GENERAL KERVICK was by habit a punctual man, and Thorpe found him
hovering, carefully gloved and fur-coated, in the neighbourhood of the
luncheon-room when he arrived. It indeed still lacked a few minutes of
the appointed hour when they thus met and went in together. They were
fortunate enough to find a small table out on the balcony, sufficiently
removed from any other to give privacy to their conversation.
By tacit agreement, the General ordered the luncheon, speaking French to
the waiter throughout. Divested of his imposing great-coat, he was seen
to be a gentleman of meagre flesh as well as of small stature. He had
the Roman nose, narrow forehead, bushing brows, and sharply-cut mouth
and chin of a soldier grown old in the contemplation of portraits of the
Duke of Wellington. His face and neck were of a dull reddish tint, which
seemed at first sight uniformly distributed: one saw afterward that
it approached pallor at the veined temples, and ripened into purple in
minute patches on the cheeks and the tip of the pointed nose. Against
this flushed skin, the closely-cropped hair and small, neatly-waxed
moustache were very white indeed. It was a thin, lined, care-worn face,
withal, which in repose, and particularly in profile, produced an effect
of dignified and philosophical melancholy. The General's over-prominent
light blue eyes upon occasion marred this effect, however, by glances
of a bold, harsh character, which seemed to disclose unpleasant depths
below the correct surface. His manner with the waiters was abrupt and
sharp, but undoubtedly they served him very well--much better, in truth,
than Thorpe had ever seen them serve anybody before.
Thorpe observed his guest a good deal during the repast, and formed
numerous conclusions about him. He ate with palpable relish of every
dish, and he emptied his glass as promptly as his host could fill
it. There was hardly a word of explanation as to the purpose of their
meeting, until the coffee was brought, and they pushed back their
chairs, crossed their legs, and lighted cigars.
“I was lucky to catch you with my wire, at such short notice,” Thorpe
said then. “I sent two, you know--to your chambers and your club. Which
of them found you?”
“Chambers,” said the General. “I rarely dress till luncheon time. I read
in bed. There's really nothing else to do. Idleness is the curse of my
life.”
“I've been wondering if you'd like a little occupation--of a well-paid
sort,” said Thorpe slowly. He realized that it was high time to invent
some pretext for his hurried summons of the General.
“My dear sir,” responded the other, “I should like anything that had
money in it. And I should very much like occupation, too--if it were, of
course, something that was--was suitable to me.”
“Yes,” said Thorpe, meditatively. “I've something in my mind--not at all
definite yet--in fact, I don't think I can even outline it to you
yet. But I'm sure it will suit you--that is, if I decide to go on with
it--and there ought to be seven or eight hundred a year for you in
it--for life, mind you.”
The General's gaze, fastened strenuously upon Thorpe, shook a little.
“That will suit me very well,” he declared, with feeling. “Whatever
I can do for it”--he let the sentence end itself with a significant
gesture.
“I thought so,” commented the other, trifling with the spoon in his cup.
“But I want you to be open with me. I'm interested in you, and I want to
be of use to you. All that I've said, I can do for you. But first,
I'm curious to know everything that you can tell me about your
circumstances. I'm right in assuming, I suppose, that you're--that
you're not any too well-fixed.”
The General helped himself to another little glass of brandy. His mood
seemed to absorb the spirit of the liqueur. “Fixed!” he repeated with a
peevish snap in his tone. “I'm not 'fixed' at all, as you call it. Good
God, sir! They no more care what becomes of me than they do about
their old gloves. I gave them name and breeding and position--and
everything--and they round on me like--like cuckoos.” His pale, bulging
eyes lifted their passionless veil for an instant as he spoke, and
flashed with the predatory fierceness of a hawk.
Intuition helped Thorpe to guess whom “they” might mean. The temper
visibly rising in the old man's mind was what he had hoped for. He
proceeded with an informed caution. “Don't be annoyed if I touch upon
family matters,” he said. “It's a part of what I must know, in order to
help you. I believe you're a widower, aren't you, General?”
The other, after a quick upward glance, shook his head resentfully.
