leaned against the mass of rock at her back and looked around at the
still woods, in which only a few trilling bird notes broke the golden
silence, across the sunlit valley and then at Sir Percy Carlyon. What
strange fate had brought them from one end of the world to the other
that they might meet alone in such a place? She was so still that Sir
Percy presently looked around to see if she were there. She was sitting
quite motionless, looking with deep, inscrutible eyes straight before
her. She turned her gaze to him and said:
"I know no more than you do why I could speak to you in this way, or why
I could ever think of you again. I am like a child who has got hold of
some pretty, shiny thing, which turns out to be a jewel, and the child
weeps and struggles when the jewel is taken away."
Sir Percy could not but be sorry for her; he often had moments and hours
of silent rage with her, but it would not hold against her in the
presence of her despair. Presently she arose and came toward him,
smiling.
"Look around you," she said; "this spot, I know, I feel, is associated
with the image of that girl. Now you will be unable to think of it
without thinking of me also. I will not have it that I only shall think
of you; I mean that you shall not be able to escape the thought of me.
Come, it is late; let us be going."
They turned and walked back towards the house. Farther along the
mountain path they met Senator March and General Talbott; quite
naturally the party divided, and Sir Percy joined General Talbott, while
Senator March ranged himself with Mrs. Vernon. They fell behind, as
Senator March was pointing out the features and general historic points
of the landscape, while Sir Percy and General Talbott went ahead. When
they were quite far in advance and walking down the country lane
bordered with the mountain ash, now with little brown buds upon the bare
white branches, and the whole air scented with the coming spring,
General Talbott said:
"I think this journey, my dear fellow, to be one of the pleasantest, and
even one of the most fortunate, that I ever made. It has been a long
time since I have seen my poor child so like her earlier self. She is
interested and amused. The social customs over here permit a woman to
enjoy a great many pleasures and to receive a great many attentions from
men without exciting remark. My daughter is, as you know, extremely
careful in her conduct, often prudish. Not that I would wish her
otherwise, but still I am glad when she finds herself in an environment
that permits her a little innocent enjoyment. Those parties at the
opera were extremely pleasant, but no such attention could be offered or
accepted in Europe."
"You are quite right; socially American customs are extremely pleasant.
They embody liberty without license."
"I agree with you from what I have seen."
As General Talbott spoke, Sir Percy observed in him a cheerfulness and
note of pleasure in his voice which always followed when Alicia seemed
to be at ease and a little happy.
Sir Percy Carlyon left early on the Monday morning and returned to
Washington in advance of the rest of the party. It was still some days
before Lucy Armytage arrived from Kentucky. At their first meeting
afterwards Lucy asked no questions whatever about Senator March's
house-party, and the delicate reticence which she showed on this point
was not unnoticed by Sir Percy, who volunteered to tell her all of which
he could speak. He did not avoid Alicia Vernon's name, but whenever he
spoke of her Lucy saw that peculiar expression of his eye which
indicated dislike. She asked, however, a great many questions about
Senator March and then said:
"I wonder if Mrs. Vernon will marry him when he asks her."
Sir Percy was thunderstruck; no such idea had entered his thoroughly
masculine mind, and after a moment he said so.
"How stupid!" remarked Lucy, eyeing him with profound contempt. "It was
perfectly obvious the first night they met. Everybody in town is
talking about it."
"They are?" replied Sir Percy after a moment, and then quickly turned
the conversation into another channel.
Meanwhile his mind was in a tumult. Alicia Vernon married to Senator
March, or to any man of honour, for that matter, and Senator March,
chivalrous, high-minded, taking everything for granted in the case of
the woman he loved! It was staggering to Sir Percy Carlyon; the whole
thing was anomalous, inexplicable. But for him Senator March and Alicia
Vernon would never have met. His mind went back to those early days in
India: how the web then formed not only entangled him, but caught
others, innocent and helpless, in its meshes. He would be forced to
stand silently by and see a man who loved his honour better than his
life take to his heart a woman unworthy of him. This thought possessed
Sir Percy, and brought with it the fiercest stings of remorse. He went
about that day with a strange sense of unreality concerning everything.
