Transcriber's Note:
This transcription into digital form attempts to
remain true to the original except for punctuation
marks that have been supplied where missing.
THE
YELLOW HOUSE
MASTER OF MEN
BY
E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM
AUTHOR OF
"THE MISCHIEF-MAKER" "BERENICE" "HAVOC"
"THE LOST LEADER" "THE MALEFACTOR"
[Illustration]
VOLUME ONE
NEW YORK
P. F. COLLIER & SON
Copyright 1908
By C. H. Doscher & Co.
Copyright 1912
By P. F. Collier & Son
MASTER OF MEN
MASTER OF MEN
Upward in long sinuous bends the road wound its way into the heart of
the hills. The man, steadily climbing to the summit, changed hands
upon the bicycle he was pushing, and wiped the sweat from his grimy
forehead. It had been a gray morning when he had left, with no promise
of this burst of streaming sunshine. Yet the steep hill troubled him
but little--he stepped blithely forward with little sign of fatigue.
His workman's clothes, open at the throat, showed him the possessor
of a magnificent pair of shoulders; the suggestion of great physical
strength was carried out also in his hard, clean-cut features and
deep-set, piercing gray eyes. He passed a grove where the ground was
blue with budding hyacinths, and he loitered for a moment, leaning
upon the saddle of his bicycle, and gazing up the sunlit glade. A line
or two of Keats sprang to his lips. As he uttered them a transfiguring
change swept across his face, still black in patches, as though from
grimy labor. His hard, straight mouth relaxed into a very pleasant
curve, a softer light flashed in his steely eyes.
He reached a wooden gate at last on his right-hand side, and, pushing
it open, skirted a stone wall until he came to a sudden dip in the
field, and with its back against a rocky eminence, a tiny cottage
built of the stones which lay in heaps about the turf. He leaned his
bicycle against the wall, and, taking a key from his pocket, unlocked
the door.
"Saturday at last," he exclaimed aloud. "Thirty-six hours of freedom.
Phew!"
He had plunged a basin into the soft-water tank outside and held his
head in it for a moment. Then, all dripping, he carried a canful to
a hollow bath ingeniously fixed among the rocks against which the
cottage was built, and, throwing off his soiled clothes, jumped in.
There was no longer any sign of the grease-stained mechanic when he
emerged, and, with his towel wrapped lightly around him, stepped into
the cottage.
He reappeared in a few minutes clad in a gray homespun suit, which
showed many signs of wear, a pipe in his mouth, a book in his hand.
Leisurely he filled a kettle from the well and thrust it into the
centre of the small wood fire, which he had kindled. Then, with a sigh
of relief, he threw himself upon the soft, mossy turf.
The book lay unheeded by his side. From his high vantage point he
looked downward at the wide panorama which stretched to the horizon,
faintly and mistily blue. The glorious spring sunshine lay like a
quickening fire upon the land. The tree tops, moving lightly in the
west wind, were budding into tender green; the dark pine groves were
softened; the patches of rich brown soil, freshly turned by the plow,
gleamed as though with promise of the crops to come.
Below him the dusty lane along which he had traveled stretched like
a narrow white belt, vanishing here and there in the woods and
disappearing at times between lichen-stained gray walls. He traced it
backward across the silvery brook, back to the quaint village with
its clustering gray stone houses, red-tiled roofs, and strange church
tower, and watched for a moment the delicate wreaths of smoke curl
upward, straight with the promise of fine weather. Farther still he
followed it into the flat country past the reservoir, a brilliant
streak of scintillating light, back into the heart of the town whence
he had come, and which stretched there now in the middle distance a
medley of factory chimneys and miles of houses--a great foul blot upon
the fair landscape.
He remembered it as he had ridden out an hour or so ago, the outskirts
with all their depressing ugliness, a cobbled road, a shabby tramcar
with a tired horse creeping along a road where dirty children played
weary games and shouted shrilly to one another. A miserable region of
smoke-begrimed houses and small shops, an unattractive public house
at every corner, round which loafed men with the white faces of tired
animals, and women dragging babies and shouting abuse to their more
venturesome offspring.
With painful distinctness he saw it all--the opened factory gates, the
belching out of a slatternly mob of shrieking girls and ribald youths,
the streets untidy with the refuse of the greengrocers' shops, the
hot, fetid atmosphere of the low-lying town. He closed his eyes--ah,
how swiftly it all vanished! In his ears was the pleasant chirping of
many insects, the glorious sunshine lay about him like wine, the west
wind made music in the woods, one thrush in particular was singing to
him blithely from the thatched roof of his cottage--a single throbbing
note against a melodious background of the whole woodful of twittering
birds. The man smiled to himself, well pleased.
