tears, told him the whole story of pawning the necklace, of finding it
gone, and her unwillingness to own what she had done. Baskerville was
startled, but allowed her to weep on, without trying to check her. He
saw that she was in a state of trembling excitement, excessive even
under the circumstances, and she must have her tears out. She had, so
far, avoided mentioning Pelham’s name.
“But what of the heirs of Major Darrell? Surely, when they know how you
were straitened in London after your husband’s death and the good faith
in which you pledged the necklace, they would not wish to distress you
unnecessarily about it.”
Then Elizabeth was forced to speak of Pelham. “Major Darrell’s heir is
his cousin, Major Pelham, the man—next my husband and my father—whom
I thought my truest friend. He is in West Africa now, or was when my
husband died, and I have not heard of his return to England since. But
he has countenanced all this, and seems to delight in persecuting me
through this man McBean. And it is quite useless, too, as I have no
means of paying the money. I have only a small income, about a hundred
pounds a year. But if my father learns of my trouble, as he eventually
must if this persecution is kept up, he will certainly sell this
house—his only piece of property, and mortgaged at that. Oh, I didn’t
think a man could be so cruel as Hugh Pelham has been!”
“Does McBean claim to be acting under Major Pelham’s instructions?”
“Yes. In everything he writes me or says to me he uses Hugh Pelham’s
name.”
“There is hut one thing to do, Mrs. Darrell. I shall see McBean
to–morrow and endeavor to see what I can do with him. If I fail with
him, I shall appeal to Major Pelham.”
“Oh, no, not that—not that!”
She spoke with so much of feeling, of anger, of mortification in her
voice, that Baskerville could not but suspect that there was something
more concerning Pelham which Elizabeth had not chosen to tell him; but
his duty to her as a friend and a lawyer remained the same. “Pardon
me,” he said kindly, “but I think it almost necessary to inform Major
Pelham of the state of the case. I shall not, however, do it unless you
consent. But I think you will consent.”
Elizabeth grew more composed, and they talked some time longer—talked
until the rolling of carriages began under the porte–cochère of the
Clavering house, and women wrapped in gorgeous ball cloaks and trailing
behind them rich brocades and velvets and sparkling chiffons began to
pour through the great entrance doors into the regions of light and
splendor beyond. The rhythmic swell of music began to be heard; the
great festivity had begun.
Both Elizabeth and Baskerville, sitting in the quiet room only a
stone’s throw away, were thinking about what was going on in the great
mansion across the street. Elizabeth was asking herself if, after all,
there were any alternative left her but to agree to marry Clavering.
One word, and all her troubles and perplexities about money, which had
spoiled her life from the time of her girlhood, would disappear. And if
she did not marry Clavering—here her dread and apprehension became so
strong that she was sickened at the contemplation.
In spite of her preoccupation with her own troubles she could not but
regard Baskerville with interest, knowing of his relations with Anne
Clavering. Here was another man, like Pelham, who seemed the very
mirror of manly love and courage; but perhaps he would be no better
than Pelham in the long run. He might marry Anne under an impulse
of generous feeling and live to repent it. Elizabeth was becoming a
sceptic on the subject of man’s love.
Baskerville had no suspicion that Elizabeth Darrell knew anything of
his relations with Anne Clavering, nor did he connect Clavering in any
way with Elizabeth. He was thinking of Anne while talking to Elizabeth,
remembering how she had disliked and dreaded this great function.
She was to do the honors of the occasion, Mrs. Clavering being still
ailing. The town had been ringing with the magnificence of the coming
festivity, but Anne had been so averse to it that Baskerville had said
little about it to her. It was out of the question that he should go,
and so no card had been sent him; and he agreed fully with Anne that
the affair was most unfortunately conspicuous at the present time.
A silence had fallen between Baskerville and Elizabeth, while listening
to the commotion outside. A sudden wild impulse came to Elizabeth to
tell Baskerville, of all men, her struggles about consenting to marry
Clavering, without mentioning any name. Baskerville had been kind and
helpful to her; he had come to her immediately at her request; and
before she knew it she was saying to him, in a nervous voice: “I could
be free from all these anxieties about money, my father could end his
days in ease—all, all if I would but marry a divorced man—a man to be
divorced, that is. And after all, he never was actually married, it was
a mistake.”
