everywhere. I stand as a mark. I shelter myself behind nobody;
I draw in nobody, if I can help it. That is why I asked your nephew to
put off his visit to my house, and why I have not renewed it since."
"It was the right way to act," said Lord Cheviot, "and I thank you for
acting so. But, for my nephew, it does not settle the question; it
only postpones it. He loves your daughter, and she, I am assured,
loves him. I will not disguise anything from you, Mr. Clinton.
Personally, I should prefer that this marriage should not take place.
But I cannot dictate, I can only advise. I advised my nephew to wait
awhile. He did so. And he is willing to wait no longer. Mr. Clinton,
when slanders are circulated, there are ways of stopping them."
"What are they?" cried the Squire. "The slander takes many forms.
None of them are brought before me. I know they are being circulated;
that is all. I know where they spring from, but I can't trace them
back. There is cunning at work, Lord Cheviot, as well as wickedness.
There is nothing to take hold of."
"If you had something definite to take hold of, you could meet it; you
could disperse these slanders?"
"Yes," said the Squire boldly.
"Then I can be of service to you. I have a letter from Lord Colne, in
which he makes certain accusations. It was written in answer to one
from me. I had heard that he had been making free with my nephew's
name in connection with yours, and I wrote on his behalf for definite
statements, which could be acted on. Here is his letter."
The Squire took, and read it.
MY LORD,
In answer to your letter, my accusation against Mr. Clinton is that the
theft of a pearl necklace of which Mrs. Amberley was accused last year
was committed by a member of his family, that he knew of this, and
allowed money to be paid to keep the secret; also that he offered Lord
Sedbergh the price of the pearls, which offer was refused.
I am,
Your Lordship's Obedient Servant,
COLNE.
It was overwhelming. Here was the truth, and nothing but the truth.
That it was not the whole truth helped the Squire not at all.
"That letter," said Lord Cheviot, when he had given him time to read
it, and his eyes were still bent on the page, "is the strongest
possible ground for an action for libel. It is evidently meant to be
taken so. Lord Colne has constituted himself Mrs. Amberley's champion.
It is to him--or to her through him--that the slanders to which you
have referred can be traced back."
"May I take this letter?" asked the Squire. "It is what I have
wanted--something tangible to go upon."
"Certainly, Mr. Clinton. I am glad to have done you the
service--incidentally."
Again the little prick. It was not on the Squire's behalf that the
fire had been drawn.
The prick was left to work in. Lord Cheviot sat and waited.
"This is a most infamous woman," the Squire broke out. "She came
herself and tried to trap me. I refused to give her money. This is
her revenge."
Still Lord Cheviot waited.
The Squire began to feel that if he had escaped one trap, he was even
now in the teeth of another. He wanted time to think it over; he
wanted Dick to advise him. But he had no time, and he was alone under
the gaze of the cold eyes of the man who was waiting for him to speak.
"I can't decide now exactly what steps I can take about this," he said,
speaking hurriedly. "But I suppose you won't be satisfied to wait
until I do take steps."
"I shall be quite satisfied, Mr. Clinton," said the chilly voice, "if
you tell me that there is no truth in that letter."
Now he was caught in the teeth. He could not think clearly; he had not
time to think at all. He could only cling to one determination, that
he had not known until now was in his mind. With Humphrey on the other
side of the world, and Susan in her grave, he would not exonerate
himself by inculpating them.
He rose unsteadily from his chair. "I can only tell you this, my
lord," he said. "I have been tried very terribly, and in whatever I
have done or left undone, I have followed the path of honour. I can
say no more than that now, and I can see that that is not enough. So I
will wish you good-morning."
He did not raise his head, or he might have seen the cold, watchful
look in Lord Cheviot's eyes after a little fade into a look that was
not unsympathetic.
But there was little softening in the voice in which he said, "I must
tell my nephew that I have given you the opportunity of denying, not a
rumour that cannot be pinned down, but a categorical charge, and that
you have not denied it."
The Squire made no reply. Lord Cheviot came forward, as if he would
have accompanied him to the door; but he went out without a word, and
shut it behind him.