BARBARA MAKES A SPEECH.
While Alan and Barbara, on the most momentous occasion of their lives,
were seated upon the fallen oak in the woods that thrilled with the
breath of spring, another interview was taking place in Mr.
Champers-Haswell’s private suite at The Court, the decorations of
which, as he was wont to inform his visitors, had cost nearly £2000.
Sir Robert, whose taste at any rate was good, thought them so appalling
that while waiting for his host and partner, whom he had come to see,
he took a seat in the bow window of the sitting-room and studied the
view that nobody had been able to spoil. Presently Mr. Haswell emerged
from his bedroom, wrapped in a dressing gown and looking very pale and
shaky.
“Delighted to see you all right again,” said Sir Robert as he
wheeled up a chair into which Mr. Haswell sank.
“I am not all right, Aylward,” he answered; “I am not all
right at all. Never had such an upset in my life; thought I was going to
die when that accursed savage told his beastly tale. Aylward, you are a
man of the world, tell me, what is the meaning of the thing? You
remember what we thought we saw in the office, and then—that story.”
“I don’t know,” he answered; “frankly I don’t
know. I am a man who has never believed in anything I cannot see and
test, one who utterly lacks faith. In my leisure I have examined into
the various religious systems and found them to be rubbish. I am
convinced that we are but highly-developed mammals born by chance, and
when our day is done, departing into the black nothingness out of which
we came. Everything else, that is, what is called the higher and
spiritual part, I attribute to the superstitions incident to the terror
of the hideous position in which we find ourselves, that of gods of a
sort hemmed in by a few years of fearful and tormented life. But you
know the old arguments, so why should I enter on them? And now I am
confronted with an experience which I cannot explain. I certainly
thought that in the office on Friday evening I saw that gold mask to
which I had taken so strange a fancy that I offered to give Vernon
£17,000 for it because I thought that it brought us luck, swim across
the floor of our room and look first into your face and then into mine.
Well, the next night that negro tells his story. What am I to make of
it?”
“Can’t tell you,” answered Mr. Champers-Haswell with a groan.
“All I know is that it nearly made a corpse of me. I am not like you,
Aylward, I was brought up as an Evangelical, and although I haven’t
given much thought to these matters of late years—well, we don’t shake
them off in a hurry. I daresay there is something somewhere, and when
the black man was speaking, that something seemed uncommonly near. It
got up and gripped me by the throat, shaking the mortal breath out of
me, and upon my word, Aylward, I have been wishing all the morning that
I had led a different kind of life, as my old parents and my brother
John, Barbara’s father, who was a very religious kind of man, did
before me.”
“It is rather late to think of all that now, Haswell,” said Sir
Robert, shrugging his shoulders. “One takes one’s line and
there’s an end. Personally I believe that we are overstrained with the
fearful and anxious work of this flotation, and have been the victims of
an hallucination and a coincidence. Although I confess that I came to
look upon the thing as a kind of mascot, I put no trust in any fetish.
How can a bit of gold move, and how can it know the future? Well, I
have written to them to clear it out of the office to-morrow, so it
won’t trouble us any more. And now I have come to speak to you on
another matter.”
“Not business,” said Mr. Haswell with a sigh. “We have that
all the week and there will be enough of it on Monday.”
“No,” he answered, “something more important. About your
niece Barbara.”
Mr. Haswell glanced at him with those little eyes of his which were so
sharp that they seemed to bore like gimlets.
“Barbara?” he said. “What of Barbara?”
“Can’t you guess, Haswell? You are pretty good at it, generally.
Well, it is no use beating about the bush; I want to marry her.”
At this sudden announcement his partner became exceedingly interested.
Leaning back in the chair he stared at the decorated ceiling, and
uttered his favourite wind-in-the-wires whistle.
“Indeed,” he said. “I never knew that matrimony was in your
line, Aylward, any more than it has been in mine, especially as you are
always preaching against it. Well, has the young lady given her
consent?”
“No, I have not spoken to her. I meant to do so this morning, but she
has slipped off somewhere, with Vernon, I suppose.”
Mr. Haswell whistled again, but on a new note.
“Pray do stop that noise,” said Sir Robert; “it gets upon my
nerves, which are shaky this morning. Listen: It is a curious thing, one
less to be understood even than the coincidence of the Yellow God, but
at my present age of forty-four, for the first time in my life I have
committed the folly of what is called falling in love. It is not the
case of a successful, middle-aged man wishing to _ranger_ himself and
settle down with a desirable _partie_, but of sheer, stark infatuation.