Baskerville had been looking abstractedly out of the window at the
carriages flashing past, but at this he turned quickly to Elizabeth.
“You mean Senator Clavering?” Baskerville was a remarkably
self–contained man, but in his burst of surprise the name fell from his
lips before he knew it.
Elizabeth sat dumb. She had yielded to a mad impulse, and would have
given a year of her life to have unsaid those words. Baskerville
hesitated for a minute or two, and then rose. Elizabeth’s silence,
the painful flushing of her face, her whole attitude of conscious
guilt, proclaimed the truth of Baskerville’s surmise. He looked at her
in pity and commiseration. She had just told him enough to make him
understand how great the temptation was to her; and yet so far she had
not yielded. But that she would yield he had not the least doubt. And
what untold miseries would not she, or any woman like her, bring upon
herself by marrying Clavering!
It was a question which neither one of them could discuss, and
Baskerville’s only words were: “I have no right to offer you my advice,
except on the point upon which you have consulted me, but I beg of
you to consider well what you are thinking of. You are hovering over
dreadful possibilities for yourself. Good night.”
He was going, but Elizabeth ran and grasped his arm. “You won’t speak
of this to Miss Clavering! You must not do it! You have no right!”
Baskerville smiled rather bitterly. Whether Elizabeth were afraid or
ashamed he did not know—probably both.
“Certainly I shall not,” he said, and to Elizabeth’s ears his tone
expressed the most entire contempt.
“And I haven’t promised him—I haven’t agreed yet,” she added, tears
coming into her eyes; and then Baskerville was gone.
Elizabeth sat, stunned by her own folly, and burning with shame at the
scorn she fancied Baskerville had felt for her. He had been kind to
her and had agreed to do all that was possible with McBean, but by her
own act she had lost his good will and respect. Well, it was part of
the web of destiny. She was being driven to marry Clavering by every
circumstance of her life—even this last. Pelham’s unkindness was the
beginning of it; McBean’s persecution helped it on; General Brandon’s
goodness and generosity, Baskerville’s contempt for her—all urged her
on; she supposed Baskerville would probably have nothing more to do
with her affairs and would leave her to face McBean alone, and that
would be the end of her resistance to Clavering.
She went up to her own room and, with a cloak huddled about her, sat by
the window in the dark, looking out upon the splendid scene of a great
ball in a capital city. Elizabeth in the cold and darkness watched it
all—watched until the ambassadors’ carriages were called, followed
rapidly by the other equipages which were parked in the surrounding
streets for blocks. At last, after three o’clock in the morning, the
trampling of horses’ hoofs, the closing of carriage doors, and the
commotion of footmen and coachmen ceased—the great affair was over.
Quickly as in the transformation scene at a theatre, the splendid house
grew dark—all except the windows of Clavering’s library. They remained
brilliantly lighted long after all else in the street was dark and
quiet.
Elizabeth, for some reason inexplicable to herself, remained still at
her window, looking at the blaze of light from Clavering’s library
windows. What was keeping him up so late? Was it good news or bad? Had
the report of the committee been made?
Within the library sat Clavering in his accustomed chair. In his hand
he held a type–written document of many pages, which had cost him many
thousands of dollars to have purloined and copied from another one
which was locked up in the safe of the secretary of the Senate. Every
page of this document proclaimed in some form or other his guilt, and
at the bottom was written in the handwriting of a man he knew well, and
who had stolen and copied the report for him:—
“Resolution of expulsion will be introduced immediately after reading of
report, and will pass by three–fourths majority.”
And the hired thief had not played fair with him. He had discovered
that at least three newspapers had bought the stolen report, and at
that very moment he knew the great presses in the newspaper offices
were clanging with the story of his disgrace to be printed on the
morrow.