Then his thoughts in relief slipped away from the present to the
little perfumed garden of the vicarage across the hills. He was
there in the deepening twilight listening in wonder to the song
that floated on the still air. The voice was that of a woman such
as Strone had never looked upon before. He closed his eyes with the
memory--the night lived again for him as the song grew--and the air
seemed suddenly sweet and vibrating with music. He was strangely,
wonderfully thrilled, for that night from the lips of this tired woman
of fashion, there had come to him a new wonder in life. His pulses
quivered with the memory of it, of the music that died away. As in a
dream he saw her again upon the threshold of the French window looking
listlessly out at them, her beautiful slim figure softly defined
against the rose-shaded background. Every detail of that wonderful
moment was stamped upon his mind forever. The gleam of the Reverend
Martinghoe's cigar shone softly in the silence--the eager words of the
two men had long since died away, and Strone's gaze went in thought
from the man who had brought him there to the face of Lady Malingcourt
who had come out to them in the darkness. With a rich voice that
seemed still to hold the last note of her song, she had chided them
for their lack of compliments. The Reverend Martinghoe had only
laughed as he looked up at his sister, but Strone the mechanic, the
laborer from Gascester, who had penetrated these precincts only on the
older man's kindness, had moved from out the shadows and with a few
murmured words had ridden away as in a dream....
A carriage grated on the road beyond. Strone opened his eyes and saw
a brougham and pair leisurely ascending the hill; he watched it with
surprise for it was a rough road and seldom used.
It drew level with him, and he became aware of a brilliant vision, a
Bond Street toilet, a woman fair and listless, leisurely extending a
daintily shod foot to the step of the suddenly checked carriage. He
was astonished to find himself the possessor of emotions more fierce
and vivid than any he had ever imagined. He was suddenly shy and
awkward.
She stepped across the road and held out a gray-gloved hand.
"How do you do, Mr. Strone? Are we really anywhere near this wonderful
cottage of yours?"
He pointed to where the smoke crept up behind the hillock.
"You are very near, indeed, Lady Malingcourt," he said.
She paused, suddenly embarrassed. How stupid the man was, standing
there like an owl.
"I am curious to see the outside," she said. "I cannot imagine what
a home-made house looks like. It reminds one so much of the picture
books of our youth. Can I see it from the other side of the field
without climbing anything?"
Strone threw open the gate, and she passed through, her gray skirt
trailing with a silken rustle across the short, green turf. She looked
at him sideways languidly--how stupid the man was.
"I have been paying calls," she said; "a dreary ordeal in the country.
People expect you to play croquet or smell flowers, and have tea out
of doors. So extraordinary. Life seems made up of people who live in
London and have houses in the country, and people who live in the
country and have houses in London. Such a wonderful difference, isn't
there?"
"I suppose so," he answered.
Then there was a short silence. It was an event, this, so bewildering,
so unexpected, that Strone was unable to recover himself. A new
shyness held him speechless. Lady Malingcourt, who was wondering now
if she rightly understood it, did nothing to help him.
Of the wonderful hour that followed Strone had a rather confused
impression. Little by little his tongue became loosened, he initiated
her into the mysteries of that very simple place his hermitage, and
all unknown to himself, to that rather complex thing the man. She
enthused over the one and affected to ignore the other, while with
rare subtlety she threw into their talk a salt-like impetus in regard
to his work that stung.
"I must go," she said at last rising. "Remember that John is bringing
me to have tea with you next Sunday. I have promised to take him to
Lingford Grange to dine to-night."
The man at her side stopped suddenly.
"Will you sing to them there?" he asked.
She did not answer at once. She was studying the picturesque
incongruity of Strone with his surroundings, the contrast between his
marvelous attire and his easy, fluent speech. Neither flustered nor
assertive, he was unconscious of his quiet, strong mastery; encouraged
to talk he talked; when opportunity came he was silent. She was filled
with admiration of the man, the genius, the mechanic inventor who, his
brother had told her, was to make a name that would live; and there
stole to this blasé woman under the glancing sunlight a strange new
feeling which she defined as interest.
"Why? You will not be there surely?"
He ignored the insolence of her question.
"If you mean that I shall not be one of Colonel Drevenhill's
guests--certainly not," he rejoined. "Nevertheless if you are asked to
sing, I hope that you will."
He watched the carriage until it was out of sight.
All the rest of the afternoon he lay on the warm turf above the
cottage smoking fiercely, and reading Heine. Then a gate slammed. The
book slipped from his fingers. He sat up, listening, his heart beating
thickly, his eyes ablaze. It was a woman who came into sight, but a
woman in an ill-hanging skirt, pushing a cheap bicycle, a woman hot
and dusty with riding. He ground his heel upon his feeling of sickly
disappointment. This was better for him. He rose and went to meet
her--took the bicycle; did his best to seem pleased.
"I didn't know whether I oughter come again so soon," she began
doubtfully, watching him with anxious eyes.
"I am glad to see you," he said. "Have you come for more books? See,
I will put the kettle on."
He took it to the well and filled it, made up the fire, and reached
down some things from the cupboard. She watched him, drawing her
gloves through her hand, anxious that he should notice her new hat. He
looked at her furtively now and then, wondering whether white muslins
and pink roses would have the power to transform her into a creature
of that feminine world of which it seemed to him that there could be
but one real habitant. Her thick stuff gown, her untidy skirt, and
pitifully cheap little hat--he looked them all over mercilessly.
She felt vaguely that her appearance displeased him, yet he had seemed
glad to see her. She made up her mind to believe he was glad. It had
been so miserable a week--every morning she had woke up in her stuffy
little room with only this thought to cheer her--that she was one day
nearer Saturday. Much scheming--even a harmless little fib had gone to
the buying of the new hat. She had earned it fairly enough. A record
week's wages, a dizzy head, fingers and hands sore with labor. But her
reward had come. She threw herself upon the turf by his side.