“Mrs. Kervick lives in Italy with HER son-in-law--and her daughter.
He is a man of property--and also, apparently, a man of remarkable
credulity and patience.” He paused, to scan his companion's face.
“They divide him between them,” he said then, from clenched teeth--“and
I--mind you--I made the match! He was a young fellow that I found--and I
brought him home and introduced him--and I haven't so much as an Italian
postage-stamp to show for it. But what interest can you possibly take
in all this?” The unamiable glance of his eyes was on the instant
surcharged with suspicion.
“How many daughters have you?” Thorpe ventured the enquiry with inward
doubts as to its sagacity.
“Three,” answered the General, briefly. It was evident that he was also
busy thinking.
“I ask because I met one of them in the country over Sunday,” Thorpe
decided to explain.
The old soldier's eyes asked many questions in the moment of silence.
“Which one--Edith?--that is, Lady Cressage?” he enquired. “Of course--it
would have been her.”
Thorpe nodded. “She made a tremendous impression upon me,” he observed,
watching the father with intentness as he let the slow words fall.
“Well she might,” the other replied, simply. “She's supposed to be the
most beautiful woman in England.”
“Well--I guess she is,” Thorpe assented, while the two men eyed each
other.
“Is the third sister unmarried?” it occurred to him to ask. The tone of
the question revealed its perfunctory character.
“Oh--Beatrice--she's of no importance,” the father replied. “She goes in
for writing, and all that--she's not a beauty, you know--she lives with
an old lady in Scotland. The oldest daughter--Blanche--she has some good
looks of her own, but she's a cat. And so you met Edith! May I ask where
it was?”
“At Hadlow House--Lord Plowden's place, you know.”
The General's surprise at the announcement was undoubted. “At
Plowden's!” he repeated, and added, as if half to himself, “I thought
that was all over with, long ago.”
“I wish you'd tell me about it,” said Thorpe, daringly. “I've made it
plain to you, haven't I? I'm going to look out for you. And I want you
to post me up, here, on some of the things that I don't understand. You
remember that it was Plowden who introduced you to me, don't you? It was
through him that you got on the Board. Well, certain things that
I've seen lead me to suppose that he did that in order to please your
daughter. Did you understand it that way?”
“It's quite likely, in one sense,” returned the General. He spoke with
much deliberation now, weighing all his words. “He may have thought
it would please her; he may not have known how little my poor affairs
concerned her.”
“Well, then,” pursued Thorpe, argumentatively, “he had an object in
pleasing her. Let me ask the question--did he want to marry her?”
“Most men want to marry her,” was the father's non-committal response.
His moustache lifted itself in the semblance of a smile, but the blue
eyes above remained coldly vigilant.
“Well--I guess that's so too,” Thorpe remarked. He made a fleeting
mental note that there was something about the General which impelled
him to think and talk more like an American than ever. “But was HE
specially affected that way?”
“I think,” said Kervick, judicially, “I think it was understood that
if he had been free to marry a penniless wife, he would have wished to
marry her.”
“Do you know,” Thorpe began again, with a kind of diffident
hesitation--“do you happen to have formed an idea--supposing that had
been the case--would she have accepted him?” “Ah, there you have me,”
replied the other. “Who can tell what women will accept, and what
they will refuse? My daughter refused Lord Lingfield--and he is an
Under-Secretary, and will be Earl Chobham, and a Cabinet Minister, and a
rich man. After that, what are you to say?”
“You speak of her as penniless,” Thorpe remarked, with a casual air.
“Six hundred a year,” the father answered. “We could have rubbed along
after a fashion on it, if she had had any notions at all of taking my
advice. I'm a man of the world, and I could have managed her affairs for
her to her advantage, but she insisted upon going off by herself. She
showed not the slightest consideration for me--but then I am accustomed
to that.”
Thorpe smiled reflectively, and the old gentleman read in this an
encouragement to expand his grievances.