Then there was a bunch of telegrams from his state capital. If the
Senate did not vote to expel, the legislature would request him to
resign; so there was no vindication there. To this, then, had his
public career come! Clavering was not honest himself, nor did he
believe in honesty in others; but he believed it possible that he might
have been more secret in his evil–doing. He had thought that with
money, brains, and courage he could brazen anything out. But behold!
he could not. He was fairly caught and exposed. Those stray words of
Baskerville’s, uttered some months before, recurred to him, “There is
no real substitute for honesty.”
He had heard the news on his way home that afternoon, from an
out–of–town expedition. It had unnerved him for a little while; it
was that which made him get out of the automobile so heavily when
Elizabeth, unseen, was watching him. He had gone through the evening,
however, bravely and even cynically. Many senators had been asked to
the great function, but scarcely half a dozen had appeared; and all
of them were inconsiderable men, dragged there by their womenkind. In
the course of some hours of reflection—for Clavering could think in a
crowd—a part of his indomitable courage and resource had returned. He
had no fear of the criminal prosecution which would certainly follow.
William M. Tweed had been caught, but Tweed was a mere vulgar villain
and did not know when he was beaten. Clavering rapidly made up his mind
that he could afford to restore eight or even ten millions of dollars
to the rightful owners, and that would satisfy them; they wouldn’t be
likely to spend any part of it in trying to punish him.
As for any part the state and federal government might take he was
not particularly concerned. The party had done enough to clear its
skirts by expelling him from the Senate, and if he satisfied all the
claims against him, nobody would have any object in entering upon a
long, expensive, and doubtful trial. But after paying out even ten
millions of dollars he would have twice as much left, which nobody and
no government could get, though it was as dishonestly made as the rest.
With that much money and Elizabeth Darrell—for Elizabeth entered into
all his calculations—life would still be worth living.
When the mob of gayly dressed people were gone, when the laughter and
the dancing and the music and the champagne and the feasting were over,
and Clavering sat in his library alone under the brilliant chandelier,
he grew positively cheerful. He was not really fond of public life,
and although he would have liked to get out of it more gracefully, he
was not really sorry to go. He had found himself bound in a thousand
conventions since he had been in Washington. He had been hampered by
his family: by his wife because she was old and stupid and ignorant,
by Élise and Lydia because they were so bad, by Anne and Reginald
because they were so honest. It would be rather good to be free once
more—free in the great, wide, untamed West, free in the vast, populous,
surging cities of Europe. He would have Elizabeth with him; he did not
much care for any one else’s society. She had never heard him admit
his guilt, and he could easily persuade her that he was the victim of
untoward circumstances.
While he was thinking these things, he heard a commotion overhead.
Presently the whole house was roused, and servants were running back
and forth. Elizabeth Darrell, still watching at her window, saw the
sudden and alarming awakening of the silent house. Mrs. Clavering had
been taken violently ill. Before sunrise the poor lady was no longer in
any one’s way. A few hours of stupor, a little awakening at the last,
a clinging to Anne and Reginald and telling them to be good, and Mrs.
Clavering’s gentle spirit was free and in peace.
When the undertaker was hanging the streamers of black upon the
door–bell, the morning newspaper was laid on the steps. On the first
page, with great head–lines, was the announcement that Senator
Clavering had been found guilty of the charges against him and that
expulsion from the Senate was certain to follow. The newspaper omitted
to state how the information was obtained.
_Chapter Seventeen_
The morning of Ash Wednesday dawned cold and damp and cheerless.
Baskerville had heard a rumor at the club the night before that there
had been a leak between the committee–room, the office of the secretary
of the Senate, and the room of the investigating committee; that the
big iron safe had been entered and a stolen copy of the report of the
committee had been made and would be published in the morning. So he
had the morning newspaper brought to him. On the first page, with
a huge display head, together with the recommendation of expulsion
against Senator Clavering, the report was printed in full.
Baskerville immediately wrote a note to Anne Clavering, asking that
their engagement might be announced and also suggesting an immediate
marriage. Within an hour came back an answer from Anne. In a few
agitated lines she told him of her mother’s death. She did not ask
Baskerville to come to her; but he, seeing that it was no time for
small conventions, replied at once, saying that he would be at her
house at twelve o’clock, and begged that she would see him.
