When Mr. Barker, who had followed the party to Newport, called on the
Countess the following morning, she was not visible, so he was fain to
content himself with scribbling a very pressing invitation to drive in
the afternoon, which he sent up with some flowers, not waiting for an
answer. The fact was that Margaret had sent for the Duke at an early
hour--for her--and was talking with him on matters of importance at the
time Barker called. Otherwise she would very likely not have refused to
see the latter.
"I want you to explain to me what they are trying to do to make Dr.
Claudius give up his property," said Margaret, who looked pale and
beautiful in a morning garment of nondescript shape and of white silken
material. The Duke was sitting by the window, watching a couple of men
preparing to get into a trim dogcart. To tell the truth, the dogcart and
the horse were the objects of interest. His Grace was not aware that the
young men were no less personages than young Mr. Hannibal Q. Sniggins
and young Mr. Orlando Van Sueindell, both of New York, sons of the
"great roads." Either of these young gentlemen could have bought out his
Grace; either of them would have joyfully licked his boots; and either
of them would have protested, within the sacred precincts of their
gorgeous club in New York, that he was a conceited ass of an Englishman.
But his Grace did not know this, or he would certainly have regarded
them with more interest. He was profoundly indifferent to the character
of the people with whom he had to do, whether they were catalogued in
the "book of snobs" or not. It is generally people who are themselves
snobs who call their intimates by that offensive epithet, attributing to
them the sin they fall into themselves. The Duke distinguished between
gentlemen and cads, when it was a question of dining at the same table,
but in matters of business he believed the distinction of no importance.
He came to America for business purposes, and he took Americans as he
found them. He thought they were very good men of business, and when it
came to associating with them on any other footing, he thought some of
them were gentlemen and some were not--pretty much as it is everywhere
else. So he watched the young men getting into their dogcart, and he
thought the whole turn-out looked "very fit."
"Really," he began, in answer to the Countess's question, "--upon my
word, I don't know much about it. At least, I suppose not."
"Oh, I thought you did," said Margaret, taking up a book and a
paper-cutter. "I thought it must be something rather serious, or he
would not have been obliged to go abroad to get papers about it."
"Well, you know, after all, he--aw--" the Duke reddened--"he--well yes,
exactly so."
"Yes?" said Margaret interrogatively, expecting something more.
"Exactly," said the Duke, still red, but determined not to say anything.
He had not promised Claudius not to say he could have vouched for him,
had the Doctor stayed; but he feared that in telling Margaret this, he
might be risking the betrayal of Claudius's actual destination. It would
not do, however.
"I really do not understand just what you said," said Margaret, looking
at him.
"Ah! well, no. I daresay I did not express myself very clearly. What was
your question, Countess?"
"I asked who it was who was making so much trouble for the Doctor;" said
Margaret calmly.
"Oh, I was sure I could not have understood you. It's the executors and
lawyer people, who are not satisfied about his identity. It's all right,
though."
"Of course. But could no one here save him the trouble of going all the
way back to Germany?"
The Duke grew desperate. He was in a corner where he must either tell a
lie of some sort or let the cat out of the bag. The Duke was a cynical
and worldly man enough, perhaps, as the times go, but he did not tell
lies. He plunged.
"My dear Countess," he said, facing towards her and stroking his
whiskers, "I really know something about Dr. Claudius, and I will tell
you all I am at liberty to tell; please do not ask me anything else.
Claudius is really gone to obtain papers from Heidelberg as well as for
another purpose which I cannot divulge. The papers might have been
dispensed with, for I could have sworn to him."
"Then the other object is the important one," said the Countess
pensively. The Duke was silent. "I am greatly obliged to you," Margaret
continued, "for what you have told me."
"I will tell you what I can do," said the Englishman after a pause,
during which an unusual expression in his face seemed to betoken
thought. "I am going to the West for a couple of months to look after
things, and of course accidents may happen. Claudius may have difficulty
in getting what he wants, and I am the only man here who knows all about
him. He satisfied me of his identity. I will, if you like, sign a
statement vouching for him, and leave it in your hands in case of need.
It is all I can do."
"In my hands?" exclaimed Margaret, drawing herself up a little. "And why
in _my_ hands, Duke?" The Duke got very red indeed this time, and
hesitated. He had put his foot into it through sheer goodness of heart
and a desire to help everybody.