“In my position,” he continued, helping himself to still another
tiny glass, “I naturally say very little. It is not my form to make
complaints and advertise my misfortunes. I daresay it's a fault. I
know it kept me back in India--while ever so many whipper-snappers were
promoted over my head--because I was of the proud and silent sort. It
was a mistake, but it was my nature. I might have put by a comfortable
provision for my old age, in those days, if I had been willing to push
my claims, and worry the Staff into giving me what was my due. But that
I declined to do--and when I was retired, there was nothing for me but
the ration of bread and salt which they serve out to the old soldier
who has been too modest. I served my Queen, sir, for forty years--and I
should be ashamed to tell you the allowance she makes me in my old age.
But I do not complain. My mouth is closed. I am an English gentleman and
one of Her Majesty's soldiers. That's enough said, eh? Do you follow me?
And about my family affairs, I'm not likely to talk to the first comer,
eh? But to you I say it frankly--they've behaved badly, damned badly,
sir.
“Mrs. Kervick lives in Italy, at the cost of HER son-in-law. He has
large estates in one of the healthiest and most beautiful parts; he has
a palace, and more money than he knows what to do with--but it seems
that he's not my son-in-law. I could do with Italy very well--but that
doesn't enter into anyone's calculations. No! let the worn-out old
soldier sell boot-laces on the kerb! That's the spirit of woman-kind.
And my daughter Edith--does she care what becomes of me? Listen to me--I
secured for her the very greatest marriage in England. She would have
been Duchess of Glastonbury today if her husband had not played the fool
and drowned himself.”
“What's that you say?” put in Thorpe, swiftly.
“It was as good as suicide,” insisted the General, with doggedness. His
face had become a deeper red. “They didn't hit it off together, and
he left in a huff, and went yachting with his father, who was his own
sailing-master--and, as might be expected, they were both drowned. The
title would have gone to her son--but no, of course, she had no son--and
so it passed to a stranger--an outsider that had been an usher in a
school, or something of that sort. You can fancy what a blow this was to
me. Instead of being the grandfather of a Duke, I have a childless widow
thrust back upon my hands! Fine luck, eh? And then, to cap all, she
takes her six hundred a year and goes off by herself, and gives me the
cold shoulder completely. What is it Shakespeare says? 'How sharper than
a serpent's teeth'----”
Thorpe brought his fist down upon the table with an emphasis which
abruptly broke the quotation in half. He had been frowning moodily
at his guest for some minutes, relighting his cigar more than once
meanwhile. He had made a mental calculation of what the old man had had
to drink, and had reassured himself as to his condition. His garrulity
might have an alcoholic basis, but his wits were clear enough. It was
time to take a new line with him.
“I don't want to hear you abuse your daughter,” he admonished him now,
with a purpose glowing steadily in his firm glance. “Damn it all, why
shouldn't she go off by herself, and take care of her own money her
own way? It's little enough, God knows, for such a lady as she is. Why
should you expect her to support you out of it? No--sit still! Listen to
me!”--he stretched out his hand, and laid it with restraining heaviness
upon the General's arm--“you don't want to have any row with me.
You can't afford it. Just think that over to yourself--you--can't
afford--it.”
Major-General Kervick's prominent blue eyes had bulged forth in rage
till their appearance had disconcerted the other's gaze. They remained
still too much in the foreground, as it were, and the angry scarlets
and violets of the cheeks beneath them carried an unabated threat of
apoplexy--but their owner, after a moment's silence, made a sign with
his stiff white brows that the crisis was over. “You must remember
that--that I have a father's feelings,” he gasped then, huskily.
Thorpe nodded, with a nonchalance which was not wholly affected. He had
learned what he wanted to know about this veteran. If he had the fierce
meannesses of a famished old dog, he had also a dog's awe of a stick. It
was almost too easy to terrorize him.
“Oh, I make allowances for all that,” Thorpe began, vaguely. “But
it's important that you should understand me. I'm this sort of a man:
whatever I set out to do, and put my strength into it, that I do! I kill
every pheasant I fire at; Plowden will tell you that! It's a way I have.