Elizabeth Darrell was the first person outside of Clavering’s family
who knew that he was a free man. There had been no time to get a
doctor for Mrs. Clavering, although several had been called. When they
arrived, all was over. Elizabeth had seen the sudden shutting of the
windows; she knew, almost to a moment, when Mrs. Clavering died.
At seven o’clock in the morning Serena, with the morbid anxiety to
communicate tragic news which is the characteristic of the African,
came up to Elizabeth’s room full of what she had gleaned from the
neighboring servants. Elizabeth listened and felt a sense of guilt
enveloping her. Then, when General Brandon was dressed, he came up to
her door to discuss the startling news, and his was the first card left
for the Clavering family. On it the good soul had written:—
“With heartfelt sympathy in the overwhelming sorrow which has befallen
Senator Clavering and his family.”
Elizabeth remained indoors all that day. She drew her window curtains
together, so that she could not see the house which might have been
hers, where had lived the dead woman of whom she had considered the
spoliation.
At twelve o’clock Baskerville came, and was promptly admitted into
the Clavering house. There had been no time to remove the festal
decorations. The Moorish hall was odorous with flowers; the mantels and
even the hand–rail of the staircase were banked with them. Masses of
tall palms made a mysterious green light through the whole of the great
suite of rooms. The ceilings were draped with greenery, and orchids
and roses hung from them. The huge ball–room was just as the dancers
had left it, and everywhere were flowers, palms, and burnt–out candles
on girandoles and candelabra. The servants, in gorgeous liveries, sat
about, more asleep than awake; and over all was that solemn silence
which accompanies the presence of that first and greatest of democrats,
Death.
Baskerville was shown into a little morning–room on the second floor,
which had belonged to the poor dead woman. It was very simply furnished
and in many ways suggested Mrs. Clavering. Baskerville, remembering
her untoward fate in being thrust into a position for which she was
unfitted, and her genuine goodness and gentleness, felt a real regret
at her death. Being a generous man, he had taken pleasure in the
intention of being kind to Mrs. Clavering; he knew that it would add
extremely to Anne’s happiness. But, like much other designed good, it
was too late. He remembered with satisfaction the little courtesies he
had been able to show Mrs. Clavering and Anne’s gratitude for them; and
then, before he knew it, Anne, in her black gown, pale and heavy–eyed,
was sobbing in his arms.
She soon became composed, and told him calmly of the last days. She
dwelt with a kind of solemn joy upon her last conversation with her
mother about Baskerville, and the message she had sent him. “My mother
had not been any too well treated in this life,” added Anne, the
smouldering resentment in her heart showing in her eyes, “and you are
almost the only man of your class who ever seemed to recognize her
beautiful qualities—for my mother had beautiful qualities.”
“I know it,” replied Baskerville, with perfect sincerity, “and I tried
to show my appreciation of them.”
It was plain to Baskerville, after spending some time with Anne, that
she knew nothing of the news concerning her father with which all
Washington was ringing. Baskerville felt that it would never do for
her to hear it by idle gossip or by chance. So, after a while, he
told her—told her with all the gentleness, all the tenderness, at his
command, softening it so far as he could.
Anne listened, tearless and dry–eyed. She followed him fairly well, and
asked at last, “Do you mean that—that my father will be expelled from
the Senate, and then—there will be no more trouble?”
“Dearest, I wish I could say so. But there will be a great deal more of
trouble, I am afraid—enough to make it necessary that you and I should
be married as soon as possible.”
“And you would marry the daughter of a man so disgraced, who may end
his days in a prison?”
“Yes—since it is you.”
He then inquired her plans for the present. Mrs. Clavering’s body was
to be taken for burial to her old home in Iowa. Baskerville asked, or
rather demanded, that within a month Anne should be prepared to become
his wife. “And haven’t you some relations out in Iowa from whose house
we can be married?” he said.
“Yes,” replied Anne, “I have aunts and cousins there. I warn you they
are very plain people, but they are very respectable. I don’t think
there is a person in my mother’s family of whom I have any reason to be
ashamed, although they are, as I tell you, plain people.”
