tongue of gossip had not got hold of his attentions to Elizabeth
Darrell. This was indeed rare good fortune. He spoke again. “So now you
know exactly where you stand. If you will let me have my way, the thing
can be managed quietly. If you oppose me, you will be sorry for it.”
“And you mean, if my mother doesn’t consent, that you will brand us
all—us, your children—as—as—I can’t speak the word.” Anne fixed a
pair of blazing eyes on her father, and Clavering never felt more
uncomfortable in his life. He had no shame and no remorse, but he
really wished that Anne Clavering would not gaze at him with those
eyes sparkling with anger and disgust.
“I think you don’t exactly understand the masculine nature,” he said.
“I simply mean that I shall have a divorce, and if you don’t choose
to accept my terms—for, of course, I am dealing with you, not your
mother—it will be you and not I who proclaim to the world what I have
kept quiet for thirty–five years.”
The interview lasted barely ten minutes, but to Anne Clavering it
seemed as if æons of time separated her from the Anne Clavering of half
an hour ago. Clavering was unshaken. He had been contemplating this
event in his life ever since it happened, thirty–five years before, and
had reckoned himself a magnanimous man in determining not to reveal the
truth about his marriage unless he was compelled to—that is to say,
unless he could not get the divorce by other means. But Anne had forced
his hand, as it were; so let her take the consequences. The repudiation
of his wife cost Clavering not a pang. He took no thought of her
patience, her years of uncomplaining work for him, her silence under
his neglect and abandonment. The thought, however, that he had admitted
to any one the illegitimacy of his children, gave him a certain degree
of discomfort; he felt an inward shock when he spoke the words. But it
was not enough to turn him from his will.
Anne sat still for so long that Clavering did not know what to make of
it. She had grown very pale, and Clavering suspected that she really
had not the strength to rise, which was the truth. The room was so
profoundly still that when a smouldering log in the fireplace broke in
two and fell apart with a shower of sparks, the slight noise made both
Clavering and Anne start.
Anne rose then, somewhat unsteadily. Clavering would have liked to
offer his arm and to have assisted her to her bedroom, but he was
afraid. She walked out of the room without looking at him or speaking
to him again. Halfway up the broad and splendid staircase he heard her
stop, and, looking out of the half–open door, he saw her shadowy figure
sitting on the stairs. After a few moments more she went on up, and
he could hear only the faint sound of her silken skirts as she moved.
Opposite her mother’s door she stopped. There was no sound within, and
she passed on.
* * * * *
It was one of Elizabeth Darrell’s sleepless and harassed nights. About
three o’clock she rose from her bed and went to the window. In the
great house opposite, Clavering’s library windows were lighted up, and
so were the windows of Anne’s boudoir. A sudden suspicion of the truth
flashed into Elizabeth’s mind.
“His daughter suspects something—has discovered something,” she thought
to herself, panting and terrified. “They have had a scene.”
Neither Elizabeth nor Clavering nor Anne had any sleep that night.
_Chapter Fourteen_
The next day was Mrs. Luttrell’s day at home, and in spite of her
declared preference for small receptions, a choice little circle of
friends, tea and good plain bread and butter, she contrived to have
crowds of visitors, resplendent drawing–rooms, and in the dining room
a brilliant table, glowing with floral feather beds and sparkling with
lights, whereon were served most of the kickshaws which Mrs. Luttrell
had so severely animadverted on the day before.
It was a field–day with Mrs. Luttrell. All the Cave–dwellers and all of
the smart set seemed to be in evidence at one time or another during
the afternoon. The street was blocked with carriages, lackeys stood ten
deep around the handsome doors, and the air fluttered with the tissue
paper from the many cards that were left. The splendid and unique
drawing–rooms were at their best, and Mrs. Luttrell, arrayed in the
immortal black–velvet gown, was standing in the centre of the middle
drawing–room, dispensing flatteries to the men and civilities to the
women with great gusto. Baskerville was present, doing his part as
host, helping out the shy people like Eleanor Baldwin’s mother, the
handsome, silent Mrs. Brentwood–Baldwin, who was known to be cruelly
dragooned by her up–to–date daughter. But there are not many shy people
to be found in Washington. Mrs. James Van Cortlandt Skinner was not
at all shy when she came sailing in, toward six o’clock, with a very
handsome young man, dressed in the height of ecclesiastical elegance.