To those that help me, and are loyal to me, I'm the best friend in
the world. To those that get in my way, or try to trip me up, I'm the
devil--just plain devil. Now then--you're getting three hundred a year
from my Company, that is to say from me, simply to oblige my friend
Plowden. You don't do anything to earn this money; you're of no earthly
use on the Board. If I chose, I could put you off at the end of the year
as easily as I can blow out this match. But I propose not only to keep
you on, but to make you independent. Why do I do that? You should ask
yourself that question. It can't be on account of anything you can do
for the Company. What else then? Why, first and foremost, because you
are the father of your daughter.”
“Let me tell you the kind of man I am,” said the General, inflating his
chest, and speaking with solemnity.
“Oh, I know the kind of man you are,” Thorpe interrupted him, coolly. “I
want to talk now.”
“It was merely,” Kervick ventured, in an injured tone, “that I can be as
loyal as any man alive to a true friend.”
“Well, I'll be the true friend, then,” said Thorpe, with impatient
finality. “And now this is what I want to say. I'm going to be a very
rich man. You're not to say so to anybody, mind you, until the thing
speaks for itself. We're keeping dark for a few months, d'ye see?--lying
low. Then, as I say, I shall be a very rich man. Well now, I wouldn't
give a damn to be rich, unless I did with my money the things that I
wanted to do, and got the things with it that I wanted to get. Whatever
takes my fancy, that's what I'll do.”
He paused for a moment, mentally to scrutinize a brand-new project which
seemed, by some surreptitious agency, to have already taken his fancy.
It was a curious project; there were attractive things about it, and
objections to it suggested themselves as well.
“I may decide,” he began speaking again, still revolving this
hypothetical scheme in his thoughts--“I may want to--well, here's what
occurs to me as an off-chance. I take an interest in your daughter, d'ye
see? and it seems a low-down sort of thing to me that she should be so
poor. Well, then--I might say to you, here's two thousand a year, say,
made over to you in your name, on the understanding that you turn over
half of it, say, to her. She could take it from you, of course, as her
father. You could say you made it out of the Company. Of course it might
happen, later on, that I might like to have a gentle hint dropped to
her, d'ye see, as to where it really came from. Mind, I don't say this
is what is going to be done. It merely occurred to me.”
After waiting for a moment for some comment, he added a second thought:
“You'd have to set about making friends with her, you know. In any case,
you'd better begin at that at once.”
The General remained buried in reflection. He lighted a cigarette, and
poured out for himself still another petit verre. His pursed lips and
knitted brows were eloquent of intense mental activity.
“Well, do you see any objections to it?” demanded Thorpe, at last.
“I do not quite see the reasons for it,” answered the other, slowly.
“What would you gain by it?”
“How do you mean--gain?” put in the other, with peremptory intolerance
of tone.
General Kervick spread his hands in a quick little gesture. These hands
were withered, but remarkably well-kept. “I suppose one doesn't do
something for nothing,” he said. “I see what I would gain, and what she
would gain, but I confess I don't see what advantage you would get out
of it.”
“No-o, I daresay you don't,” assented Thorpe, with sneering serenity.
“But what does that matter? You admit that you see what you would gain.
That's enough, isn't it?”
The older man's veined temples twitched for an instant. He straightened
himself in his chair, and looked hard at his companion. There was a
glistening of moisture about his staring eyes.
“It surely isn't necessary--among gentlemen”--he began, cautiously
picking his phrases--“to have quite so much that's unpleasant, is it?”
“No--you're right--I didn't mean to be so rough,” Thorpe declared, with
spontaneous contrition. Upon the instant, however, he perceived
the danger that advantage might be taken of his softness. “I'm a
plain-spoken man,” he went on, with a hardening voice, “and people must
take me as they find me. All I said was, in substance, that I intended
to be of service to you--and that that ought to interest you.”
The General seemed to have digested his pique. “And what I was trying
to say,” he commented deferentially, “was that I thought I saw ways of
being of service to you. But that did not seem to interest you at all.”
“How--service?” Thorpe, upon consideration, consented to ask.