I adore Barbara; the worse she treats me the more I adore her. I had
rather that the Sahara flotation should fail than that she should
refuse me. I would rather lose three-quarters of my fortune than lose
her. Do you understand?”
His partner looked at him, pursed up his lips to whistle, then
remembered and shook his head instead.
“No,” he answered. “Barbara is a nice girl, but I should not
have imagined her capable of inspiring such sentiments in a man almost
old enough to be her father. I think that you are the victim of a kind
of mania, which I have heard of but never experienced. Venus—or is it
Cupid?—has netted you, my dear Aylward.”
“Oh! pray leave gods and goddesses out of it, we have had enough of them
already,” he answered, exasperated. “That is my case at any rate,
and what I want to know now is if I have your support in my suit.
Remember, I have something to offer, Haswell, for instance, a large
fortune of which I will settle half—it is a good thing to do in our
business,—and a baronetcy that will be a peerage before long.”
“A peerage! Have you squared that?”
“I think so. There will be a General Election within the next three
months, and on such occasions a couple of hundred thousand in cool cash
come in useful to a Party that is short of ready money. I think I may
say that it is settled. She will be the Lady Aylward, or any other name
she may fancy, and one of the richest women in England. Now have I your
support?”
“Yes, my dear friend, why not, though Barbara does not want money, for
she has plenty of her own, in first-class securities that I could never
persuade her to vary, for she is shrewd in that way and steadily refuses
to sign anything. Also she will probably be my heiress—and, Aylward,”
here a sickly look of alarm spread itself over his face, “I don’t
know how long I have to live. That infernal doctor examined my heart
this morning and told me that it was weak. Weak was his word, but from
the tone in which he said it, I believe that he meant more. Aylward, I
gather that I may die any day.”
“Nonsense, Haswell, so may we all,” he replied, with an affectation
of cheerfulness which failed to carry conviction.
Presently Mr. Haswell, who had hidden his face in his hand, looked up
with a sigh and said:
“Oh! yes, of course you have my support, for after all she is my only
relation and I should be glad to see her safely married. Also, as it
happens, she can’t marry anyone without my consent, at any rate until
she is five-and-twenty, for if she does, under her father’s will all
her property goes away, most of it to charities, except a beggarly £200
a year. You see my brother John had a great horror of imprudent
marriages and a still greater belief in me, which as it chances, is a
good thing for you.”
“Had he?” said Sir Robert. “And pray why is it a good thing
for me?”
“Because, my dear Aylward, unless my observation is at fault, there is
another Richard in the field, our late partner, Vernon, of whom, by the
way, Barbara is extremely fond, though it may only be in a friendly
fashion. At any rate she pays more attention to his wishes and opinions
than to mine and yours put together.”
At the mention of Alan’s name Aylward started violently.
“I feared it,” he said, “and he is more than ten years my
junior and a soldier, not a man of business. Also there is no use
disguising the truth, although I am a baronet and shall be a peer and
he is nothing but a beggarly country gentleman with a D.S.O. tacked on
to his name, he belongs to a different class to us, as she does too on
her mother’s side. Well, I can smash him up, for you remember I took
over that mortgage on Yarleys, and I’ll do it if necessary. Practically
our friend has not a shilling that he can call his own. Therefore,
Haswell, unless you play me false, which I don’t think you will, for I
can be a nasty enemy,” he added with a threat in his voice, “Alan
Vernon hasn’t much chance in that direction.”
“I don’t know, Aylward, I don’t know,” replied Haswell,
shaking his white head. “Barbara is a strong-willed woman and she might
choose to take the man and let the money go, and then—who can stop her?
Also I don’t like your idea of smashing Vernon. It isn’t right, and
it may come back on our own heads, especially yours. I am sorry that he
has left us, as you were on Friday night, for somehow he was a good,
honest stick to lean on, and we want such a stick. But I am tired now,
I really can’t talk any more. The doctor warned me against excitement.
Get the girl’s consent, Aylward, and we’ll see. Ah! here comes my soup.
Good-bye for the present.”
When Sir Robert came down to luncheon he found Barbara looking
particularly radiant and charming, already presiding at that meal and
conversing in her best French to the foreign gentlemen, who were paying
her compliments.
“Forgive me for being late,” he said; “first of all I have
been talking to your uncle, and afterwards skimming through the articles
in yesterday’s papers on our little venture which comes out to-morrow.
A cheerful occupation on the whole, for with one or two exceptions they
are all favourable.”