The private chaplain was, at last, an attained luxury.
“My dear Mrs. Luttrell,” she said cooingly, “may I introduce to you the
Reverend Father Milward of the Order of St. Hereward?”
Mrs. Luttrell’s handsome mouth widened in a smile which was subject to
many interpretations, and she shook hands cordially with Mrs. James Van
Cortlandt Skinner’s protégé. Father Milward himself gave Mrs. Luttrell
a far–away, ascetic bow, and then, turning to Baskerville, began
discussing with him the status of the English education bill. Father
Milward gave it as his solemn opinion that the bill did not go far
enough in opposing secular education, and thought that the Dissenters
had been dealt with too favorably by it and under it.
Mrs. Van Cortlandt Skinner had felt a little nervous at the way
her newest acquisition might be received by Mrs. Luttrell, but
had determined to put a bold face upon it. And why should anybody
be ashamed of achieving one’s heart’s desire, so long as it is
respectable? And what is more respectable and likewise more recherché,
than a domestic chaplain? And the Reverend Father Milward had been
domestic chaplain to an English duke. Nor had his severance with the
ducal household been anything but creditable to Father Milward, for the
duke, a very unspiritual person, who kept a domestic chaplain on the
same principle as he subscribed to the county hunt, had said that he
“wouldn’t stand any more of Milward’s religious fallals, by gad.” The
chaplain had therefore discharged the duke, for the young clergyman’s
fallals were honest fallals, and he was prepared to go to the stake for
them. Instead of the crown of martyrdom, however, he had fallen into
Mrs. James Van Cortlandt Skinner’s arms, so to speak; and he found it
an ecclesiastical paradise of luxury and asceticism, God and mammon,
full of the saintliness of the world.
Before Mrs. Van Cortlandt Skinner had a chance to tell what position
the Reverend Father Milward held in her family, Mrs. Luttrell said to
her, aside: “So you’ve got him! I thought you’d get the upper hand of
the bishop. The fact is you’re cleverer than any of the Newport people
I’ve heard of yet. They’ve got their tiaras and their sea–going yachts
and they have the Emperor to dinner, but not one of them has a private
acolyte, much less a full–grown chaplain. You’ve done something really
original this time, my dear.”
Mrs. Van Cortlandt Skinner did not know exactly how Mrs. Luttrell meant
to be taken, but smiled faintly and said: “You can’t imagine, my dear
Mrs. Luttrell, the blessed privilege of having Father Milward under my
roof. He has been with me a week, and every day we have had matins,
compline, and evensong. I have had the billiard room turned into a
chapel temporarily, and it is really sweet; but of course I shall have
an early English chapel built at each of my houses. I have plenty of
ground for a chapel at my Washington house. My servants have been most
attentive at the services, and when Lionel or Harold is absent my
butler, a very high churchman, acts as clerk. It is really edifying
to see and hear him. You know persons in very humble walks of life
sometimes possess great graces and virtues.”
“So I have heard,” replied Mrs. Luttrell, earnestly.
“I am determined to take Father Milward everywhere with me. I want
his holy influence to be shed in the best society. It is beautiful
to see him with Lionel and Harold. I hope that one or both of them
will develop a vocation for the priesthood. I could do so much for
them—build them beautiful parish houses and everything. If one of
them should wish to organize a brotherhood, in America, as you once
suggested, I would build a beautiful brotherhood house at my place on
the Hudson. To give to the Church is such a privilege, and to give to
these beautiful and poetic orders which our beloved Mother Church in
England is organizing has a peculiar charm for me.”
“I see it has,” answered Mrs. Luttrell; “and if you have everything
else you want, why not get a domestic chaplain, or a couple if you
like, just as the Empress Elizabeth of Russia used to get her a new
lover whenever she wanted one?”
Mrs. Skinner gave a little start at this. She was a guileless woman and
never knew when people were joking unless they told her so. She had
never heard of the Empress Elizabeth, and moreover she was sincerely
afraid of Mrs. Luttrell.