Alicia Vernon might indeed have married even an honourable man, but to
see a man as proud and sensitive as Senator March lay his honest, tender
heart at the feet of Alicia Vernon was an incredible thing to Sir Percy
Carlyon. That evening at the club the first person he saw in the
smoking-room was General Talbott.
"I am very glad to have come across you this evening," said General
Talbott. "I wish to speak with you confidentially. How are marriages
arranged over here?"
"With the least possible trouble," answered Sir Percy with a glimmer of
a smile, "and totally unlike marriages anywhere else. They are supposed
to be on a basis of pure sentiment, and the question of money is handled
in the most gingerly manner."
General Talbott smiled and then continued:
"To be quite confidential with you, my dear fellow, I have seen lately
that Senator March takes an uncommon interest in my daughter. Whether
Alicia would marry him or not I can't say. This afternoon Senator March
called to see me, to tell me, what I had suspected for some little time
past, that he is deeply attached to my daughter. I needn't tell you
that the idea was quite acceptable to me. I am an old man, and at my
death my child would be unprotected in the world; she is one of those
delicate creatures unfitted to stand alone, and what I most desired for
her was the protection of a good man's arm."
Sir Percy listened with quiet attention, but all the while a sense of
unreality deepened upon him; nevertheless he said quite coolly:
"As far as the man himself goes, it would be hard to find Senator
March's superior, and, as you probably know, he has a great fortune,
honestly come by."
"I am not in love with money myself," said General Talbott, and then
stopped and looked meditatively at Sir Percy.
The idea had occurred to him many times since Alicia's widowhood that
the friendship, which was all that General Talbott knew had existed
between Alicia and Sir Percy, might bring them into a closer
relationship. It would have been an ideal marriage for Alicia, her
father thought, except that Sir Percy Carlyon was a poor man and Alicia,
as her father always said deprecatingly, had little idea of the value of
money. He would rather, he thought, that Alicia should marry in her own
country, but, recalling Sir Percy's modest income and expectations,
General Talbott dismissed the half-formed wish from his mind. No;
Alicia was not the wife for a poor man in public life.
"To be still more confidential with you, my dear Carlyon," he said,
laying his hand on Sir Percy's knee, "nothing could have been more
generous in every way than March's proposition to me. The law makes a
liberal provision in America for the wife, I find, but Senator March,
knowing our customs, volunteered to make settlements, splendid in their
generosity, upon my daughter. She will have an independent income of
her own, every year, far exceeding the entire income of Guy Vernon's
estates, and for a woman of my daughter's luxurious tastes that is a
great consideration. She is so high-minded, however, that I scarcely
think she took this in, although after Senator March left I talked with
her quite frankly on the subject. Of course, she isn't a young girl any
longer, and has realised painfully all her life the restrictions of a
modest income."
"But she will marry Senator March?"
"I think so; she has asked a little time for consideration, but you know
what that means with ladies. March had the good feeling to say to me
that, if she would consent to marry him, he would promise in advance
that she should visit England once a year to see me, and he hopes that I
will agree to spend a part of each year with them--most considerate of a
father's feelings."
As General Talbott talked, Sir Percy saw in him a deep feeling of
gratification and even of relief. The only fault her father could find
with Alicia was her reckless expenditure, but if she married Senator
March she would be far beyond all need of doing without anything--so
General Talbott in his simplicity thought. Sir Percy's manner struck
General Talbott as being a little peculiar, but he thought he could
account for it: Sir Percy had his own private disappointment to bear;
such was General Talbott's explanation.
*VIII*
In Washington there is always an outbreak of gaiety after Easter to
atone for a slight suppression during Holy Week. It is then that the
results of the season are tabulated and the coming June weddings
announced. Two such announcements were made which surprised society:
that of Sir Percy Carlyon, First Secretary of the British Embassy, to
Miss Lucy Armytage, whose name most of the smart set heard for the first
time; and that of Senator March to Mrs. Vernon, the charming
Englishwoman, who had been received with open arms by the smartest of
the smart. The first was paralysing in the effect it produced. The
British Embassy, and all that belongs to it, is reckoned the peculiar
property of the smart set, and for any one attached to that Embassy to
go outside of the smart set for a bride seemed almost a violation of
international law, to say nothing of diplomatic usage. Every particular
about Miss Armytage, as the facts came to light, was more appalling; she
was from a provincial Kentucky town, of which nobody, outside of
Kentucky, had ever heard; she was the niece of a representative in
Congress who lived in a down-town hotel; she had never been to Europe,
and Newport and Lennox were unknown ground to her. Almost the only
fashionable house at which she had ever been seen was that of the
Chantreys, and society had from the beginning bestowed Eleanor
Chantrey's hand upon Sir Percy Carlyon.