“Mon Dieu,” said the French gentlemen on the right, “seeing
what they did cost, that is not strange. Your English papers they are so
expensive; in Paris we have done it for half the money.”
Barbara and some of the guests laughed outright, finding this frankness
charming.
“But where have you been, Miss Champers? I thought that we were going to
have a round of golf together. The caddies were there, I was there, the
greens had been specially rolled this morning, but there was no You.”
“No,” she answered, “because Major Vernon and I walked to
church and heard a very good sermon upon the observance of the Sabbath.”
“You are severe,” he said. “Do you think it wrong for men who
work hard all the week to play a harmless game on Sunday?”
“Not at all, Sir Robert.” Then she looked at him and, coming to a
sudden decision, added, “If you like I will play you nine holes this
afternoon and give you a stroke a hole, or would you prefer a foursome?”
“No, let us fight alone and let the best player win.”
“Very well, Sir Robert; but you mustn’t forget that I am
handicapped.”
“Don’t look angry,” she whispered to Alan as they strolled
out into the garden after lunch, “I must clear things up and know what
we have to face. I’ll be back by tea-time, and we will have it out with
my uncle.”
The nine holes had been played, and by a single stroke Barbara had won
the match, which pleased her very much, for she had done her best, and
with such heavy odds in his favour Sir Robert, who had also done his
best, was no mean opponent, even for a player of her skill. Indeed the
fight had been quite earnest, for each party knew that it was but a
prelude to another and more serious fight, and looked upon the result
as in some sense an omen.
“I am conquered,” he said in a voice in which vexation struggled
with a laugh, “and by a woman over whom I had an advantage. It is
humiliating, for I confess I do not like being beaten.”
“Don’t you think that women generally win if they mean to?”
asked Barbara. “I believe that when they fail, which is often enough, it
is because they don’t care, or can’t make up their minds. A woman
in earnest is a dangerous antagonist.”
“Yes,” he answered, “or the best of allies.” Then he
gave the clubs and half-a-crown to the caddies, and when they were out
of hearing, added, “Miss Champers, I have been wondering for some time
whether it is possible that you would become such an ally to me.”
“I know nothing of business, Sir Robert; my tastes do not lie that
way.”
“You know well that I was not speaking of business, Miss Champers. I was
speaking of another kind of partnership, that which Nature has ordained
between men and women—marriage. Will you accept me as a husband?”
She opened her lips to speak, but he lifted his hand and went on.
“Listen before you give that ready answer which it is so hard to
recall, or smooth away. I know all my disadvantages, my years, which to
you may seem many; my modest origin; my trade, which, not altogether
without reason, you despise and dislike. Well, the first two cannot be
changed except for the worse; the second can be, and already is, buried
beneath the gold and ermine of wealth and titles. What does it matter
if I am the son of a City clerk who never earned more than £2 a week
and was born in a tenement at Battersea, when I am one of the rich men
of this rich land and shall die a peer in a palace, leaving millions
and honours to my children? As for the third, my occupation, I am
prepared to give it up. It has served my turn, and after next week I
shall have earned the amount that years ago I determined to earn.
Thenceforth, set above the accidents of fortune, I propose to devote
myself to higher aims, those of legitimate ambition. So far as my time
would allow I have already taken some share in politics as a worker; I
intend to continue in them as a ruler which I still have the health and
ability to do. I mean to be one of the first men in this Empire, to
ride to power over the heads of all the nonentities whose only claim
upon the confidence of their countrymen is that they were born in a
certain class, with money in their pockets and without the need to spend
the best of their manhood in work. With you at my side I can do all
these things and more, and such is the future that I have to offer
you.”
Again she would have broken in upon his speech and again he stopped her,
reading the unspoken answer on her lips.
“Listen: I have not told you all. Perhaps I have put first what should
have come last. I have not told you that I love you earnestly and
sincerely, with the settled, unalterable love that sometimes comes to
men in middle-age who have never turned their thought that way before.
I will not attempt the rhapsodies of passion which at my time of life
might sound foolish or out of place; yet it is true that I am filled
with this passion which has descended on me and taken possession of me.
I who often have laughed at such things in other men, adore you. You
are a joy to my eyes. If you are not in the room, for me it is empty. I
admire the uprightness of your character, and even your prejudices, and
to your standard I desire to approximate my own. I think that no man can
ever love you quite so well as I do, Barbara Champers. Now speak. I am
ready to meet the best or the worst.”