“That is of no consequence whatever. I shall wait until after your
mother’s funeral before writing your father and having our engagement
announced, and within a month I shall come to Iowa to marry you.”
And Anne, seeing this sweet refuge open to her, took heart of grace and
comfort.
Clavering himself, sitting in his darkened library, was in no way awed
by death having invaded his house. He had been brought face to face
with it too often to be afraid of it; he was a genuine, throughgoing
disbeliever in everything except money and power, and he regarded the
end of life as being an interesting but unimportant event.
His wife’s death was most opportune for him; it made it certain that
Elizabeth Darrell would marry him. He had fully realized that stubborn
prejudice on Elizabeth’s part against divorce, and although he had not
seriously doubted his ability to overcome it, yet it had been stubborn.
Now all was smoothed away. He would act with perfect propriety, under
the circumstances; he surmised enough about the women of Elizabeth’s
class to understand that a breach of decorum would shock her far more
than a breach of morals. There would be no outward breach of decorum.
He would wait until after the funeral before writing her; but it would
be useless, hypocritical, and even dangerous to postpone writing longer.
With these thoughts in his mind he sat through the day, receiving
and answering telegrams, scanning the newspapers, and digesting his
own disgrace as exposed in print. Even that had come at a fortunate
time for him—if there is a fortunate time to be branded a thief, a
liar, and a perjurer, a suborner of perjury, a corrupter of courts,
a purchaser of legislatures. Elizabeth would feel sorry for him; she
wouldn’t understand the thing at all. He would insist on being married
in the autumn, and Elizabeth would no doubt be glad to be married as
far away from Washington as possible. Perhaps she might agree to meet
him in London and be married there. He would go over in the summer,
take the finest house to be had for money, and transport all the
superb equipment of his Washington establishment to London. He also
remembered with satisfaction that he had now nothing to fear on the
score of divorce from that soft–spoken, wooden–headed, fire–eating old
impracticable, General Brandon, with his fatal tendency to settle with
the pistol questions concerning “the ladies of his family.”
In these reflections and considerations James Clavering passed the
first day of his widowerhood. On the third day after Mrs. Clavering’s
death the great house was shut up and silent. The Claverings left
it, never to return to it. It stood vacant, a monument of man’s
vicissitudes.
The day after Mrs. Clavering’s burial took place, in the little Iowa
town where her family lived, a line appeared in the society column
of a leading Washington newspaper, announcing the engagement of Anne
Clavering and Richard Baskerville. Coming as it did on the heels of
the tragic events in the Clavering family and Baskerville’s share in a
part of these events, the announcement was startling though far from
unexpected. Mrs. Luttrell took upon herself the office of personally
acquainting her friends with the engagement and declaring her entire
satisfaction with it. Being by nature an offensive partisan, much
given to pernicious activity in causes which engaged her heart, Mrs.
Luttrell soon developed into a champion of the whole Clavering family.
She discovered many admirable qualities in Clavering himself, and
changed her tune completely concerning Élise and Lydia, whom she now
spoke of as “a couple of giddy chits, quite harmless, and only a little
wild.” These two young women had speedily made up their minds to fly to
Europe, and arranged to do so as soon as Anne was married, which was to
be within the month.
The catastrophes of the Clavering family made a profound impression
on Washington. Their meteoric career was a sort of epitome of all the
possibilities of the sudden acquisition of wealth and power. Whatever
might be said of them, they were at least not cowards—not even Reginald
Clavering was a coward. They were boldly bad, or boldly good. Anne
Clavering had won for herself a place in the esteem of society which
was of great value. Not one disrespectful or unkind word was spoken of
her when the day of reckoning for the Claverings came.
The Senate allowed James Clavering two weeks to recover from his grief
at his wife’s death before annihilating him as a senator. Clavering
improved the time not only by arranging for his second marriage, but by
forestalling, when he had no fighting ground, the criminal indictments
which might be expected to be found against him. He paid out secretly
in satisfaction money, and reconveyed in bonds, nearly three millions
of dollars. There were several millions more to be fought over, but
that was a matter of time; and he would still have a great fortune
remaining, if every suit went against him.