The cottage which Mrs. Romayne had taken for August and September, on
Julian’s refusal to go abroad, was situated a few miles above Henley.
It was a very charming little house, to which the term “cottage” was
applicable only in mock humility; and it was very charmingly situated. It
had a delightful garden, not large, but full of “roses, and sunflowers,
and all sorts of things,” as Mrs. Romayne explained to Julian after her
visit of inspection. Its lawns sloped down to the river, and altogether,
on the same authority, it was a wonderful chance to get hold of it.
The statement which Mrs. Romayne had made to Lady Bracondale on Julian’s
authority, that there were “nice people about,” had originated, as a
matter of fact, not with Julian, but with his mother herself. It was
quite true, nevertheless; but apparently Julian’s sudden desire for quiet
had proved infectious. The acquaintance between herself and her present
neighbours being of the slightest, Mrs. Romayne made no such attempt as
might have been expected of her to develope that acquaintance.
She seemed to be strangely without impetus in herself towards action
of any kind. She was “resting,” some people might have said; she was
pausing, certainly. But whether, as the days went on, her life did not
signify rather temporary and enforced quiescence, than the peaceful and
pleasant suspension of labour, might have been an open question.
It was a hot, bright August; day after day the sun shone steadily down,
as Julian departed for town after an early breakfast, at which his mother
never failed to appear. Day after day it shone through all the long,
little-broken hours upon the quiet house and garden, about which the one
woman’s figure moved in almost total solitude, until, with the evening,
Julian returned again. Evening after evening the mother and son spent
alone, but by no means always together. After their dinner, during which
conversation seldom flagged between them, any more than it would have
flagged between two friendly and well-bred acquaintances, Mrs. Romayne
would sit in the drawing-room with a bit of fashionable fancy-work in
her hand, into which she only occasionally put a stitch; and sometimes
Julian would spend half an hour with her there, reading the newspaper and
carrying on the talk of dinner; or sometimes he would stroll out into the
garden at once, and come in only just before bed-time.
Mrs. Romayne never followed him and never questioned him. Perhaps it
was the curiously still life she led which brought so strange and still
an expression to her face; a stillness which suggested a slow, wearing
waiting, and a mingled concentration, watchfulness, and patience.
It was an evening in the second week of September, and she was walking
up and down the lawn in the fading sunset light. She was moving with
slow, regular steps, with the monotonous motion of a woman to whom the
even movement brought some sort of relief or soothing. There was an
indescribable touch of desolateness about her lonely figure as she moved
up and down before the empty house.
A servant came out to her by-and-by with some newly-arrived letters. She
took them, and then, her monotonous motion being perforce suspended, a
sense of physical fatigue seemed to assert itself, and she sat down on a
low basket-chair.
A sigh came from her as she did so, one of those sighs which in their
unconsciousness are so suggestive of habitual suffering. She paused a
moment, looking away into space with absent eyes. Then she seemed to
rouse herself, and took up one of the letters as if forcing herself
to seek relief from the current of her monotonous thoughts. She had
opened the envelope and read the letter half through in a mechanical,
uninterested way, when its contents seemed suddenly to arrest her
attention. A change came to her expression, a change which in its slight
quickening and revival showed how dulled, almost numbed, it had been
before.
She turned once more to the beginning of the letter and read it again.
“GLENFYLE, ROSS-SHIRE.
“DEAR MRS. ROMAYNE,
“I am so sorry to have to ask you to postpone the visit which
you had promised us for the end of this month. I find that
by some stupid mistake my husband and I have given separate
invitations for the same date. As there is, unfortunately, no
doubt that his invitation was given first, there falls upon me
the very disagreeable task of explaining the situation to you
and your son, and begging you to forgive me.
“Yours truly,
“MARION STEWART.”
Mrs. Romayne leant back in her chair, not indolently, but with an intent
consideration in every line of her figure; and letting the hand that held
the letter fall on her knee, she sat gazing at the written words with
sharp, angrily sparkling eyes, which looked as though they were bent on
piercing through the words themselves to the meaning which she believed
they hid. She was evidently surprised and annoyed; as evidently she gave
not an instant’s credence to the reason alleged for the postponement of
the visit in question; and the slight involved in this postponement,
indefinite, as she noticed with an unpleasant little smile, seemed to
stimulate her.