They talked very little. The birds were singing and the west wind
blowing through the tree tops. Below them a wide stretch of country,
blue-carpeted woods, brown and furrowed fields, fields green with
sprouting corn. The girl spoke timidly of the books she had read; he
listened, blowing out dense clouds of tobacco smoke. She talked, and
every now and then she sighed.
"It is so beautiful here," she murmured. "If only there was no going
back."
He was silent. His eyes were fixed upon the tall chimneys and smoky
clouds which hung over the city. The girl was picking grass and
throwing it away. Her hand met his, sought his touch--and Strone, so
unused to anything of the sort, was embarrassed, and clumsily removed
it.
She rose up at once.
"You don't want me here any longer," she said. "I'm off."
He stopped her.
"Why, what's the matter, Milly?" he exclaimed. "You have not had your
tea yet."
"I don't want any tea."
She stood with her back turned to him. He had an uncomfortable
suspicion that she was crying.
"What nonsense," he said. "Sit down while I see about it."
"I don't want any," she repeated. "I'm sorry I came. I'm sorry I ever
saw you. I'm off!"
She started down the turf walk, pushing her dusty old bicycle. Strone
groaned to himself as he followed in pursuit. He caught her by the
gate, touched her arm. She shook herself free.
"Let me be," she said, keeping her face averted.
He saw the gleam of tears in her eyes, and felt himself a brute. Then,
somehow, he scarcely knew how it happened, his arm was around her
waist and he had kissed her. After that there was no more talk of her
going. She sobbed herself into an ecstasy. They returned together.
"I thought that you wanted me gone," she said, in a broken tone,
mopping her eyes with her handkerchief. "I was so miserable."
Strone was very uncomfortable. He almost wished that he had let her
go. However, he made the best of it, hurried on the tea, and ignored
sundry affectionate little overtures on her part. Afterward he chose
for his seat an isolated rock, and pointed out to her a place beneath.
However, he couldn't avoid her resting her head upon his knee. She
began to talk--volubly. It wasn't very interesting--a long tirade--a
record of her woes, fascinating to him, for it was a page from the
life of one of his kind. What a bringing up! A father who drank, a
mother to be passed over in dark silence, a squalid home, children
unwholesome and unmanageable. What a struggle for respectability, and
what would be the end of it, he wondered, as the light grew dimmer,
the evening insects buzzed around them, and far down in the valley
little yellow dots of light leaped into life. Then he rose up, and
she sadly followed his example.
"I suppose I must go," she said doubtfully.
"I am quite sure of it, if you want to get home to-night," he
answered. "I'll carry your bicycle to the gate and light your lamp.
You'll remember what we've been talking about. You'll read the books
and be brave?"
"Yes."
"Life isn't always black. There's a time when the clouds lift."
"When may I come again?" she asked bluntly.
He took her hand gravely.
"Next Saturday, Milly. If I am not here, you know where the key is.
Stop and make yourself some tea."
"If you're away I'll wait," she answered. "I shan't want any tea."
He started her off, and trudged homeward with a sense of unaccountable
relief. He felt stifled, vaguely troubled by the memory of the girl's
white face and pleading brown eyes. Then a nightingale sang to him. At
once his mind was swept bare of all such thoughts. Once more the pine
and the clover-scented air around him seemed quivering with strange
and passionate music.
That night in the grounds of Lingford Grange the man stood like a
statue, half invisible among the shadows. Only his face, wrung with
emotion, gleamed pale through the darkness. Out from the window,
ablaze with much illumination, out into the cool, still night came the
wonderful music tugging at his heartstrings, sending the blood rushing
through his veins at fever heat.
The song swelled and the music grew, and with it his impotence. Then
came the end--the dying away of that long sustained, melodious note,
the crash of chords on the piano, the buzz of applause, merging into
conversation.
And all these things Strone heard, for Lingford Grange, with its
magnificent front and groves of poplars, stood with its back sheer
upon a country road, and the newly built music room almost overhung
the pathway. He heard, and he listened for more. They would make her
sing again! Soon a silence, the silence of expectation--a note or two
upon the piano--and again her voice. More wonderful than ever. It was
a fantasy of music, elusive, capricious, delightful. The song ended
with the woman's laughter. Strone groaned where he stood, under the
rustling leaves. It was like an omen, a chill forewarning of his own
certain fate.
Shadows passed backward and forward across the window, and Strone
waited, drunk for the moment with his stupendous folly. The music had
crept into his brain; a new force was alive within him. He stood there
rigid, immovable.
"She will come to the window," he said to himself.
And she came. He knew her at once, as she came slowly into sight,
leaning on the arm of Colonel Devenhill. A diamond star burned in her
hair, a great bunch of white roses were clustering loosely at her
bosom. She walked straight to the window and looked out. The spirit
of the song seemed still to linger in her face, her eyelids dropped
a little, her lips were parted in the faintest of smiles! Against
the lamplit background she formed perhaps the fairest image of a
woman Strone had ever gazed upon. Her bare arms and neck shone like
alabaster, her black net gown glittered all over with some marvelous
trimming traced in a strange design about her skirt. She stood there
looking out, and Strone lifted his eyes to hers. It was like fire
flashing through the summer darkness. Then he heard her voice.