After her fashion Barbara looked him straight in the face with her
steady eyes, and answered gently enough, for the man’s method of
presenting his case, elaborate and prepared though it evidently was,
had touched her.
“I fear it is the worst, Sir Robert. There are hundreds of women
superior to myself in every way who would be glad to give you the help
and companionship you ask, with their hearts thrown in. Choose one of
them, for I cannot do so.”
He heard and for the first time his face broke, as it were. All this
while it had remained masklike and immovable, even when he spoke of his
love, but now it broke as ice breaks at the pressure of a sudden flood
beneath, and she saw the depths and eddies of his nature and understood
their strength. Not that he revealed them in speech, angry or pleading,
for that remained calm and measured enough. She did not hear, she saw,
and even then it was marvellous to her that a mere change in a man’s
expression could explain so much.
“Those are very cruel words,” he said. “Are they
unalterable?”
“Quite. I do not play in such matters, it would be wicked.”
“May I ask you one question, for if the answer is in the negative, I
shall still continue to hope? Do you care for any other man?”
Again she looked at him with her fearless eyes and answered:
“Yes, I am engaged to another man.”
“To Alan Vernon?”
She nodded.
“When did that happen? Some years ago?”
“No, this morning.”
“Great Heavens!” he muttered in a hoarse voice turning his head
away, “this morning. Then last night it might not have been too late,
and last night I should have spoken to you, I had arranged it all. Yes,
if it had not been for the story of that accursed fetish and your
uncle’s illness, I should have spoken to you, and perhaps succeeded.”
“I think not,” she said.
He turned upon her and notwithstanding the tears in his eyes they burned
like fire.
“You think—you think,” he gasped, “but I know. Of
course after this morning it was impossible. But, Barbara, I say that I
will win you yet. I have never failed in any object that I set before
myself, and do not suppose that I shall fail in this. Although in a way
I liked and respected him, I have always felt that Vernon was my enemy,
one destined to bring grief and loss upon me, even if he did not intend
to do so. Now I understand why, and he shall learn that I am stronger
than he. God help him! I say.”
“I think He will,” Barbara answered, calmly. “You are
speaking wildly, and I understand the reason and hope that you will
forget your words, but whether you forget or remember, do not suppose
that you frighten me. You men who have made money,” she went on with
swelling indignation, “who have made money somehow, and have bought
honours with the moneys somehow, think yourselves great, and in your
little day, your little, little day that will end with three lines in
small type in _The Times_, you are great in this vulgar land. You can
buy what you want and people creep round you and ask you for doles and
favours, and railway porters call you ‘my Lord’ at every other step.
But you forget your limitations in this world, and that which lies
above you. You say you will do this and that. You should study a book
which few of you ever read, where it tells you that you do not know
what you will be on the morrow; that your life is even as a vapour
appearing for a little time and then vanishing away. You think that you
can crush the man to whom I have given my heart because he is honest
and you are dishonest, because you are rich and he is poor, and because
he chances to have succeeded where you have not. Well, for myself and
for him I defy you. Do your worst and fail, and when you have failed,
in the hour of your extremity remember my words to-day. If I have given
you pain by refusing you it is not my fault and I am sorry, but when
you threaten the man who has honoured me with his love and whom I
honour above every creature upon the earth, then I threaten back, and
may the Power that made us all judge between you and me, as judge it
will,” and bursting into tears she turned and left him.
Sir Robert watched her go.
“What a woman!” he said meditatively, “what a woman—to
have lost. Well she has set the stakes and we will play out the game.
The cards all seem to be in my hands, but it would not in the least
surprise me if she won the rubber, for the element that I call Chance
and she would call something else, may come in. Still, I never refused
a challenge yet and we will play the game out without pity to the
loser.”
That night the first trick was played. When he got back to The Court Sir
Robert ordered his motorcar and departed on urgent business, either to
his own place, Old Hall, or to London, saying only that he had been
summoned away by telegram. As the 70-horse-power Mercedes glided out of
the gates a pencilled note was put into Mr. Haswell’s hand.
It ran: “I have tried and failed—for the present. By ill-luck A.V.
had been before me, only this morning. If I had not missed my chance
last night owing to your illness, it would have been different. I do
not, however, in the least abandon my plan, in which of course I rely
on and expect your support. Keep V. in the office or let him go as you
like. Perhaps it would be better if you could prevail upon him to stop
there until after the flotation. But whatever you say at the moment, I
trust to you to absolutely veto any engagement between him and your
niece, and to that end to use all your powers and authority as her
guardian. Burn this note.