Chisholm dined that night in the upstairs room of that old-fashioned
hostelry, the Angel, at Godalming, in company with the brethren of the
banner.
He sat at the right of the estimable, fat-handed butcher who presided,
and was informed by him that as the gigantic roast sirloin that was
served was his "own killing," he could recommend it. They ate, drank,
and made merry, these men banded together by their sacred rites, until
the heat grew so intense that the windows were opened, with the result
that decorous High Street echoed to the volleys of their hearty
laughter.
As drink was included in the cost of the repast, those diners with the
more rapacious appetites--who, indeed, made no secret that they had been
existing in a state of semi-starvation all day in order to eat at
night--drank indiscriminately of the lemonade, beer, wine and whiskey
placed upon the table. Indeed, as is usual at such feasts, they ate and
drank all within reach of their hands. But these bearded working-men
and small tradesmen were merry and well-meaning with it all. After "The
King" had been honoured, they toasted with boisterous enthusiasm "Our
Honourable Member," and joined in the usual chorus of poetical praise,
"For he's a jolly good fellow."
Dudley sat bowing and smiling, yet at heart sick of the whole
performance. He dreaded the pipes and cigars that would in a few
moments appear. Shag and clays always turned him ill. He was no great
smoker himself, and had never been able to withstand the smell of a
strong cigar.
His quick eyes observed a man who was beginning in an affectionate
manner to fondle a well-coloured short clay. He bent at once to the
chairman, saying that he would now deliver his speech.
"Silence, please, gentlemen!" shouted the rotund butcher, rapping the
table with his wooden mallet after their guest's health had been drunk.
"Silence for our Honourable Member! Silence--_please_!"
Then Dudley rose eagerly, happy in the knowledge that he was almost
through the ordeal, and, with a preliminary "Mr. Chairman and
Gentlemen," addressed the hundred or so of his faithful supporters,
telling them this and that about the Government, and assuring them of
the soundness of the policy adopted by Her Majesty's Ministers. It was
not a very long speech, but it was upon a subject of the moment; and as
there were two "gentlemen of the Press" representing the local
advertisement sheets, the one a mere boy, and the other a melancholy,
disappointed-looking man, with a sage and rather ascetic expression, the
speech would appear in the papers, and the Godalming Lodge of Odd
Fellows would receive the credit of having entertained one of England's
most rising statesmen. The two representatives of the Press, each of
whom took himself very seriously, had been regaled with a bottle of port
and some cigars by the committee, who entertained a hope that they would
thus be induced to give a lengthy and laudatory account of the function.
While Dudley was on his legs the cloud of tobacco-smoke became thicker
and thicker. Those triumphs of the tobacconist called "tuppenny smokes"
are nauseous when in combination with the odour of food. Dudley sniffed
them, coughed slightly, sipped some water, and then drew his speech to a
close amid a terrific outburst of applause and a beating upon the tables
which caused the glasses and crockery to jingle.
While this oration was in full blast he noticed a committee-man
uncovering the piano, by which he knew that "harmony" was to embellish
the hot whiskey period. At last, however, he managed to excuse himself,
upon the plea that he must return to the House for a Division that was
expected; and as soon as he was out in the High Street he breathed more
freely. Then he hurried to the train, and, entering the express from
Portsmouth, tried to forget the spot he had visited in that small belt
of forest--the scene that too often commanded the most vivid powers of
his memory.
"I was a fool ever to have gone there!--an absolute fool!" he murmured
to himself, as he flung himself back in the first-class compartment when
alone. "I ran an unnecessary risk. And that man who came so suddenly
upon me just as I was leaving! What if he had watched and recognised
me? If so, he would certainly gossip about my presence there, describe
my actions--and then--"
He was silent; his face became blanched and drawn.
"Even though six years have passed, the affair is not forgotten," he
went on in a hard voice. "It is still the local mystery which Scotland
Yard failed to elucidate. Yes," he added, "I was a fool--a confounded
fool! What absurd whim took me to that place of all others, I can't
imagine. I'm mad--mad!" he cried in wild despair. "This madness is the
shadow of suicide!"
Instead of going down to the House he drove back at once to his
chambers.
Upon his table was a note from Claudia, affectionate as usual, and full
of regret that they had not met again on the previous night--when they
had been so suddenly separated at Penarth House.
"What do you think of little Muriel Mortimer? I saw you speaking with
her," she wrote. "She was full of you when I met her shopping in Bond
Street this morning. You have made quite an impression, my dear Dudley.
But don't altogether forget me, will you?"
Forget? Could he ever forget the woman whom he loved, and yet despised?