Her face had grown even vindictive, when her eyes fell on the postmark
of the second letter lying on her knee. It was that of the same little
Scotch town, the name of which was stamped upon the already opened
envelope. She took it up eagerly, and as she saw the handwriting, she
paused for an instant, and a flash of intense consideration passed across
her face. Then she tore it hastily open. It was from Mrs. Pomeroy, and it
conveyed in three long-winded and incoherent sheets a piece of news which
the writer was sure would delight Mrs. Romayne.
“Dear Maud,” the letter said, was just engaged to “that charming Mr.
Loring.” Mrs. Pomeroy’s mind seemed to be in a state of somewhat
considerable confusion between a theoretical and conventional sense that
it was very sad for her to lose her daughter, and a certain practical and
actual sense, which by no means harmonised with the theoretical one, and
all unconsciously threw a good deal of light on the relations between
the mother and daughter, as they actually existed. The coherence of the
letter was further disturbed by sundry sentences, which dovetailed so
oddly into the general fabric that they had somewhat the appearance of
being inserted to order; sentences which conveyed various repetitions of
“dear Maud’s” assurance of Mrs. Romayne’s congratulations; and various
repetitions of the statement that Mr. Loring’s financial position had
recently improved amazingly, and that he was sure of a seat in Parliament
at the forthcoming general election.
“He has been staying with the Stewarts during the whole of our visit to
them,” the letter ended. “Dear Lady Marion has been so kind about it, and
taken such an interest.”
“Ah!”
The exclamation, uttered, evidently involuntarily, just above her breath,
came from Mrs. Romayne’s lips sharply and bitterly. She had read the
letter through with certain quick movements of her eyebrows, and mocking
smiles coming and going about her thin lips, and they smiled again as she
folded the letter deliberately and put it back into its envelope. She was
looking thoroughly roused now, and there was a confidence in her alert,
determined expression. It was the kindling up of martial spirit at a
challenging trumpet-call from a well-known battlefield.
If Marston Loring and his future wife were indeed arranging their
forces for the undermining of Mrs. Romayne’s social position--and Miss
Pomeroy and Loring between them could have pieced out a very sufficient
explanation of Lady Marion Stewart’s note--the campaign, judging from
appearances at that moment, was likely to be far from a tame one.
Mrs. Romayne was still sitting with the letters in her hand, tapping one
foot with impatient vigour upon the grass, and there was the same eager
intentness in her eyes, when from the house behind her the sound of a
dinner-bell rang out. She started violently, and in the start something
seemed to fall between her and the subject on which her thoughts had been
busy. A curious shade of that new stillness replaced the energy on her
face. It was the dressing-bell, and she rose mechanically; and as she
turned towards the house her eyes fell upon the figure of Julian. He had
evidently been standing on the verandah, and as she rose he had turned,
and was disappearing into the house. Another shade of stillness fell upon
her face, as though the letters she had received, and the feelings they
had stirred, had receded into the distance.
It often happened that the mother and son did not meet, on Julian’s
return home in the evening, until dinner-time, and it happened so
this evening. The dinner-bell was ringing when Julian came downstairs
with a quick word or two of apology, and followed his mother into the
dining-room.
Julian looked as though his month’s hard work had by no means agreed
with him. His face was even painfully thin and worn, and there was
an expression of hard concentration about it which seemed to age it
strangely. His eyes were rather sunken. It was a curious feature of a
change in him less easily defined, that his likeness to his mother had
faded considerably. All the character of his face now seemed to originate
about his mouth; that mouth of which Mrs. Romayne had been wont to say
with affected gaiety that it was like nobody in particular; that mouth
which had been a somewhat weak and undecided feature. There was nothing
undecided about it now, and Mrs. Romayne never looked at it without a
deepening of that stillness on her face. It was set into heavy, resolute
lines.
No one, indeed, judging from the bare outline of Julian’s daily life
during that hot August, could have wondered at the signs of physical wear
and tear that he exhibited. Ten o’clock, on every one of those sultry
days, found him at work, not indeed in the Temple, but in an office in
the City; and it was from the same office that he would issue forth at
about five o’clock to catch the train for Henley, sometimes with sullen
determination, sometimes with a pale, fierce excitement on his face.