"How delicious this air is. Could I trouble you to fetch my fan,
Colonel Devenhill? It is on the piano."
The man disappeared. Then Strone's heart throbbed. Though he dared
not speak or move toward her it seemed to him that they were alone.
He watched her breathlessly. A white jeweled hand played for a moment
with the ornament which held her roses--then they came dropping into
the darkness, a little shower of white blossoms. Almost immediately
the young man rejoined her, the fan in his hand. With a single bound
Strone cleared the road, picked up the roses one by one with hot, dry
fingers, and regained his shelter with the echo of a woman's soft
laugh ringing in his ears.
He chose a safe place and watched her go by an hour or so later,
leaning back in the carriage with half-closed eyes, as though asleep,
and a cloud of drooping white lace around her shoulders. It was only
a glimpse. Then he lit his pipe and trudged homeward across the hills.
With the gray dawn he turned upon his madness and fought it.
Day by day he rode backward and forward from his hillside cottage to
Gascester, through the misty dawn and the white moonlight. Like a man
at bay he fought his madness--he, the grimy mechanic in grease-stained
clothing, who had drawn an evil poison into his veins. Heart and
soul he flung himself with grim determination into his great work.
The wheels of his models whirred and the great pistons throbbed with
life. Out of chaos there resolved itself before him a problem to be
solved--beyond was fortune immeasurable. So he toiled, not discouraged
by many failures, grim and unswerving in his resolve to struggle
through into the light.
It was in those days that Strone's ambition, kindled long enough ago,
burst suddenly into full flame. He neglected his reading and his
solitary country rambles for a spell of downright hard work. Many
nights he remained at the works long after the workpeople had left,
locked in his shed, with a single light burning--laboring always at
the same apparently confused collection of wheels and strangely shaped
pieces of metal which were to do the work of ten machines or a hundred
men. His progress was slow, and a less forceful man would long ago
have been discouraged. There was a point beyond which movement seemed
impossible. Ever he was hammering away, as many others had done before
him, at a problem which seemed insoluble.
He rode backward and forward like a man in a dream. Ever those wheels
seemed flying round before his eyes, and somewhere between them
and the piston rod there was a link--but where? He told himself
plainly that the thing was possible. Some day it would come to him.
He had always told himself that. Only whereas a few months ago he
had contemplated the end with a sort of leisurely curiosity, he felt
himself impelled to work now with a feverish haste, as though time had
suddenly closed in upon him.
* * * * *
At last the day came when Strone lay on the short turf, smoking
quietly, looking out upon the glimmering world with new eyes.
Sphinxlike he gazed with an impassivity somewhat to be wondered at,
for an hour ago he had finished his task. Those silent days, those
long spells of work, when day had become fused into night and night
into day, had left their mark upon him. His face was thinner, his eyes
almost brilliant, a slight feverishness had flushed his cheeks. The
man's sense of power had grown and deepened. For he had faced great
problems, he had bent great forces to his will. He had succeeded where
other men had failed.
He looked out into the world and tried to apprise himself rightly. He
wanted to know where he stood. There was a place which he could claim.
Where? How high up, how low down? How far could wealth take him? What
was the value of his brains in the world's esteem? He tried to reckon
these things up, and he found it difficult. It was a kaleidoscopic,
misty wilderness into which he looked. He was trying to deal with his
future from a wholly new point of view, and felt very much at sea.
Those moments of introspective thought became moments of
self-confession. He realized, and admitted, the change in himself. The
old ideals were unshaken, but they no longer held paramount sway. The
gift of his brains to humanity, the betterment of his fellows, the
inauguration of certain carefully conceived labor schemes no longer
appealed to him with that wonderful enthusiasm which seemed to have
almost sanctified his work. They were still dear to him, the end and
aim of his practical efforts, but they were no longer all-controlling.
A new thing had come to him, a new emotion, quickening, irresistible,
delirious! He was no longer completely master of himself--a stray
memory could set his heart thumping, could scatter his thoughts to the
four winds of heaven. A touch of madness, this, yet sweeter even than
his sense of triumph. Such madness, too! What had he, Enoch Strone, to
do with fair women and white roses, though the woman had smiled for
a moment upon him, and the perfume of the roses still hung about his
little room. Yet--wealth was transfiguring--omnipotent. The words were
her own. And in his hand was the golden key.
During the weeks that followed, the great change in Strone's temporal
fortunes which as yet he had only dreamed of actually came to pass.
The model spoke for itself and patents had been applied for in
every country of the world. Already an offer was forthcoming for
the American rights the amount of which sounded to Strone like a
fairy tale. It was a hundred thousand pounds and the syndicate would
resell for a quarter of a million--but it was cash and the miracle
crane would make his fortune. With the offer for the first time he
realized in some measure his altered position in life. A golden key
had come into his hands, many doors in the pleasure house of the
world would fly open now at his touch. Pictures, statuary, a library,
travel--these things for which he had always craved were now within
his reach. It had come with a magical suddenness--it was hard even now
to realize. Where was he to draw the line? Where were the limits of
the things which he might set himself to win?
Then the four walls of his room fell away. He stretched out his
arms, his eyes kindled, he tore away the bandage from before them.