Deep in Eleanor's heart was a disappointed dream of ambition. She had
herself too well in hand to fall in love with Sir Percy Carlyon, or any
other man, until her love had been asked, but his eligibility had been
suggested to her a great many times, chiefly by Mrs. Chantrey, who had
visions of possessing the British Embassy, body and bones: herself the
Ambassadress, her daughter the wife of the First Secretary. Some hint
of this Mrs. Chantrey let drop to Eleanor when they sat together at tea
in Eleanor's yellow boudoir on the day that Sir Percy Carlyon's
engagement was announced. There are ways by which a daughter, as
perfectly well-bred as Eleanor Chantrey, can silence a garrulous mother,
and this is what Eleanor did.
"We must go this afternoon," she said calmly, "and call on Miss
Armytage. I think her a charming girl, quite clever enough to fill any
position whatever."
Mrs. Chantrey, being civilly bullied by her daughter, the two drove down
later to the Armytages' hotel and, instead of merely leaving cards,
waited to know whether they could see Mrs. and Miss Armytage. They were
ushered up into the modest sitting-room, which had been the scene of
some halcyon hours to Lucy and Sir Percy.
Eleanor Chantrey, the most sincere of women, honestly admired Lucy
Armytage, and the quiet dignity and grace with which Lucy received her
congratulations confirmed Eleanor in her previous opinion, that Lucy
Armytage would be equal to any position. She thanked Eleanor warmly for
her good wishes and kind interest, and the two girls were drawn closer
together by the innate nobility which both of them possessed.
Meanwhile, Sir Percy was having what might be called "a roaring time" at
the Embassy with Lord Baudesert, his Aunt Susan and Jane, Sarah and
Isabella. Sometimes even sheep will make a feint of butting, and,
following Lord Baudesert's tigerish assault, the Verekers butted and
prodded as viciously as they knew how. Sir Percy had chosen tea-time as
the hour to break the news to his family. He first had a private
interview with Lord Baudesert in his library. The Ambassador happened
to have a real and not a diplomatic touch of gout, and was
correspondingly savage. When Sir Percy coolly, and without any
preamble, announced that he was engaged to Miss Armytage, and that the
wedding would take place at Bardstown, Kentucky, in the middle of June,
Lord Baudesert almost jumped from his chair with wrath and surprise, and
then fell back again overwhelmed with disgust.
"You swore to me," he bellowed, "that you would never marry an
American."
Sir Percy smiled and stroked his moustache.
"Well," he said, "I am of that opinion still. This is the only American
I would ever marry under any possible circumstances and I don't propose
to do it but once."
"You know the disadvantages of it," cried Lord Baudesert, thumping the
table; "her money will be tied up as tight as wax; you will have a tail
of relations following you all over Europe, and the whole thing is the
most damnable mess I have ever heard of in my life."
"Call it anything you please," replied Sir Percy, still smiling, "only
be careful how you mention Miss Armytage. As for her money being tied
up, she has very little, so it really doesn't matter."
This was like throwing a bushel of dynamite into a burning house. Lord
Baudesert forgot his gout and, getting up from his chair, strode up and
down the room, dragging his gouty leg after him, and muttering savagely
to himself, with an occasional blast against American marriages.
Presently Sir Percy rose and went into the drawing-room, followed by
Lord Baudesert. There sat Mrs. Vereker and the three girls, and while
Mrs. Vereker was handing Sir Percy his tea, he remarked casually to her:
"Aunt Susan, I hope very much that you and the girls will, as soon as
you conveniently can, call upon Miss Armytage, who has done me the
honour of promising to become my wife."
If the big chandelier in the middle of the room had tumbled on the
tea-table, and had been followed by a patch of the blue sky, Mrs.