The affairs of the Welcome Diamond Mining Company had readjusted
themselves, after the blow which had threatened the company’s very
existence, as hardly the most sanguine could have hoped. Ten days
after the announcement of the presence of water in the mine, some of
the newspapers published another telegram which had been received by
the directors. The passage of the water, by which the existing mine
was rendered practically useless, had revealed hitherto unsuspected
possibilities, and there appeared to be little doubt that the first mine
had been, as it were, only a pledge of still richer strata yet to be
worked. One telegram followed another, confirming the report in greater
detail. Prospectuses were issued, setting forth a proposal to utilise the
opportunity thus opened, and debentures were issued for the providing of
the necessary funds. These debentures were taken up somewhat slowly at
first, but on the arrival in England of specimens of diamonds from the
new lead, together with a circumstantial report, they were taken up with
a rush. Works were understood to be already on foot, and dividends were
looked for at an early date. The new managing director of the company was
Julian Romayne.
There was a kind of dry excitement about him to-night behind the
deliberate assumption of conversational interest which was his
never-changing manner with his mother now, and his hand shook a little as
he poured himself out more wine than usual.
He did not rejoin his mother in the drawing-room, saying something as she
left him about having letters to write; and two hours afterwards he was
walking up and down the lawn in the moonlight with a cigar.
There was a fierce restlessness in his step, and there was a fierce
restlessness in his face, too. He had been walking there for half an hour
when a shadow passed across the blind of the drawing-room window--the
night was very hot and the window was wide open--and the blind was drawn
up. Mrs. Romayne’s figure stood there outlined by the lamplight within.
The drawing-room window was shadowed from the moonlight by an angle of
the house.
“Good night, Julian!” she called.
Julian stopped in his walk mechanically.
“Good night, mother!” he answered. The figure in the window seemed to
hesitate for a moment; then Mrs. Romayne moved and drew down the blind,
the lights in the room behind went out one by one, and Julian resumed his
walk in the moonlight as mechanically as he had stopped it.
It was his custom to go, every morning, first to his room in the Temple
in case any letters might be waiting for him there; and on the following
morning, a slight accident on the line having considerably delayed his
train, he paused a moment before giving his order to the cabman. He was
very late, and there was a feverish impatience in every line of his face.
He had almost decided that any private letters might wait until the next
day, when, with a sudden, unaccountable reaction, he sprang into the cab
and told the man to drive to the Temple.
He had apparently repented of the resolution by the time the cab stopped,
for he sprang out with a muttered imprecation on the delay. There was
only one letter waiting for him, and he caught it up fiercely. Then the
handwriting in which it was directed caught his eye.
All the tumultuous heat and impatience of his face died out suddenly
and utterly. He stood for a moment staring down at the letter, white
to the very lips. Then he seemed absolutely and physically to set his
teeth, and in the intense hardness of determination which set its mark
on every muscle of his face, his whole expression would have seemed to
deteriorate, markedly and terribly, but for the desperation in his eyes
which was little short of agony.
He moved abruptly, crossed the room, unlocked a drawer in his
writing-table, and thrust the letter in with quick, deliberate movements,
unopened. He locked the drawer again sharply, and turned and went hastily
out of the room.
The letter was from Clemence; it was the first sign of her existence
which he had received since their parting on that June evening nearly
three months ago.
He was looking only older, harder, and more recklessly resolute when
about a quarter of an hour later he entered the office of the Welcome
Diamond Mining Company. The feeble-looking little messenger was in
solitary possession, and he looked up rather uneasily as Julian wished
him a brief good morning and crossed to the door of the manager’s room.
“Mr. Ramsay’s just gone out, Mr. Romayne,” he said. “I was to say he
would be in again directly.”
Julian made a curt gesture of assent and went on into the private room.
There was plenty of work waiting for him, it appeared, and he was still
applying himself to it with dogged concentration, when, nearly an hour
later, the door opened and Ramsay appeared.
“There you are!” he said indifferently. “I thought you weren’t going to
turn up this morning.”
Julian had just glanced up from the letter he was writing to acknowledge
the other man’s entrance, and he went on writing as he explained briefly
that his train had been delayed.
