"I will be frank with you, Piers," said Daniel Otway, as he sat by the
fireside in his shabby lodgings, his feet on the fender, a cigarette
between his fingers. He looked yellow and dried up; shivered now and
then, and had a troublesome cough. "If I could afford to be generous, I
would be; I should enjoy it. It's one of the worst evils of poverty,
that a man can seldom obey the promptings of his better self. I can't
give you these letters; can't afford to do so. You have glanced through
them; you see they really are what I said. The question is, what are
they worth to you?"
Piers looked at the threadbare carpet, reflected, spoke.
"I'll give you fifty pounds."
A smile crept from the corners of Daniel's shrivelled lips to his
bloodshot eye.
"Why are you so anxious to have them," he said, "I don't know and don't
ask. But if they are worth fifty to you, they are worth more. You shall
have them for two hundred."
And at this figure the bundle of letters eventually changed hands. It
was a serious drain on Piers Otway's resources, but he could not
bargain long, the talk sickened him. And when the letters were in his
possession, he felt a joy which had no equivalent in terms of cash.
He said to himself that he had bought them for Olga. In a measure, of
course, for all who would be relieved by knowing that Mrs. Hannaford
had told the truth; but first and foremost for Olga. On Olga he kept
his thoughts. He was persuading himself that in her he saw his heart's
desire.
For Piers Otway was one of those men who cannot live without a woman's
image to worship. Irene Derwent being now veiled from him, he turned to
another beautiful face, in whose eyes the familiar light of friendship
seemed to be changing, softening. Ambition had misled him; not his to
triumph on the heights of glorious passion; for him a humbler happiness
a calmer love. Yet he would not have been Piers Otway had this mood
contented him. On the second day of his dreaming about Olga, she began
to shine before his imagination in no pale light. He mused upon her
features till they became the ideal beauty; he clad her, body and soul,
in all the riches of love's treasure-house; she was at length his
crowned lady, his perfect vision of delight.
With such thoughts had he sat by Mrs. Hannaford, at the meeting which
was to be their last. He was about to utter them, when she spoke Olga's
name. "In you she will always have a friend? If the worst happens----?"
And when he asked, "May I hope that she would some day let me be more
than that?" the glow of joy on that stricken face, the cry of rapture,
the hand held to him, stirred him so deeply that his old love-longing
seemed a boyish fantasy. "Oh, you have made me happy! You have blotted
out all my follies and sufferings!" Then the poor tortured mind lost
itself.
This was the second death which had upon Piers Otway the ageing effect
known to all men capable of thoughts about mortality. The loss of his
father marked for him the end of irresponsible years; he entered upon
manhood with that grief blended of reverence and affection. By the
grave of Mrs. Hannaford (he stood there only after the burial) he was
touched again by the advancing shadow of life's dial, and it marked the
end of youth. For youth is a term relative to heart and mind. At
six-and-twenty many a man has of manhood only the physique; many
another is already falling through experience to a withered age. Piers
had the sense of transition; the middle years were opening before him.
The tears he shed for his friend were due in part to the poignant
perception of utter severance with boyhood. But a few weeks ago,
talking with Mrs. Hannaford, he could revive the spirit of those old
days at Geneva, feel his identity with the Piers Otway of that time. It
would never be within his power again. He might remember, but memory
showed another than himself.
A note from John Jacks summoned him to Queen's Gate. Not till
afterwards did he understand that Mr. Jacks' real motive in sending for
him was to get light upon the rupture between Arnold and Miss Derwent.
Piers' astonishment at what he heard caused his friend to quit the
subject.
In the night that followed, Piers for the first time in his life felt
the possibility of base action. The experience has come to all men,
and, whatever the result, always leaves its mark. Looking at the fact
of Irene's broken engagement, he could explain it only in one way; the
cause must be Mrs. Hannaford--the doubt as to her behaviour, the
threatened scandal. Idle to attempt surmises as to the share of either
side in what had come about; the difference had been sufficiently grave
to part them. And this parting was to him a joy which shook his whole
being. He could have raised a song of exultation.
And in his hands lay complete evidence of the dead woman's
guiltlessness. To produce it was possibly to reconcile Arnold Jacks and
Irene. Viewed by his excited mind, the possible became certain; he
evolved a whole act of drama between those two, turning on prejudices,
doubts, scruples natural in their position; he saw the effect of their
enlightenment. Was it a tempting thought, that he could give Irene back
again into her bridegroom's arms.