No more hypocrisy! The madness which had become the joy of his life
was stealing through all his veins, his heart beat fiercely with the
delight of it. He pitted his common sense against what he had deemed
a fantasy, and his common sense vanished like smoke, and the fantasy
became a real living thing. She was as far above him as the stars--a
delicately nurtured woman, with all the grace and beauty of her
order--he was a mechanic of humble origin, ignorant of the ways of her
world, of the world to which she must forever belong. What matter?
He was a man, after all, and she was a woman--and there was the golden
key. It was in his hands, and who in the universe had ever been able
to set a limit upon its powers? With her own lips he had heard her
murmur, half in jest and half in earnest, her adoration of it. His
common sense mocked at him but the madness was there like a thrall.
He walked over to the vicarage, where he had spent so many hours of
late. She was out. He waited. When he heard her carriage stop, the
trailing of her skirt as she crossed the lawn, he rose up and went to
meet her.
"John leads a lonely life out here," she said presently. "I hope you
will remember that, and come and see him often when I am gone."
He looked up at her quickly. His heart had stopped beating.
"Are you going away?" he asked.
She smiled.
"Don't you think that I have paid rather a long visit as it is?" she
asked. "I have two houses of my own I am supposed to look after, and
I had no end of engagements for last month and this. As a matter of
fact, this is the longest visit I have ever paid here in my life."
"The longest visit you have ever paid here?" he repeated. "Perhaps
that is because you have had more friends staying near?"
She looked into his eyes and laughed softly. Strone felt the hot color
burn his cheeks. Something had happened! She was changed. The tired
woman of the world had gone. She was not bored, she was not listless
any longer. She was looking at him very kindly, and her eyes were
wonderfully soft.
"Perhaps I have found one more," she said, smiling, "and have been
content to be without the others. Let go my hands, sir, at once."
She drew a little away from him. His brain was in a whirl. He was
scarcely sure of his sanity. Then:
"Will you sit down for a few minutes?" he asked. "There is something
I want to say to you."
She paused.
"I am a little tired," she said. "Will another time do?"
"No," he answered. "I am going away early to-morrow."
She followed him without comment to the seat under the cedar tree. She
leaned back and half closed her eyes. She was certainly a little pale.
"Well?"
"I have seen Dobell to-day."
"Your employer?"
"Yes. At least he was my employer. He is to be my partner."
She opened her eyes and looked at him now with languid curiosity.
"Is that not rather a sudden rise in the world?" she asked carelessly.
"It is very sudden," he answered. "It is the miracle crane. Mr. Dobell
has had it patented, and we have been offered one hundred thousand
pounds for the American rights alone. Mr. Dobell says that there is a
great fortune in it."
She looked at him with wide-open eyes, eyes full of an expression
which baffled him, which, if he had been a wiser man and more versed
in woman's ways, should also have been a warning to him.
"I congratulate you," she said quietly. "You are wonderfully fortunate
to become rich so suddenly, at your age."
Her tone was altogether emotionless, her lack of enthusiasm too
obvious to be ignored. He was puzzled. He became nervous.
"You know that it isn't the money I care about," he said. "You
yourself have always admitted that to be a power in the world wealth
is a necessity. I only care for money for what it may bring me. You
once said that the millionaire is all-powerful."
"Did I?" she answered. "That, of course, was an exaggeration."
He rose suddenly to his feet, a flush in his cheeks, his tone husky.
He stood over her, his hand on the back of her seat, his eyes seeking
to penetrate the graceful nonchalance of her tone and manner.
"Lady Malingcourt," he said, "there is one thing in the world--perhaps
I am mad to dream of it--I know I am, but if ever I had the smallest
chance of gaining it, there is nothing I would not attempt, nothing I
would not do."
There was a sharp break in his voice, a mist before his eyes. Lady
Malingcourt was studying the pattern of her lace parasol. Suddenly she
closed it and looked up at him.
"Don't you think you had better postpone the rest--until after
dinner?" she said quietly.
"No," he answered. "You and your brother, Lady Malingcourt, have
been very kind to me. You have made me sometimes almost forget the
difference between a mechanic such as I am and gentle people such
as you. So I have dared to wonder whether that difference must be
forever."
"You are really rather foolish to talk like this," she remarked,
smiling placidly at him. "I do not know quite what difference you
mean. There is no difference between your world and mine whatever,
except that a mechanic is often a gentleman, and gentle people are
often snobs. You are wonderfully modest to-day, Mr. Strone. I had an
idea that people with brains like yours considered themselves very
superior to the mere butterflies of life."
"I am speaking as I feel," he answered. "I have tried to make myself
think differently, but it is impossible. One can't ignore facts, Lady
Malingcourt, and when I am with you I feel rough, and coarse, and
ignorant; I feel that even to think of what I want to say to you is
gross presumption."
She rose slowly to her feet.
"Then do not say it, Mr. Strone," she said quietly, "and leave off
thinking about it."
His eyes sought hers eagerly, passionately. There was no sign in her
face of the woman from whose hands had fluttered those white roses
through the darkness into his keeping. Her head was uplifted, her
eyes cold--even it seemed to him that her delicate lips were slightly
curled. His heart sank like lead.