"Aw--a--the--the fact is, Countess," he got out at last, "the fact is,
you know, Claudius has not many friends here, and I thought you were one
of them. My only desire is--a--to serve him."
Margaret had quickly grasped the advantage to Claudius, if such a
voucher as the Duke offered were kept in pickle as a rod for his
enemies.
"You are right," said she, "I am a good friend of Dr. Claudius, and I
will keep the paper in case of need."
The Duke recovered his equanimity.
"Thank you," said he. "I am a very good friend of his, and I thank you
on his behalf, as I am sure he will himself. There's one of our Foreign
Office clerks here for his holiday; I will get him to draw up the paper
as he is an old friend of mine--in fact, some relation, I believe. By
Jove! there goes Barker." The latter exclamation was caused by the
sudden appearance of the man he named on the opposite side of the
avenue, in conversation with the two young gentlemen whom the Duke had
already noticed as preparing to mount their dogcart.
"Oh," said Margaret indifferently, in response to the exclamation.
"Yes," said the Duke, "it is he. I thought he was in New York."
"No," said the Countess, "he has just called. It was his card they
brought me just as you came. He wants me to drive with him this
afternoon."
"Indeed. Shall you go?"
"I think so--yes," said she.
"Very well. I will take my sister with me," said the Duke. "I have got
something very decent to drive in." Margaret laughed at the implied
invitation.
"How you take things for granted," said she. "Did you really think I
would have gone with you?"
"Such things have happened," said the Duke good-humouredly, and went
away. Not being in the least a ladies' man, he was very apt to make such
speeches occasionally. He had a habit of taking it for granted that no
one refused his invitations.
At four o'clock that afternoon Silas B. Barker junior drew up to the
steps of the hotel in a very gorgeous conveyance, called in America a
T-cart, and resembling a mail phaeton in build. From the high double box
Mr. Barker commanded and guided a pair of showy brown horses, harnessed
in the most approved philanthropic, or rather philozooic style; no
check-rein, no breeching, no nothing apparently, except a pole and Mr.
Barker's crest. For Mr. Barker had a crest, since he came from Salem,
Massachusetts, and the bearings were a witch pendant, gules, on a
gallows sinister, sable. Behind him sat the regulation clock-work groom,
brought over at considerable expense from the establishment of Viscount
Plungham, and who sprang to the ground and took his place at the horses'
heads as soon as Barker had brought them to a stand. Then Barker,
arrayed in a new hat, patent-leather boots, a very long frock-coat, and
a very expensive rose, descended lightly from his chariot and swiftly
ascended the steps, seeming to tread half on air and half on egg-shells.
And a few minutes later he again appeared, accompanied by the Countess
Margaret, looking dark and pale and queenly. A proud man was dandy Silas
as he helped her to her place, and going to the other side, got in and
took the ribbands. Many were the glances that shot from the two edges of
the road at the unknown beauty whom Silas drove by his side, and
obsequious were the bows of Silas's friends as they passed. Even the
groggy old man who drives the water-cart on Bellevue Avenue could scarce
forbear to cheer as she went by.
And so they drove away, side by side. Barker knew very well that
Claudius had taken his leave the day before, and to tell the truth, he
was a good deal surprised that Margaret should be willing to accept this
invitation. He had called to ask her, because he was not the man to let
the grass grow under his feet at any time, much less when he was laying
siege to a woman. For with women time is sometimes everything. And being
of a reasonable mind, when Mr. Barker observed that he was surprised, he
concluded that there must be some good reason for his astonishment, and
still more that there must be some very good reason why Margaret should
accept his first invitation to a _tête-à-tête_ afternoon. From one
reflection to another, he came at last to the conclusion that she must
be anxious to learn some details concerning the Doctor's departure, from
which again he argued that Claudius had not taken her into his
confidence. The hypothesis that she might be willing to make an effort
with him for Claudius's justification Mr. Barker dismissed as
improbable. And he was right. He waited, therefore, for her to broach
the subject, and confined himself, as they drove along, to remarks about
the people they passed, the doings of the Newport summer, concerning
which he had heard all the gossip during the last few hours, the
prospect of Madame Patti in opera during the coming season, horses,
dogs, and mutual friends--all the motley array of subjects permissible,
desultory, and amusing. Suddenly, as they bowled out on an open road by
the sea, Margaret began.