It brought sweat to his forehead; it shook him with the fierce torture
of a jealous imagination. He fortified base suggestion by the natural
revolt of his flesh. Once had he passed through the fire; to suffer
that ordeal again was beyond human endurance. Irene was free. He paced
the room, repeating wildly that Irene was free. And the mere fact of
her freedom proved that she did not love the man--so it seemed to him,
in his subordination of every motive to that passionate impulse. To him
it brought no hope--what of that! Irene did not belong to another man.
The fire needed stirring. As he broke the black surface of coal, a
flame shot up, red, lambent, a serpent's tongue. It had a voice; it
tempted. He took the packet of letters from the table.
He had not yet read them through; had only tested them here and there
under his brother's eye. Yes, they were the letters of a woman, who,
suffering (as he knew) the strongest temptation to which her nature
could be exposed, subdued herself in obedience to what she held the law
of duty. He read page after page. Again and again she all but said, "I
love you"; again and again she told her tempter that his suit was
useless, that she would rather die than yield. Daniel Otway had used
every argument to persuade her to defy the world and follow him--easy
to understand his motives. One saw that, if she had been alone, she
would have done so; but there was her daughter, there was her brother;
to them she sacrificed what seemed to her the one chance of happiness
left in a wasted life.
Piers interrupted his reading to hear once more the voice that
counselled baseness. Whom would it injure, if he destroyed these
papers? Certainly not Irene, his first thought, who, he held it proved,
was well rescued from a mistaken marriage. Not Dr. Derwent, or Olga,
who, he persuaded himself, had already no doubt whatever of Mrs.
Hannaford's innocence. Not the poor dead woman herself----
What was this passage on which his eye had fallen? "I have long had a
hope that your brother Piers might marry Olga. It would make me very
happy; I cannot imagine for her a better husband. It came first into my
mind years ago, at Geneva, and I have never lost the wish. Ah! how
grateful you would make me, if, forgetting ourselves, you would join me
in somehow trying to bring about this happiness for those two! Piers is
coming to live in London. Do see as much of him as you can. I think
very, very highly of him, and he is almost as dear to me as a son of my
own. Speak to him of Olga. Sometimes a suggestion--and you know that I
desire only his good."
The voice spoke to him from the grave; it had a sweeter tone than that
other. He read on; he came to the last sheet--so sad, so hopeless, that
it brought tears to his eyes.
"Cannot you defend me? Cannot you prove the falsehood of that story?
Cannot you save me from this bitter disgrace? Oh, who will show the
truth and do me justice?"
Could he burn that letter? Could he close his ears against that cry of
one driven to death by wrong?
He drew a deep sigh, and looked about him as if waking from a bad
dream. Why, he had come near to whole brotherhood with a man as coldly
cruel and infamous as any that walked the earth! Destroying these
letters, he would have been worse than Daniel.
Straightway he wrote to Olga, requesting the appointment with her. Upon
Olga once more he fixed his mind. He resolved that he would not part
from her without asking her to be his wife. If he had but done so
before hearing that news from John Jacks! Then it seemed to him that
Olga was his happiness.
From the house at Campden Hill he came away in a strangely excited
mood; glad, sorry; cold, desirous; torn this way and that by conflict
of passions and reasons. The only clear thought in his mind was that he
had done a great act of justice. How often does it fall to a man to
enjoy this privilege? Not once in a lifetime to the multitude such
opportunity is the signal favour of fate. Had he let it pass, Piers
felt he must have sunk so in his own esteem, that no light of noble
hope would ever again have shone before him. He must have gone plodding
the very mire of existence--Daniel's brother, never again anything but
Daniel's brother.
Would Dr. Derwent give him a thought of thanks? Would Irene hear how
these letters were recovered?
Sunday passed, he knew not well how. He wrote a letter to Olga, but
destroyed it. On Monday he was very busy, chiefly at the warehouses of
the Commercial Docks; a man of affairs; to look upon, not strikingly
different from many another with whom he rubbed shoulders in Fenchurch
Street and elsewhere. On Tuesday he had to go to Liverpool, to see an
acquaintance of Moncharmont who might perchance be useful to them. The
journey, the change, were not unpleasant. He passed the early evening
with the man in question, who asked him at what hotel he meant to
sleep. Piers named the house he had carelessly chosen, adding that he
had not been there yet; his bag was still at the station.