"You see, after all, I am right," he cried bitterly. "You are angry
with me, you will not let me speak. You think I am mad because I have
dared to dream of you as the one hope of my life."
"No," she answered, "I am not angry with you. I hope that you will
never allude to this again, so I will tell you something. The
difference of rank between us counts for nothing. You are young,
and you have gifts which will make you, when you choose, willingly
accepted among any class of people with whom you care to spend your
days. But, nevertheless, I consider what you were about to say to me
presumption."
He started quickly. They were face to face now upon the edge of the
lawn. Lady Malingcourt had drawn herself up, and a bright spot of
color burned in her cheeks.
"That you are a mechanic," she said, "makes you, to be candid, more
interesting to me. Nothing in your circumstances would have made your
feeling toward me anything but an honor. It is as a man that you fail.
Your standard of life is one which I could not possibly accept. I
presume that it comes from your bringing up, so I do not wish to say
anything more about it. Only I beg you to consider what I have said
as final, and to do me the favor of thinking no longer of what must
remain forever absolutely--impossible."
She swept past him and entered the house. He remained for a moment
nerveless and tongue-tied. The lash of her bitter words stupefied him.
What had he done?--wherein had he so greatly failed? After all, what
did it matter? About him lay the fragments of that wonderful dream
which had made life so sweet to him. Nothing could ever reëstablish
it. He staggered out of the gate, and walked blindly away.
The man's passion found kinship with the storm which broke suddenly
over his head. The thunder clouds rolled up from the horizon, and the
lightning shone around him with a yellow glare. Below him the tree
tops and the young corn were bent by a rushing wind--even the cattle
in the fields crept away to shelter. The sky above grew black, forked
lightning now glittered from east to west, writing its lurid message
to the trembling earth. He sat on a high rock bareheaded, and the
rain, falling now in sheets, drenched him through and through.
He had lost all control of himself. The passion which had been his
sole inheritance from his drink-sodden parents mastered him easily. At
that moment he was almost a savage. He cursed John Martinghoe and the
moment when he had been lured into the belief that his self-education
and mastery of self had made him the equal of those who were divided
from him only by the accident of birth. He cursed the woman whose
kindness had led him into a fool's paradise, the sudden change in his
position which seemed now only a mockery to him. The fit passed with
a little outburst of shame. Nevertheless, it was with bent head and
gray-lined face that he crept downward to his cottage, drenched to the
skin.
He heaped wood upon the embers of a fire and sat over it, shivering.
Almost a stupor came over him as he sat there, weak, numbed to the
bone with the clinging dampness of his clothes. If this thing had
happened to him in full health, he would have met it more bravely.
After all, it was the end which he had always told himself was
inevitable. A sense of bitter shame was mingled with his dejection.
He had built up his life so carefully, only to see it sent crashing
about his ears at a woman's light touch. So he sat brooding among the
fragments, while the rain beat fiercely against his window pane and
the wind howled in the wood.
He came to himself suddenly, awakened by the opening of the door. He
looked around. Milly stood there, her pale cheeks glowing with the
sting of the rain and the wind, her hair in disorder, her eyes alight
with the joy of seeing him. She dropped a heap of parcels and fell on
her knees by his side.
"Oh, thank God!" she sobbed. "Oh, I am so glad to see you, so glad!"
Her streaming eyes, the warm touch of her hands, pierced his
insensibility. He even smiled faintly.
"What are you doing here, child?" he asked, "on such a night, too.
Why, you are wet through."
She evaded his question, horror-stricken at his own state.
"You're fair soaked," she cried. "Mercy me!"
She brought out his gray homespun clothes from the chest, and with
deft fingers removed his coat and waistcoat, talking all the while.
"Well, I never," she exclaimed. "The rain's gone through the lining.
It's a mercy you've had sense to keep the fire in. I'll make you a hot
drink directly."
He submitted himself to her care. After the agony of the last few
hours the sound of her shrill, but not unpleasant, voice and her
breathless anxiety on his behalf seemed almost grateful. He was
hustled into dry clothes, and his feet and hands were rubbed into
a state of glowing warmth. Fresh logs were thrown upon the fire, a
kettle boiled, and some tea deftly prepared. From one of her parcels
came bread and meat. He ate at her bidding. Outside the storm grew in
violence.
She sat crouched almost at his feet, the firelight playing on her
brown hair, her eyes wet with tears.
A clearer sense of what was happening came to him. He sat up suddenly.
"How did you come here?" he asked.
"I haven't a home," she said. "Mother died last Thursday, Nancy's
taken the kids, father's in jail--he's got six months."
His old pity was revived. He smoothed her hair.
"Poor child!"
At his touch the sobs came. Her head drooped upon his knee.
"Nancy wouldn't have me in the house; her husband thinks he likes me,
and I am afraid of him. I'd nowhere to sleep, so I walked out here,
meaning to sleep in the woods. Don't turn me out, oh, don't! I'm all
alone in the world, and I don't want to be like the others. Let me
stay. I'll do everything for you. I won't speak when you don't want me
to. You'll never know I'm here, except when you want anything done.
Oh, please, please be kind to me. If you don't, I shall go and drown
myself. I've been miserable so long."
Her cry went to his heart, pierced even the dull lethargy of his own
despair. The rain was dashing against the window. He glanced at the
clock--it was nearly midnight.