“No particular reason for wanting me, I suppose?” he said in a brief,
businesslike way, as he laid down his pen.
Ramsay sat down deliberately, and put his hand into the breast-pocket of
his coat.
“Well, yes,” he said. “There’s a matter here which rather calls for the
attention of the managing director.”
He held out a letter as he spoke, and Julian took it and read it quickly.
Then he laid it down on the table before him, and looked up slowly at
Ramsay. His face was rather pale.
“A general meeting of shareholders!” he said. “Demanded!”
There was a moment’s pause, while he looked steadily into Ramsay’s
immoveable face, and then he added in the same rather difficult tone:
“Did you expect this, Ramsay?”
“I never expect,” returned Ramsay drily. “Such a thing was on the cards,
of course.”
Julian’s face grew dark and calculating.
“Well,” he said harshly, after another moment’s pause, “it must be
arranged for, of course. What do you propose?”
Ramsay answered the question by another.
“Do you happen to know anything,” he said, “of a man named
Compton--Howard Compton?”
Julian’s brows contracted as if with an involuntary effort to detect the
relevancy of the question as he answered tersely:
“Yes. He and I belong to the same club.”
“You didn’t know, I suppose, that some shares in the Welcome have drifted
into his hands?”
Julian shook his head with a quick frown of vexation.
“Ah!” observed Ramsay; “they have, though. And it has come to my
knowledge that various enquiries have been made into the state of the
Welcome Diamond Mine; made on the spot, and made in secret. And I’ve
traced these enquiries to this Mr. Howard Compton.”
A dreadful grey pallor had begun to spread itself over Julian’s face, and
the muscles seemed to have grown rigid with the intense force with which
he held them to their expression of dogged determination. He did not
speak, and Ramsay went on in the same dry, indifferent way:
“He is either a very clever hand, or very cleverly advised. The one point
we score, at present, is that he has not done as he intended to do, and
taken us by surprise.”
“Do you mean to say----”
The words seemed to come from between Julian’s dry, white lips almost
without consciousness on his part. His eyes were fixed upon Ramsay with
a hard, unseeing kind of stare, his voice was hoarse, uneven, and hardly
audible, and it died away, leaving the sentence unfinished.
“The meaning is obvious, of course,” returned Ramsay. “An affair of this
kind is a ticklish thing to pull off, and a hitch of this kind is always
possible, though I never came across an affair in which it seemed less
probable. I don’t know yet exactly how much our friend knows. The meeting
won’t be a particularly placid affair, of course, and you’re likely to
have a warm time of it. But, of course, there’s a chance that he mayn’t
know quite enough, and we may be able to pull it through, yet.”
“And if not?”
Something seemed to rattle in Julian’s throat as he spoke the words, and
they came out thick and husky.
“If not?” repeated Ramsay. “Well, if not, I think I wouldn’t go to that
meeting if I were you.”
There was a moment’s dead silence, broken only by Julian’s heavy,
laboured breathing. The two men sat there face to face, and their eyes
met with a terrible significance of what was better unexpressed in words.
Then Ramsay’s dull eyes took a deliberate survey of Julian’s face. It was
drawn and livid, and the elder man rose and took from the cupboard some
brandy. He poured it into a glass with a slightly contemptuous smile, and
put it into Julian’s hand.
“You’re the very devil to work,” he said drily. “And for all I know you
may be first-rate as a winner; but I can’t say you’re a good loser. And
it’s a useful lesson to learn in this business.”
Julian drank the brandy and rose mechanically. The strong stimulant
hardly seemed to touch the blanched horror of his face.
“What do you propose to do?” he said in a stiff, toneless voice.
“Personally, nothing,” returned Ramsay, “until I know more. Business will
go on as usual. You’ll call the meeting, of course. I’ll tell Harrison
to get the forms ready for you to sign. They must be sent out to-morrow.
Going?”
“Yes,” said Julian heavily. “There’s nothing more I need do to-day.”
He took his hat and went slowly out of the office, looking straight
before him like a man walking in his sleep. Ramsay looked after him, and
stood for a minute rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
“Not quite what I thought he was,” he said to himself; “though he has
served this purpose well enough. Pity he hasn’t a little more of his
father in him. Got all the makings of the right sort, but he can’t stay.”