"Why has Dr. Claudius gone abroad," she asked, glancing at Barker's
face, which remained impenetrable as ever. Barker changed his hold on
the reins, and stuck the whip into the bucket by his side before he
answered.
"They say he has gone to get himself sworn to," he said rather slowly,
and with a good show of indifference.
"I cannot see why that was necessary," answered Margaret calmly "It
seems to me we all knew him very well."
"Oh, nobody can understand lawyers," said Barker, and was silent,
knowing how strong a position silence was, for she could know nothing
more about Claudius without committing herself to a direct question.
Barker was in a difficult position. He fully intended later to hint that
Claudius might never return at all. But he knew too much to do anything
of the kind at present, when the memory of the Doctor was fresh in the
Countess's mind, and when, as he guessed, he himself was not too high in
her favour. He therefore told a bit of the plain truth which could not
be cast in his teeth afterwards, and was silent.
It was a good move, and Margaret was fain to take to some other subject
of conversation, lest the pause should seem long. They had not gone far
before the society kaleidoscope was once more in motion, and Barker was
talking his best. They rolled along, passing most things on the road,
and when they came to a bit of hill, he walked his horses, on pretence
of keeping them cool, but in reality to lengthen the drive and increase
his advantage, if only by a minute and a hairbreadth. He could see he
was amusing her, as he drew her away from the thing that made her heavy,
and sketched, and crayoned, and photographed from memory all manner of
harmless gossip--he took care that it should be harmless--and such
book-talk as he could command, with such a general sprinkling of
sentimentalism, ready made and easy to handle, as American young men
affect in talking to women.
Making allowance for the customs of the country, they were passing a
very innocently diverting afternoon; and Margaret, though secretly
annoyed at finding that Barker would not talk about Claudius, or add in
any way to her information, was nevertheless congratulating herself upon
the smooth termination of the interview. She had indeed only accepted
the invitation in the hope of learning something more about Claudius and
his "other reason." But she also recognised that, though Barker were
unwilling to speak of the Doctor, he might have made himself very
disagreeable by taking advantage of the confession of interest she had
volunteered in asking so direct a question. But Barker had taken no such
lead, and never referred to Claudius in all the ramblings of his polite
conversation.
He was in the midst of a description of Mrs. Orlando Van Sueindell's
last dinner-party, which he had unfortunately missed, when his browns,
less peaceably disposed than most of the lazy bean-fed cattle one sees
on the Newport avenue, took it into their heads that it would be a
joyous thing to canter down a steep place into the sea. The road turned,
with a sudden dip, across a little neck of land separating the bay from
the harbour, and the descent was, for a few yards, very abrupt. At this
point, then, the intelligent animals conceived the ingenious scheme of
bolting, with that eccentricity of device which seems to characterise
overfed carriage-horses. In an instant they were off, and it was clear
there would be no stopping them--from a trot to a break, from
a canter to a gallop, from a gallop to a tearing, breakneck,
leave-your-bones-behind-you race, all in a moment, down to the sea.
Barker was not afraid, and he did what he could. He was not a strong
man, and he knew himself no match for the two horses, but he hoped by a
sudden effort, repeated once or twice, to scare the runaways into a
standstill, as is sometimes possible. Acting immediately on his
determination, as he always did, he wound one hand in each rein, and
half rising from his high seat, jerked with all his might. Margaret held
her breath.
But alas for the rarity of strength in saddlers' work! The off-rein
snapped away like a thread just where the buckle leads half of it over
to the near horse, and the strain on the right hand being thus suddenly
removed, the horses' heads were jerked violently to the left, and they
became wholly unmanageable. Barker was silent, and instantly dropped the
unbroken rein. As for Margaret, she sat quite still, holding to the low
rail-back of her seat, and preparing for a jump. They were by this time
nearly at the bottom of the descent, and rapidly approaching a corner
where a great heap of rocks made the prospect hideous. To haul the
horses over to the left would have been destruction, as the ground fell
away on that side to a considerable depth down to the rocks below. Then
Barker did a brave thing.