"Poor little waif," he murmured, "and there are so many like you."
She crept, sobbing, into his arms; her hands were clasped around his
neck. For her it was happiness immeasurable; for him, too, there was
a certain solace in the thought that this lone creature loved him and
was dependent upon him. He sat with wide-open eyes, gazing into the
fire all the night long.
* * * * *
They were married the next day.
Through the weeks that followed things remained the same at Strone's
cottage yet different. Everything was spotlessly clean, but somehow
the atmosphere was altered. The chairs were ranged in order against
the wall. There were enormities in the shape of woolen antimacassars,
a flimsy curtain hung before the small window.
A table on which had lain a _Spectator_ and _Fortnightly Review_ was
littered over now with copies of the _Young Ladies' Journal_, some
cheap and highly colored sweets, an untidy workbasket.
In Strone himself the change was wonderful. Life had narrowed in upon
him; he looked forward with a shudder, the past was as a sealed book.
Only some days there came little flashes of memory. He found himself
suddenly recalling those wonderfully sweet days of his freedom,
when every shadow of care seemed to pass away as he rode out from
Gascester, when the wind and the sun and the song of the birds had
been his companions. That was all over now. He climbed the steep hill
with listless footsteps, no longer full of anticipation of those long
hours of exquisite solitude which had become so dear to him. Those
days had gone by--forever.
Milly would be waiting at the door, would shower upon him caresses
which long ago had palled, would chatter emptily, and dwell peevishly
on the long day's solitude. He found himself thinking with a shiver
of the interminable evening. There was no escape. If he went out she
would follow him; if he read, she sulked. He groaned to himself as he
turned the last corner and caught a glimpse of the gray smoke curling
upward.
Then he stopped short in the middle of the lane. What little color the
heat had brought into his cheeks died away. He looked wildly around,
as though half inclined to leap the gray-stone wall and vanish in the
tangled wilderness beyond. Yet there was nothing more alarming in the
way than a smartly turned-out victoria descending the hill toward him,
and, leaning back among the cushions, a tired-looking woman in a white
dress and hat with pink roses. Almost at the same moment she saw him,
and, leaning forward, she stopped the carriage. To his amazement she
stepped lightly out, gave the man an order, and waited for him in the
shade of a great oak tree which overhung the road.
He ground his teeth together and advanced to meet her steadily. She
greeted him with her old quiet smile. She, too, he thought, was
looking pale and listless.
"I'm so glad to see you. Do you mind resting your bicycle somewhere
and coming into the shade? I will not keep you very long."
He obeyed her in silence. Words seemed difficult to him just then.
They stood in the shadow of the trees which hung over from the wood.
She lowered her parasol and seemed for a moment intent upon studying
the pattern of the filmy lace. The man's heart beat out like a sledge
hammer. Yet he stood there, slowly mastering his emotion, and it was
the woman who found speech so difficult.
"I am going to tell you something," she said at last, "which a few
days ago I was very sure that I would never tell you."
She pauses. He remains speechless, his eyes fastened upon her.
"Go on."
"One afternoon when you were away I had a fancy to look at your
cottage. I came--and found someone there. I questioned the girl. She
was a friend of yours, she said. She was confused; what she said
seemed incapable of bearing more than one interpretation. I accepted
the inference--and that afternoon there was plain speaking--on the
lawn."
He was no longer steady on his feet, and in his ears was the rushing
of strange sounds, trees and sky were mixed up together.
"You believed--that?" he gasped.
"I judged you," she answered, "by the standard of a world which I
believed to be lower than yours. Remember, too, that in many ways I
knew so little of you. Different classes of society regard the same
thing from such different points of view. Yes, I judged you. I want
your forgiveness."
He looked at her wildly.
"What infernal sophistry," he cried. "What is sin in your world is sin
in mine!"
"Mind," she continued drearily, "I do not say that even without this I
could have answered you differently."
"Don't you know why I came," she said at last impulsively--"It is
because you are a man--because you have power and a great future. I
want you to rouse yourself--I want you to make a stir in the world.
This is what I have come to say to you--to preach a very simple
doctrine. Make the best of things. There is room for you in great
places, Enoch Strone. This generation is empty of strong men. Fill
your life with ambitions and remember all those wonderful dreams of
yours. Strive to realize them. Tell Milly about them; let her know
each day how you are getting on. Come out of the crowd, Enoch, and
let me feel that I have known one man in my life, at least, who was
strong enough to climb to the hilltop with another's burden upon his
shoulders."
Under the spell of her words his apathy and indifference gave way.
Life was there in her face--in her voice. He listened to her with
kindling eyes, conscious that the old passion for life was moving once
more in his veins--conscious, too, with a certain sense of wonder at
the transformation, that this woman, who was pleading with him so
earnestly, stood revealed in a wholly new light. The delicate vein of
mockery, which sometimes gave to her most serious sayings an air of
insincerity, as though conversation were a mere juggling with words,
seemed to have passed away. She spoke without languor or weariness,
and her words touched his heart--stirred his brain.
The man in him leaped up, vigorous and eager. He faced her with
glowing eyes.