Vereker could not have been more astounded; her jaw dropped, and the
three girls, horror-stricken, gazed at Sir Percy, who went on drinking
his tea with the most exasperating calmness.
"Engaged to Miss Armytage," murmured Mrs. Vereker despairingly, when she
found her voice. "A most incredible thing! I think you must be joking,
and that you are really engaged to Miss Chantrey."
"I assure you that I am not," replied Sir Percy. "Give me another cup
of tea, please, Isabella."
"Mamma," said Isabella, without paying the slightest attention to Sir
Percy's request, "he is simply teasing us. He certainly is engaged to
Miss Chantrey. I have heard it suggested a dozen times in the last
month."
"But I am not," said Sir Percy, helping himself to tea, which no one
else was sufficiently composed to give him.
Mrs. Vereker shook her head hopelessly. "I am sure it is Miss
Chantrey."
This view of the matter acted upon Lord Baudesert's smouldering rage
like a stone in front of a rushing railway train, which is at once
derailed and helpless. Lord Baudesert exploded into a short laugh.
"No such luck," he said; "Miss Chantrey has a fortune; Miss Armytage has
not."
Sir Percy, having finished his tea, put down his cup and rose.
"I shall be very much obliged to you, Aunt Susan, if you will do as I
ask. Lord Baudesert, of course, will call to-morrow."
Lord Baudesert growled something between his clenched teeth, which
nobody could make out, and Sarah cried:
"Oh, Cousin Percy, how many times have I heard you say that you would
never marry an American;" and Jane chimed in, "No one would have minded
in the least if it had been Eleanor Chantrey."
"Perhaps," remarked Sir Percy to Jane, meanwhile looking Lord Baudesert
full in the eye, "you may yet have the pleasure of being allied with the
Chantreys. Common report has it that Lord Baudesert and Mrs. Chantrey
are to be married shortly. Good-afternoon." And leaving this bomb
behind him, he escaped into the street.
Only to one other did he feel the necessity of imparting the news
himself. This was to General Talbott, and through him to Alicia Vernon.
He walked to their hotel and was shown to their sitting-room to await
their return from a drive. He went to the window and looked down on the
street embowered with trees, and with sidewalks full of gaily dressed
people, and smart carriages dashing to and fro in the sunny spring
afternoon. He had heard that day, as had everybody else, the
announcement of Alicia Vernon's engagement, and it brought him no
surprise, but only that strange feeling as if such a thing could not be:
that Alicia Vernon should become the wife of an honourable man. While
he was watching, the carriage with General Talbott and Alicia drove up,
and the General, with his own portly grace, assisted his daughter to
alight. In a moment or two they entered the room together, and General
Talbott grasped Sir Percy's hand and congratulated him from the bottom
of an honest and generous heart.
"We, too, have news for you," he said, smiling; "I will leave it to
Alicia to tell you, as it is her affair."
Alicia fixed her violet eyes on Sir Percy Carlyon, and in them was the
light of triumph. "I think, papa," she said, in the sweet, affectionate
voice which she always addressed her father, "if you will leave me with
Sir Percy for ten minutes it would be kind. I want to tell so old a
friend all about it. So here is your newspaper, and go into your own
room for ten minutes and then we shall be delighted to see you."
She took the afternoon newspaper off the table and, thrusting it into
General Talbott's hand with an air of tender familiarity, led him to the
door and closed it after him, and then she came back to where Sir Percy
stood near the window and began to pull off her long gloves.
"Have you told Miss Armytage about that summer at the hill station?" she
asked calmly, with a sidelong glance. Sir Percy remained silent, but it
won for him no mercy. "I see that you haven't," she said. "Yet you
think it right to marry that innocent girl without telling her all?
Very well, I shall marry Senator March, but neither shall I tell him
all."
It occurred to Sir Percy to ask her if she meant, like himself, to be so
true, so devoted in her marriage that she might have some little ground
upon which to ask forgiveness. But although he by no means adopted the
specious view that the law has no variation for men and women, yet he
felt that no one who had violated the law in any part could rebuke his
fellow-sinner, and, therefore, remained obstinately silent. Mrs. Vernon
had encountered this mood before, but it made the situation rather
easier for her, as Sir Percy never contradicted anything she said.