"Don't go there," said his companion. "It's small and uncomfortable and
dear. You'll do much better at----"
Without giving a thought to the matter, Otway accepted this advice. He
went to the station, withdrew his bag, and bade a cabman drive him to
the hotel his acquaintance had named. But no sooner had the cab started
than he felt an unaccountable misgiving, an uneasiness as to this
change of purpose. Strange as he was to Liverpool, there seemed no
reason why he should hesitate so about his hotel; yet the mental
disturbance became so strong that, when all but arrived, he stopped the
cab and bade his driver take him to the other house, that which he had
originally chosen. A downright piece of superstition, he said to
himself, with a nervous laugh. He could not remember to have ever
behaved so capriciously.
The hotel pleased him. After inspecting his bedroom, he came down again
to smoke and glance over the newspapers; it was about half-past nine.
Half a dozen men were in the smoking-room; by ten o'clock there
remained, exclusive of Piers, only three, of whom two were discussing
politics by the fireside, whilst the third sat apart from them in a
deep chair, reading a book. The political talk began to interest Otway;
he listened, behind his newspaper. The louder of the disputants was a
man of about fifty, dressed like a prosperous merchant; his cheeks were
flabby, his chin triple or quadruple, his short neck, always very red,
grew crimson as he excited himself. He was talking about the
development of markets for British wares, and kept repeating the phrase
"trade outlets," as if it had a flavour which he enjoyed. England, he
declared, was falling behind in the competition for the world's trade.
"It won't do. Mark my word, if we don't show more spirit, we shall be
finding ourselves in Queer Street. Look at China, now! I call it a
monstrous thing, perfectly monstrous, the way we're neglecting China."
"My dear sir," said the other, a thin, bilious man, with an undecided
manner, "we can't force our goods on a country----"
"What! Why, that's exactly what we _can_ do, and ought to do! What we
always _have_ done, and always _must_ do, if we're going to hold our
own," vociferated he of the crimson neck. "I was speaking of China, if
you hadn't interrupted me. What are the Russians doing? Why, making a
railway straight to China! And we look on, as if it didn't matter, when
the matter is national life or death. Let me give you some figures. I
know what I'm talking about. Are you aware that our trade with China
amounts to only half a crown a head of the Chinese population? Half a
crown! While with little Japan, our trade comes to something like
eighteen shillings a head. Let me tell you that the equivalent of that
in China would represent about three hundred and sixty millions per
annum!"
He rolled out the figures with gusto culminating in rage. His eyes
glared; he snorted defiance, turning from his companion to the two
strangers whom he saw seated before him.
"I say that it's our duty to force our trade upon China. It's for
China's good--can you deny that? A huge country packed with wretched
barbarians! Our trade civilises them--can you deny it? It's our duty,
as the leading Power of the world! Hundreds of millions of poor
miserable barbarians. And"--he shouted--"what else are the Russians, if
you come to that? Can _they_ civilise China? A filthy, ignorant nation,
frozen into stupidity, and downtrodden by an Autocrat!"
"Well," murmured the diffident objector, "I'm no friend of tyranny; I
can't say much for Russia----"
"I should think you couldn't. Who can? A country plunged in the
darkness of the Middle Ages! The country of the _knout_! Pah! Who _can_
say anything for Russia?"
Vociferating thus, the champion of civilisation fixed his glare upon
Otway, who, having laid down the paper, answered this look of challenge
with a smile.
"As you seem to appeal to me," sounded in Piers' voice, which was
steady and good-humoured, "I'm bound to say that Russia isn't
altogether without good points. You spoke of it, by the bye, as the
country of the knout; but the knout, as a matter of fact, was abolished
long ago."
"Well, well--yes; yes--one knows all about that," stammered the loud
man. "But the country is still ruled in the _spirit_ of the knout. It
doesn't affect my argument. Take it broadly, on an ethnological basis."
He expanded his chest, sticking his thumbs into the armholes of his
waistcoat. "The Russians are a Slavonic people, I presume?"
"Largely Slav, yes."
"And pray, sir, what have the Slavs done for the world? What do we owe
them? What Slavonic name can anyone mention in the history of progress?"