“And,” continued Mrs. Luttrell, “now that you have walloped the bishop
of the diocese, for I understand that he made a terrible row about the
domestic chaplain, I would, if I were in your place, get an archbishop
to preside over the Church in the United States. The archbishop is
clearly the next move in the game, after the domestic chaplain. One
wants a little elegance now in religion, you know, and an archbishop
is just twice as stylish as a mere bishop; and in time”—Mrs. Luttrell
laid her hand approvingly on Mrs. Van Cortlandt Skinner’s imperial
sable boa—“Lionel or Harold may live to be Archbishop Skinner. There
isn’t any reason in the world why you people who have loads of money
shouldn’t have everything you want. Don’t forget that, my dear Mrs.
Skinner.”
Mrs. Skinner felt that she was being trifled with; so she laughed a
little and moved away, saying: “I see Bishop Slater, the secretary’s
brother, across the room, and I must speak to him. I think the
secretary is a dear, and so is the bishop, so nice and high in his
Church views.”
Mrs. Luttrell turned to face an accusing mentor in Richard Baskerville,
who had heard a part of the “trying out” of Mrs. James Van Cortlandt
Skinner; but before he could speak he caught sight of Anne Clavering
entering the wide doors. He had not thought to see her that day,
feeling that what had passed between them in the brougham would keep
her away from Mrs. Luttrell’s as a place where she would be certain to
meet him; for Anne Clavering had all the delicate reserve which a man
would wish in the woman he loves. Therefore, not expecting to see her,
Baskerville had early in the day despatched to her a basket of violets
and a brief note, in which he asked permission to speak at once to her
father. He had received no reply, but expected one before he slept.
Anne’s appearance, however, in Mrs. Luttrell’s drawing–room surprised
him; she evidently sought him, and this she would not be likely to do
unless she were in some emergency.
To Baskerville’s keen eye her face, glowing with an unusual color, her
eyes, which were restlessly bright, betrayed some inward agitation.
She was very beautifully dressed in velvet and furs, with more of
magnificence than she usually permitted herself; and her white–gloved
hand played nervously with a superb emerald pendant that hung around
her neck by a jewelled chain. Baskerville was the first person who
greeted her, and Mrs. Luttrell was the next.
“This is kind of you,” said the latter, all sweetness and affability.
“It shows what a nice disposition you have, to come to me to–day, after
the way my nephew made me kowtow to you yesterday. Richard, give Miss
Clavering a cup of tea.”
Baskerville escorted Anne through the splendid suite of rooms, each
speaking right and left and being stopped often to exchange a word
with a friend or acquaintance. People smiled after the pair of them,
as they do after a pair of suspected lovers. When they came to the
high–arched lobby that led into the dining room, Baskerville opened a
side door, partly concealed by a screen and a great group of palms, and
showed Anne into a little breakfast room, which opened with glass doors
on the garden. A hard–coal fire burned redly in the grate, and the
dying sunset poured its last splendors through a huge square window.
Baskerville shut the door, and Anne and he were as much alone as if
they had the whole house to themselves.
“I have practised a gross fraud upon you about the tea,” said he,
smiling; “but here is a chance for a few minutes alone with you—a
chance I shall take whenever I can get it.” He would have taken her
hand, but something in her face stopped him. She had protested and
denied him the day before, when he told her of his love; but it had not
stood materially in his way. Now, however, he saw in an instant there
was something of great import that made a barrier between them.
“I wished very much to see you alone and soon; I came here to–day for
that purpose,” she said. She spoke calmly, but Baskerville saw that it
was with difficulty she restrained her agitation. “Yesterday,” she went
on, “I told you what I feared about my father—“
“And I told you,” Baskerville interrupted, “that I would marry you if I
could, no matter who or what your father is.”
“You were most generous. But you don’t know what I know about my
father—I only found it out myself last night. I had an interview with
him. There was something in a newspaper about his divorcing my mother.”
“If he does and you will marry me, I shall engage to treat your mother
with the same respect and attention I should my own. Mrs. Clavering is
one of the best of women, and I have the greatest regard for her.”
Anne raised to him a glorified, grateful face. The poor, despised
mother for whom she had fought and was still fighting, the helpless,
unfortunate woman who seemed to be in everybody’s way except in
hers—the offer of kindness and consideration went to Anne Clavering’s
heart. She wished to say something in the way of thanks to
Baskerville, but instead she burst into a sudden passion of tears.
Baskerville, with a lover’s ardor, would have comforted her upon his
breast, but she kept him at a distance.