Strange that Claudia should have plotted with Lady Meldrum against his
bachelor estate, and should have determined to bring about this marriage
with Muriel Mortimer!
In a frenzy of despair he cast her letter into the flames. He
recollected the words she had uttered to him in that room on the
previous night, the sweet words of love and tenderness that had held him
spellbound. No, there was no other woman in all the world save her--and
yet, she was false and fickle, as all the world knew.
Life's comforts are its cares. He smiled bitterly as he reflected upon
that phrase, which was an extract from one of his many brilliant
speeches. If a person has no cares, that person must make them, or be
wretched; care is actually an employment, an action; sometimes even a
joy. And so it is with love. Life and love must have employment and
action. There must be responsibility and a striving to reach a goal;
for if not, both the power to endure and the power to give comfort are
shrunken and crippled.
When Dudley Chisholm was young he had long worshipped an ideal. But
when he found his idol to be undeserving of the idolatry, madness fell
upon him, and he accepted the creed of the prodigal. Raking over the
ashes of the numerous bonfires he had made, for which his senses had
been the fuel, he now found a revelation of his inner self. He
recognised for the first time his weakness and his unworthiness. He
wanted something better than he had known--not in others, but in
himself. He had discovered a spot of tenderness in his heart that had,
so to speak, remained virgin soil.
"Could a really smart woman possess any nice sense of honour?" he asked
himself for the hundredth time. If she is endowed with any particular
intelligence, and the world discovers it, then society is prone to think
that she is necessarily a "schemer," and, unless her friends know her
very well, she is soon given a place upon society's black list as an
"adventuress," a term which applies to the whole gamut of West End
wickedness. No, after all, few women can be both honourable and smart.
His thoughts wandered back into the past, as they so frequently did, and
a moan came from his heart. He remembered Claudia as an ideal woman of
whom a cruel Fate had robbed him in those days before he learned the
world to be what it is. And he still loved her--even though this great
gulf yawned between them.
Dudley Chisholm was blind to Claudia's true character. He was attracted
to her by her intellect and her physical magnetism. In these days of
her freedom she had dared to be herself, and having knowledge of herself
and of men, she had developed his admiration up to her own standpoint.
She had taught him women as she knew them herself. She was playing with
all the edged tools of daring because she felt that she was the stronger
of the two, and that he would dare no further than she willed. She was
charmed with the freedom she allowed herself; while he was, in a manner,
flattered by her apparent constancy to him and by her finding in him
anything that interested a woman of her attainments and popularity.
Thus he had become thoroughly interested, madly infatuated, as well as
honestly in love.
Men so seldom understand the inner nature, the designing nature, if I
may be forgiven the expression, of some women. Such women are
unscrupulous in their dealings both with men and women. The West End is
full of them. They live for what they can get out of their
acquaintances, instead of for what they can do for them. They give as
much love to all as to one, unless that one should happen to be more
wealthy or distinguished than the others. Then the wealthy one will get
the largest quantity of attention, while the others will be kept
dangling on the string for use at odd times. Such women are shrewd.
Mayfair has taught them the art of conversation. They have reduced it
to a science. With the innocent face of a child, they learn never to
let the left hand know what the right hand is doing. And, if the bare
truth be stated, Claudia Nevill was one of these. She, in her
shrewdness, had handled Dudley with light ribbons. She had intuitively
understood what kind of woman he preferred, and she had been that
woman--until now, when the bitter truth had been made plain to him.
In this life of ours the tossing between the extremes of happiness and
misery are terribly wearying. When once life's lessons begin they
continue in a mad headlong rush of events. During the last few days
Dudley Chisholm seemed to have lived a lifetime. Fate twisted and
turned him through and round human follies and treachery. It laughed at
him, beating up all that was false against all that was true in his own
nature, until he found himself in such a _pot-pourri_ of sunshine and
storm that life seemed suddenly too incomprehensible to be endured.
The daintiness of women rivets and enchains men of Dudley's stamp--the
perfume of the hair, the baby-smell of the skin, the frills, the laces,
the violets exuding from the chiffons, the arched foot, the neat ankle,
the clinging drapery--everything, in fact, that means delicate luxury
not to be enjoyed save in the company of a woman. Awkwardness
disenchants, but well-poised, graceful lines, added to a _chic_ in
dress, hold for ever. To be essentially feminine places a woman in the
holy of holies in a man's heart. As Claudia was essentially feminine,
she still held Dudley safe, in spite of that sudden gust of scandal.