"Two occur to me," replied Piers, in the same quiet tone, "well worthy
of a place in the history of intellectual progress. There was a Pole
named Kopernik, known to you, no doubt, as Copernicus, who came before
Galileo; and there was a Czech named Huss--John Huss--who came before
Luther."
The bilious man was smiling. The fourth person present in the room, who
sat with his book at some distance, had turned his eyes upon Otway with
a look of peculiar interest.
"You've made a special study, I suppose, of this sort of thing," said
the fat-faced politician, with a grin which tried to be civil,
conveying in truth, the radical English contempt for mere intellectual
attainment. "You're a supporter of Russia, I suppose?"
"I have no such pretension. Russia interests me, that's all."
"Come now, would you say that in any single point Russia, modern
Russia, as we understand the term, had shown the way in _practical_
advance?"
All were attentive--the silent man with the book seeming particularly
so.
"I should say in one rather important point," Piers replied. "Russia
was the first country to abolish capital punishment for ordinary crime."
The assailant showed himself perplexed, incredulous. But this state of
mind, lasting only for a moment, gave way to genial bluster.
"Oh, come now! That's a matter of opinion. To let murderers go
unhung----"
"As you please. I could mention another interesting fact. Long before
England dreamt of the simplest justice for women, it was not an
uncommon thing for a Russian peasant who had appropriated money earned
by his wife, to be punished with a flogging by the village commune."
"A flogging! Why, there you are!" cried the other, with hoarse
laughter--"What did I say? If it isn't the knout, it's something
equivalent. As if we hadn't proved long ago the demoralising effect of
corporal chastisement! We should be ashamed, sir, to flog men nowadays
in the army or navy. It degrades: we have outgrown it-- No, no, sir, it
won't do! I see you have made a special study and you've mentioned very
interesting facts; but you must see that they are wide of the
mark--painfully wide of the mark--I must be thinking of turning in;
have to be up at six, worse luck, to catch a train. Good-night, Mr.
Simmonds! Good-night to you, sir--good-night!"
He bustled away, humming to himself; and, after musing a little, the
bilious man also left the room. Piers thought himself alone, but a
sound caused him to turn his head; the person whom he had forgotten,
the silent reader, had risen and was moving his way. A tall, slender,
graceful man, well dressed, aged about thirty. He approached Otway,
came in front of him, looked at him with a smile, and spoke.
"Sir, will you permit me to thank you for what you have said in defence
of Russia--my country?"
The English was excellent; almost without foreign accent. Piers stood
up, and held out his hand, which was cordially grasped. He looked into
a face readily recognizable as that of a Little Russian; a rather
attractive face, with fine, dreamy eyes and a mouth expressive of quick
sensibility; above the good forehead, waving chestnut hair.
"You have travelled in Russia?" pursued the stranger.
"I lived at Odessa for some years, and I have seen something of other
parts."
"You speak the language?"
Piers offered proof of this attainment, by replying in a few Russian
sentences. His new acquaintance was delighted, again shook hands, and
began to talk in his native tongue. They exchanged personal
information. The Russian said that his name was Korolevitch; that he
had an estate in the Government of Poltava, where he busied himself
with farming, but that for two or three months of each year he
travelled. Last winter he had spent in the United States; he was now
visiting the great English seaports, merely for the interest of the
thing. Otway felt how much less impressive was the account he had to
give of himself, but his new friend talked with such perfect
simplicity, so entirely as a good-humoured man of the world, that any
feeling of subordination was impossible.
"Poltava I know pretty well," he said gaily. "I've been more than once
at the July fair, buying wool. At Kharkoff too, on the same business."
They conversed for a couple of hours, at first amusing themselves with
the rhetoric and arguments of the red-necked man. Korolevitch was a
devoted student of poetry, and discovered not without surprise the
Englishman's familiarity with that branch of Russian literature. He
heard with great interest the few words Otway let fall about his
father, who had known so many Russian exiles. In short, they got along
together admirably, and, on parting for the night, promised each other
to meet again in London some ten days hence.
When he had entered his bedroom, and turned the key in the lock, Piers
stood musing over this event. Of a sudden there came into his mind the
inexplicable impulse which brought him to this hotel, rather than to
that recommended by the Liverpool acquaintance. An odd incident,
indeed. It helped a superstitious tendency of Otway's mind, the
disposition he had, spite of obstacle and misfortune, to believe that
destiny was his friend.