“No, no!” she pleaded, weeping, “hear me out—let me tell you all.”
Baskerville, although at her side, did not perforce so much as touch
her hand. Anne continued, strangely recovering her calmness as she
proceeded: “I can’t repeat all my father said—I have neither the
strength nor the time now; but he told me there was an—an invalidity
about his marriage to my mother. She, poor soul, knew nothing of it,
for—for our sakes, his children. But it was no marriage. And last
night he told me plainly that if I persuaded my mother to resist the
divorce, he can prove that she never was—that we are—” She stopped. Her
tears had ceased to flow, her face was deathly pale; a heart–breaking
composure had taken the place of her emotion.
Baskerville, however, had become slightly agitated. He comprehended
instantly what she meant. She was not even the legitimate child of
James Clavering. Small as the credit of his name might be, it was
not hers. Baskerville, as a man of honorable lineage, had a natural
shrinking from ignoble birth, but it did not blind him to the inherent
honor in Anne Clavering nor turn his heart away from her. He recovered
his coolness in a moment or two and was about to speak, when she
forestalled him hurriedly.
“So, you see, you must forget all that happened yesterday. I thank you
a thousand times for—for—what you once felt for me. If things were
different—if I were—but, as you see, it is quite impossible now.”
“And do you suppose,” said Baskerville, after a pause, “that I would
give you up—that I could give you up? I am afraid you don’t yet know
what love is.”
Their conversation had gone on in tones so low that they might have
been discussing the affairs of total strangers. Baskerville made no
attempt to take her hand, to beguile her with endearments. It was a
moment solemn for both of them, and Baskerville spoke with the calm
appeal of a noble and steadfast love. It was not the sweet seduction
of passion, but the earnest claim and covenant of love upon which he
relied.
Anne remained with her eyes fixed on the floor. Baskerville said no
more. He scorned to plead his right, and his silence wrought for him
far more than any spoken words. His manner was one of questioning
reproach, a reproach most dear to a loving and high–minded woman. The
meaning of it came softly but inevitably upon Anne Clavering. It was
no light sacrifice for a man of sensitive honor, of flawless repute,
to link himself in any way with a woman dowered as Anne Clavering was
dowered by her father’s evil–doing, but Baskerville reckoned it as
nothing when weighed in the balance against his honorable love. At last
the whole beauty of his conduct dawned full upon her; Baskerville knew
the very instant when she grasped all that he meant. The color began to
mount to her pale cheeks; she sighed deeply and raised her eyes, now
softly radiant, to his face.
“You are very, very generous,” she said. “It is good to have known a
man so generous, and it is sweeter than I can tell you to have been
loved by such a man. But I can be generous, also. It is too great a
sacrifice for you. I cannot accept it.”
To this Baskerville only replied: “Tell me but this—one word will
settle it forever. Do you love me?”
[Illustration: “THE NEXT MINUTE SHE WAS FAST IN BASKERVILLE’S ARMS.”]
Anne remained silent, but the silences of a woman who loves are more
eloquent than words. The next minute she was fast in Baskerville’s
arms, who would not let her go; and they had a foretaste of Paradise,
such as only those know whose love is mingled with sacrifice, which
is the ultimate height of the soul’s tenderness. But their time was
of necessity short, and what Anne had told Baskerville required
instant consideration. When Anne would have persisted in her refusal
Baskerville would not listen, but turned to the matter of her interview
with Clavering.
“This is a question which must be met at once, because I believe your
father quite capable of carrying out his threat. And your mother must
be the first one to be considered. What do you think she would wish?”
It was the first time in her life that Anne Clavering had ever heard
any one say that her mother was to be considered at all. A great wave
of gratitude surged up in her heart—the poor, helpless, ignorant,
loving mother, who had no friend but her—and Baskerville. She looked at
him with eyes shining and brimming and laid a timid, tender hand upon
his shoulder.
“I ought not to accept your love—but—“
“You can’t prevent it,” replied Baskerville.
“Then, if gratitude—“
But when lovers talk of gratitude it means more kisses. The pale dusk
of winter now filled the room, and there was no light except the red
glow of the fire. Baskerville would have asked nothing better in life
than an hour in that quiet, twilighted room, nor would Anne either;
but, woman–like, Anne remembered that there were some other persons in
the world besides themselves, and made as if to go, nor would she heed
Baskerville’s pleadings to remain longer.