Alone, seated in his familiar armchair, he cast aside the heavy thoughts
that had so oppressed him ever since he had stood at that spot deep in
rural Surrey, and looked upon the place every object of which was
photographed upon his memory. He thought of Claudia, and, remembering
the declaration of her love whispered in that room, felt regret at the
hard words he had uttered. She had made mistakes and become entangled
in the meshes of the net spread out for her. Was it not his duty to
extricate her? He too had made a mistake in not paying respect, at
least outwardly, to the social code, and now the time had come when he
was forced to recognise that necessity. Yes, in his inner consciousness
he fully realised the mistake he had made. He had all unconsciously
aided and abetted her in becoming what was known as "a smart woman."
Perhaps, however, his opinion of her would have been a different one had
he been present at that moment in one of the smaller sitting-rooms of
the great mansion at Albert Gate. It was a cosy apartment, with the
lamplight mellowed to a half tone by the yellow shade; dull greyish blue
was the colour of the silken walls, a cool, restful tint that seemed a
fitting background for the cosy lounge draped with dark Egyptian red and
suppressed greens and yellows.
Upon the couch, in a handsome dinner gown of pale pink trimmed with
black velvet, lazily lounged its mistress among her silken pillows,
slowly waving her fan, while near her in one of the big saddle-bag
chairs sat the Grand-Duke Stanislas smoking a cigarette, his eyes fixed
upon her.
At his throat he wore the ribbon of St. Andrew, one of the highest of
the Russian orders, the splendid diamond cross glittering upon his
shirt-front. He was on his way to a reception at the Austrian Embassy
given in his honour by the ambassador, but at Claudia's invitation he
had dined with her.
"No, really," she was laughing, "it is not so in England. I quite admit
that men make it a general accusation against us, as a sex, that we are
ill-natured, unfair, pitiless, in judging one another. They say that
when women get together, at every word a reputation dies; they say that
as a savage proves his heroism by displaying in grim array the torn
scalps of his enemies, so a woman thinks she proves her virtue by
exhibiting the mangled reputations of her friends; they say--But there
is no end to the witty impertinences and fag-ends of rhymes from
Simonides to Pope, which they fling at us on this subject I have never
heard men so eloquently satirical as when treating with utter scorn the
idea that a woman can possibly elevate herself in the eyes of one of
their sex by degrading, or suffering to be degraded, one of her own; and
in their censure they are right--quite right; but wrong--quite wrong in
attributing this, our worst propensity, to ill-nature and jealousy.
Ignorance is the main cause: ignorance of ourselves and others."
He laughed at her philosophy, and blew a cloud of smoke towards the
ceiling.
"I think, my dear madame, that you must be full of whims, _comme disent
les Anglais_. A pretty woman like yourself always is," he said in his
marked foreign accent.
"And why not?" she inquired, for he had suddenly changed the channel of
their conversation, and she much feared that he now intended to give her
a _rechauffe_ of his sentimental nonsense.
"Because you brought your friend to the duchess's last night. I saw
him. _C'etait assez_."
"You are jealous--eh?"
"Not in the least, I assure you," he answered quite coolly. "Only it is
pretty folly on madame's part--that is all."
"Why folly? _O la belle idee_!"
"Madame's _amities_ are of course friendships," he said, raising his
dark eyebrows. "Nevertheless, she should be warned."
"Of what?"
"Of Monsieur the Under-Secretary," he replied, still regarding her quite
calmly with his dark eyes. "For her own reputation madame should no
longer be seen with him."
She glanced at her guest quickly, for she was used to men's jealousies.
Yet surely this scion of an Imperial House could not be jealous!
"And for what reason, pray?" she asked, puzzled. "Because of a
regrettable circumstance," he answered mysteriously. "Because of a
forthcoming exposure which will be startling. In a certain
_Chancellerie_ in a certain capital of Europe there reposes a document
which must shortly be made public property."
"Well, and what then?" she asked, not yet grasping his meaning.
"Its publication will bring disgrace and ruin upon madame's friend," he
answered simply. "That is why I warn you not to be seen again in his
company."
"What do you mean?" she cried, starting up with sudden _hauteur_. "You
tell me this, in order to turn me from him."
"No, _ma chere_, I tell you a secret which is known in the
_Chancellerie_ of a certain Power antagonistic to your country," he
responded. "I have told madame the truth for her own benefit."
"You would try to poison my mind against Dudley Chisholm by hints such
as these!" she cried, magnificent in her sudden fury. "You!--You! But
let me tell you that I love him--that--that--"
"That you refuse to believe my word!" he said, concluding her unfinished
sentence.
"Yes, that I absolutely refuse to believe you!" she declared
emphatically, facing him boldly in a manner which showed that her nature
had revolted against this attempt to denounce the man she loved.
"_C'est assez_!" he laughed with an air of nonchalance the moment he had
blown a cloud of smoke from his lips. "Madame has spoken!"