“I know my daughter so much better than you do,” explained the other; “I
know Plowden so much better; I am so much more familiar with the whole
situation than you can possibly be--I wonder that you won't listen to
my opinion. I don't suggest that you should be guided by it, but I think
you should hear it.”
“I think so, too,” Thorpe declared, readily enough. “What IS your
opinion?”
General Kervick sipped daintily at his glass, and then gave an
embarrassed little laugh. “But I can't form what you might call an
opinion,” he protested, apologetically, “till I understand a bit more
clearly what it is you propose to yourself. You mustn't be annoyed if I
return to that--'still harping on my daughter,' you know. If I MUST ask
the question--is it your wish to marry her?”
Thorpe looked blankly at his companion, as if he were thinking of
something else. When he spoke, it was with no trace of consciousness
that the question had been unduly intimate.
“I can't in the least be sure that I shall ever marry,” he replied,
thoughtfully. “I may, and I may not. But--starting with that proviso--I
suppose I haven't seen any other woman that I'd rather think about
marrying than--than the lady we're speaking of. However, you see it's
all in the air, so far as my plans go.”
“In the air be it,” the soldier acquiesced, plausibly. “Let us consider
it as if it were in the air--a possible contingency. This is what
I would say--My--'the lady we are speaking of' is by way of being a
difficult lady--'uncertain, coy, and hard to please' as Scott says, you
know--and it must be a very skilfully-dressed fly indeed which brings
her to the surface. She's been hooked once, mind, and she has a horror
of it. Her husband was the most frightful brute and ruffian, you know. I
was strongly opposed to the marriage, but her mother carried it through.
But--yes--about her--I think she is afraid to marry again. If she does
ever consent, it will be because poverty has broken her nerve. If she is
kept on six hundred a year, she may be starved, so to speak, into taking
a husband. If she had sixteen hundred--either she would never marry at
all, or she would be free to marry some handsome young pauper who caught
her fancy. That would be particularly like her. You would be simply
endowing some needy fellow, beside losing her for yourself. D'ye
follow me? If you'll leave it to me, I can find a much better way than
that--better for all of us.”
“Hm!” said Thorpe, and pondered the paternal statement. “I see what you
mean,” he remarked at last. “Yes--I see.”
The General preserved silence for what seemed a long time, deferring
to the reverie of his host. When finally he offered a diversion, in
the form of a remark about the hour, Thorpe shook himself, and then
ponderously rose to his feet. He took his hat and coat from the waiter,
and made his way out without a word.
At the street door, confronting the waning foliage of the Embankment
garden, Kervick was emboldened to recall to him the fact of his
presence. “Which way are you going?” he asked.
“I don't know,” Thorpe answered absently. “I think--I think I'll take a
walk on the Embankment--by myself.”
The General could not repress all symptoms of uneasiness. “But when am I
to see you again?” he enquired, with an effect of solicitude that defied
control.
“See me?” Thorpe spoke as if the suggestion took him by surprise.
“There are things to be settled, are there not?” the other faltered, in
distressed doubt as to the judicious tone to take. “You spoke, you know,
of--of some employment that--that would suit me.”
Thorpe shook himself again, and seemed by an effort to recall his
wandering attention. “Oh yes,” he said, with lethargic vagueness--“I
haven't thought it out yet. I'll let you know--within the week,
probably.”
With the briefest of nods, he turned and crossed the road. Walking
heavily, with rounded shoulders and hands plunged deep in his overcoat
pockets, he went through the gateway, and chose a path at random. To the
idlers on the garden benches who took note of him as he passed, he
gave the impression of one struggling with nausea. To his own blurred
consciousness, he could not say which stirred most vehemently within
him, his loathing for the creature he had fed and bought, or his bitter
self-disgust.
The General, standing with exaggerated exactness upon the doorstep,
had followed with his bulging eyes the receding figure. He stood still
regarding the gateway, mentally summarizing the events of the day, after
the other had vanished. At last, nestling his chin comfortably into the
fur of his collar, he smiled with self-satisfaction. “After all,” he
said to himself, “there are always ways of making a cad feel that he is
a cad, in the presence of a gentleman.”