"If the burden had been twice as heavy," he cried, "I would bear it
cheerfully now. Forever--"
He stopped short. Some instinct told him that any further words were
unnecessary. As she had spoken and looked, so would she remain to him
forever. So he called her carriage, and once more her fingers rested
in his great work-hardened hand.
"Good-bye," she said, "and good fortune."
When he reached the cottage Milly brought tea out to him, waited upon
him breathlessly. The terrible gloom which had oppressed her so much
had passed away. He was dressed in new and well-fitting clothes. Even
to her untrained eye there was a wonderful change in his bearing and
demeanor.
"Milly," he said, "would you like to live in London?"
The thought was like paradise. She strove to contain herself.
"With you, Enoch--anywhere."
"With me, certainly," he answered. "We shall go there next week.
You will be able to have a decent house and servants. Dobell's are
opening a London branch, and I shall have to manage it. I ought to
have told you some of these things before. I had no right to keep them
to myself. You will never be poor again, Milly. It seems as though we
were going to be very rich."
"Enoch! Enoch!"
He smiled at the excitement which baffled speech.
Later he walked out by himself, crossed the field, and entered the
deep, cool shade of the wood. It was significant that he passed the
spot where he had first met Milly with a little shudder, and hurried
away, as though even the memory of that night pursued him. All the
while a subtle sense of excitement was in his veins, mingled with a
strange, haunting sadness. For him the life in quiet places was over.
This was his farewell pilgrimage. Henceforth his place was in the
stress of life, in the great passion-riven heart of the world. His
days of contemplation were over. There had come Milly, and he very
well knew that the old life here, where the singing of every wind, the
music of the birds, thrilled him with early memories, was impossible.
After all, good might come of it. The sweetness of solitude, of
crowding the brain with delicate fancies, of basking in the joy of
beautiful places, was in many senses a paralyzing sweetness. Man was
made for creation, not contemplation. So he turned his eyes upon the
new world, and there were big things there to wrestle with. The cry
of his fellows was in his ears, the cry of those to whom life was a
desert place, the long-drawn-out murmur of the great nether world.
Life would be good there where the giants fought. Perhaps some day he
might even win forgetfulness.
There followed for Enoch Strone during the three succeeding years all
the varied lights that shine on a quick success. Not long after his
arrival in London he was elected to Parliament, and the ringing maiden
speech and rapid progress in the House of the new Labor member were
the talk of political circles for a long time. During this period the
calls of home and friendship were many, yet he moved through it all
singularly unspoilt, impersonally attending in an official capacity
only the brilliant dinners and social gathering where he found himself
a man among men, but which threw into cruel relief the atmosphere of
his own home. Wherever he went Strone was treated with much deference,
for he was without doubt in the political world a person of some
importance. The balance of parties being fairly even, the government
was dependent upon the support of the Labor men to neutralize the
Irish faction. And of late Strone had been pushing his claims with
calm but significant persistence. The government was pledged to his
"Better Housing of the Poor" bill, and he had firmly refused to have
it shelved any longer.
This fact he made plain among the men gathered at Lord Sydenham's one
evening.
"You don't let the grass grow beneath your feet, my friend," remarked
his host, "and your bill on Thursday is going to hit the landlords
very hard, you know."
"There are a good many landlords whom I would rather see hanged than
merely hit," Strone answered.
The Duke of Massingham moved across to them.
"Come, come, Strone. What's this I hear--you want to hang the
landlords?"
"Not all, your grace," Strone answered, with a gleam in his eye. "Only
those who house men and women like rats, who let their property tumble
to ruin while they drag the last shilling of their rents from starving
men and women. To such as these I would make the criminal laws apply.
They are responsible for many human lives--for the lower physique of
our race."
Lord Sydenham turned round and touched him upon the shoulder.
"Strone," he said, "I want to introduce you to my cousin. Beatrice,
allow me to present Mr. Strone--Lady Malingcourt."
Under the fire of dinner-table talk they relapsed easily enough into
more familiar relations.
"I am not at all sure that I like you," she said, looking at him
critically. "Your dress coat came evidently from Saville Row and
your tie is perfection. You are not in character at all. I expected
a homespun suit, hobnailed boots, and a flannel shirt. I wasn't sure
about the collar, but I counted upon a red tie. Please don't tell me
that you are a club man, and that you go to afternoon teas."
He laughed. Even his voice was subdued.
"No fear of that," he declared. "When I go out it is generally to
meat teas in the suburbs or midday dinners with my constituents in
Gascester. I have even a red tie of which I am very fond."
She stole another glance at him. There were streaks of gray in
his black hair, deep lines in his hard, clean-shaven face. If a
dinner such as this was a rare event to him, he showed no signs of
awkwardness. He joined now and then in the conversation around. Most
of the men seemed known to him.
"I have read of you," she said abruptly, "of your maiden speech and
rapid progress in the House."
He lowered his voice.
"It was what you wished?"
"Nothing has ever given me more pleasure," she said simply. "You got
my cable?"
He nodded.
"Two words only--'Well done.' I have it in my pocket to-night."
She abandoned the subject precipitately.
"And your social schemes?"
"They progress," he answered thoughtfully. "I have had
disappointments, but on the whole--yes, I am satisfied. When you are
at Gascester, I should like to show you some of my experiments."
She talked for a few minutes to her neighbor on the other side. Then
she turned to him and smiled.