After a moment or two she spoke again.
"It is a curious thing that people like Senator March, who have never
been tempted, put all poor sinners in the wrong. I feel it every moment
that I am with him. I never had this feeling with Guy Vernon, because
from the day I married him his wickedness and his weakness were plain to
me. But there is a compelling honesty about a man like Senator March
from which one can't get away; it is like my father's. Senator March
thinks I am marrying him for love; you think I am marrying him for
money. This last is true, and I can't deny it, but I also have a
disinterested motive--it will make my father happy and put him at ease
concerning me. I have a good many debts of which my father knows
nothing, and which he would pay, if he knew of them, with his last
shilling. I couldn't keep them from him much longer and I dreaded to
tell him. Now he is spared all that. I had the satisfaction of dealing
honestly with Senator March when I told him that I must still give a
part of my life to my father. He kissed my hand and told me he loved me
the better because I loved my father so well."
Yes, it was the only redeeming love which Alicia Vernon had ever known,
and it had in it a strange element of nobility and perfidy.
"I hope sincerely you may be happy," was all that Sir Percy Carlyon
said.
"I don't know whether I wish you to be happy or not," Alicia replied in
the same low voice.
"At least the past is now a closed book between us."
"Is the past ever a closed book? Certainly not to a woman. There are
some things which are bloodstains upon the page of life and sink through
and through its pages until at the very last there is still a red stain.
Anyway, I don't hate Senator March and I don't wish to make him unhappy.
That is as much as I can feel for any man now, but I could chop him to
pieces for my father's sake or for--" The sentence remained unfinished.
Alicia's wild, unreasoning passion, mingled with revenge, regret and
chagrin, died hard. There had never been a moment in which she would not
have considered a marriage with Sir Percy Carlyon as imprudent and even
disastrous. But there had never been a moment, not even the present,
when she would not have rushed into this joyous madness. She turned and
walked up and down the room once or twice, saddened, as all sentient
beings are, when looking down an abyss in which they long to throw
themselves, struggling fiercely against the restraining hand. Sir
Percy, quite immovable, stood in the same place until Alicia turned
towards him and spoke in her usual, quiet tones.
"But I have this to say to you: if, after you are married, you assume
that your wife is too good to breathe the same air with me, you may
expect me to resent it. We may be in Washington together, remember, for
some time, and if I am unjustly treated there will be a catastrophe, and
this you may count upon."
Just then General Talbott's bedroom door opened and he walked in.
"The ten minutes are up," he said; "now sit down, Carlyon, and let us
talk about coming events. Alicia and I will call to see Miss Armytage
to-morrow, taking the privilege of old friends."
"Thank you," said Sir Percy, and could not force himself to say more.
"How strangely things fall out," continued the General pleasantly. "I
had no thought when I came to Washington that I should leave Alicia
behind me."
"You won't leave me for long, papa," replied Alicia, "because I know in
two or three months' time I shall ask Senator March to take me to
England and then we will bring you back."
"Oh, yes!" replied General Talbott, smiling, "there will be an eternal
fetching and carrying, and some day I shall be a rickety old fellow;
then you and March will probably throw me over."
Alicia only answered him with a look which was eloquent.
General Talbott did not think Sir Percy's silence strange; Englishmen
are not likely to be talkative under such circumstances; so General
Talbott, full of sympathy and kindliness, kept on:
"After having seen Miss Armytage, my dear fellow, one can safely
congratulate you. The newspapers say the wedding comes off in the
middle of June."
"The newspapers are right for once," answered Sir Percy. "The wedding
is to take place in Kentucky, so I am afraid I sha'n't have the pleasure
of Mrs. Vernon's presence and yours."
"No; we shall have our own affairs to attend to at that time. We are to
be married ourselves, you know," answered General Talbott, laughing, and
then Sir Percy said good-bye and went out.
When he was gone General Talbott said to his daughter:
"Miss Armytage is indeed a charming girl, but it is a pity she has not
fortune and prestige such as Miss Chantrey has, and fortune and prestige
are what Carlyon needs in a wife."
Alicia Vernon made no reply and General Talbott, taking up a batch of
newly arrived English newspapers, retired to his own room to read them.