As they reached the door Baskerville said: “Think over what you wish
me to do, and write me when you determine. Of course I must see your
father immediately. And we must take my aunt into our confidence, for
it is through her that we must meet.”
Poor Anne had not had much time for that sweet trifling which is the
joy of lovers, but at the idea of Mrs. Luttrell being taken into any
one’s confidence a faint smile came to her quivering lips. “The whole
town will know all about it.”
“No, I can frighten my aunt, and she shan’t tell until we are ready.”
Anne’s cheeks were flaming, and she said, as all women do who have to
face inspection directly after a love scene, “If I could but get away
without being seen.”
“It is easy enough; this glass door opens.”
Baskerville led her through the glass door into the garden and
around to the front of the house, where in the throng of arriving and
departing visitors not even the lynx–eyed Jeems Yellowplush who opened
the brougham door suspected that Miss Clavering had not walked straight
from Mrs. Luttrell’s drawing–room.
Anne lay back in the carriage, lost in a dream of love and gratitude.
All her life long she had fought alone and single–handed for the poor,
oppressed mother. She knew perfectly well all her mother’s ignorance,
her awkward manners, but Anne knew also the patience, the goodness,
the forgiving and unselfish nature which lay under that unpromising
exterior. Not one point of Baskerville’s conduct was lost on Anne
Clavering, and if love and gratitude could repay him, she meant that
he should be repaid. And in the coming catastrophes she would have
Baskerville’s strong arm and masculine good sense to depend upon.
She had read the newspapers attentively, and she believed that her
father and his associates would be found guilty of all that was alleged
against them; and she knew that the divorce was a fixed thing, not
to be altered by anybody. That of itself might be expected, in the
ordinary course, to exile the family from Washington, but Anne doubted
it. Élise and Lydia would not have delicacy enough to go away if
they wished to remain, and their fondness for the smaller fry of the
diplomatic corps was quite strong enough to keep them in Washington
when it would be better for them to live elsewhere. Reginald, in spite
of his weakness and narrowness, had a sense of dignity that would make
him keep out of the public eye.
For herself, Anne had determined, before her interview with
Baskerville, that a quiet home in the little Iowa town where her mother
was born and bred would be the place for her mother and herself; and
she had thought with calm resignation of the change in her life from
the gayety and brilliance of Washington to the quiet seclusion of
a country town. It would not be all loss, however, for her path in
Washington had not been entirely roses. Washington is a place of great
and varied interests, where one may live any sort of life desired; and
it is not easy to adapt those who have lived there to any other spot
in America. But now these words of Richard Baskerville’s, his manly,
compelling love, had changed all that for her. She felt it to be her
destiny—her happy destiny—to live with him in Washington. His name and
high repute would protect her. She would not ask of him to have her
mother always with her, although a more submissive and unobtrusive
creature never lived than Mrs. Clavering. It would be enough if she
could pass a part of the year with Anne, while Reginald took care of
her the other part, and both of them would vie with each other in doing
their duty. Her heart swelled whenever she thought of the consideration
Baskerville had shown toward Mrs. Clavering; it would make the
poor woman happy to know it, for this woman, used to the bread of
humiliation, keenly felt the smallest attention paid her. And then Anne
fell into a sweet dream of delight, and was happy in spite of herself.
She came down from heaven only when the carriage stopped in front of
the great stone house of Senator Clavering.
* * * * *
At the same hour Mrs. Luttrell sat before the fire in the great empty
drawing–room, from which the guests had just departed. Mrs. Luttrell
was burning with curiosity to know what had become of Baskerville and
Anne Clavering when they disappeared so mysteriously—for Baskerville
had not returned, either. The fact is, while Anne was lost in a soft
ecstasy, Baskerville, smoking furiously at a big black cigar, was
walking aimlessly about the streets, his heart beating high. He looked
at his watch. It was seven o’clock, and it occurred to him that it was
time to go back to Mrs. Luttrell and make provision for future meetings
with Anne Clavering and, possibly, their marriage from Mrs. Luttrell’s
house, if circumstances should follow as he expected.
When he walked in, Mrs. Luttrell’s greeting was, “Where’s Anne
Clavering?”