"If I miss him, jump off to the right," he cried; and in a moment,
before Margaret could answer or prevent him, he had got over the
dashboard, and was in mid-air, a strange figure, in his long frock-coat
and shiny hat. With a bold leap--and the Countess shivered as she saw
him flying in front of her--he alighted on the back of the off horse,
almost on his face, but well across the beast for all that. Light and
wiry, a mere bundle of nerves dressed up, Mr. Barker was not to be
shaken off, and, while the animal was still plunging, he had caught the
flying bits of bridle, and was sawing away, right and left, with the
energy of despair. Between its terror at being suddenly mounted by some
one out of a clear sky, so to say, and the violent wrenching it was
getting from Barker's bony little hands, the beast decided to stop at
last, and its companion, who was coming in for some of the pulling too,
stopped by sympathy, with a series of snorts and plunges. Barker still
clung to the broken rein, leaning far over the horse's neck so as to
wind it round his wrist; and he shouted to Margaret to get out, which
she immediately did; but, instead of fainting away, she came to the
horses' heads and stood before them, a commanding figure that even a
dumb animal would not dare to slight--too much excited to speak yet, but
ready to face anything.
A few moments later the groom, whose existence they had both forgotten,
came running down to them, with a red face, and dusting his battered hat
on his arm as he came. He had quietly slipped off behind, and had been
rolled head over heels for his pains, but had suffered no injury. Then
Barker got off. He was covered with dust, but his hat was still on his
head, and he did not look as though he had been jumping for his life.
Margaret turned to him with genuine gratitude and admiration, for he had
borne himself as few men could or would have done.
"You have saved my life," she said, "and I am very grateful. It was very
brave of you." And she held out her hand to meet his, now trembling
violently from the fierce strain.
"Oh, not at all; it was really nothing," he said, bowing low. But the
deep wrinkle that scored Barker's successes in life showed plainly round
his mouth. He knew what his advantage was, and he had no thought of the
danger when he reflected on what he had gained. Not he! His heart, or
the organ which served him in place of one, was full of triumph. Had he
planned the whole thing with the utmost skill and foresight he could not
have succeeded better. Such a victory! and the very first day after
Claudius's departure--Ye gods! what luck!
And so it came to pass that by the time the harness had been tied
together and the conveyance got without accident as far as the first
stable on the outskirts of the town, where it was left with the groom,
Barker had received a goodly meed of thanks and praise. And when
Margaret proposed that they should walk as far as the hotel, Barker
tried a few steps and found he was too lame for such exercise, his left
leg having been badly bruised by the pole of the carriage in his late
exploit; which injury elicited a further show of sympathy from
Margaret. And when at last he left her with a cab at the door of her
hotel, he protested that he had enjoyed a very delightful drive, and
went away in high spirits. Margaret, in her gratitude for such an
escape, and in unfeigned admiration of Barker's daring and coolness, was
certainly inclined to think better of him than she had done for a long
time. Or perhaps it would be truer to say that he was more in her
thoughts than he had been; for, in the reign of Claudius, Barker had
dwindled to a nearly insignificant speck in the landscape, dwarfed away
to nothing by the larger mould and stronger character of the Swede.
Margaret saw the Duke in the evening. He gave her a document, unsealed,
in a huge envelope, bidding her keep it in a safe place, for the use of
their mutual friend, in case he should need it. She said she would give
it to Claudius when he came back; and then she told the Duke about her
drive with Barker and the accident. The Duke looked grave.
"Of course," he said, "I introduced Barker to you, and it would seem
very odd if I were to warn you against him now. All the same, Countess,
I have had the honour of being your friend for some time, and I must say
I have sometimes regretted that I brought him to your house." He
reddened a little after he had spoken, fearing she might have
misunderstood him. "I wish," he added, to make things clearer, "that I
could have brought you Claudius without Barker." Then he reddened still
more, and wished he had said nothing. Margaret raised her eyebrows.
Perhaps she could have wished as much herself, but she dropped the
subject.
"When are you coming back from the West, Duke," she asked, busying
herself in arranging some books on her table. The hotel sitting-room was
so deadly dreary to the eye that she was trying to make it look as if it
had not been lately used as a place of burial.
"It may be two months before I am here again. A--about the time Claudius
comes over, I should think."
"And when do you go?"
"Next week, I think."
"I wish you were going to stay," said Margaret simply, "or Lady
Victoria. I shall be so lonely."
"You will have Miss Skeat," suggested his Grace.
"Oh, it's not that," said she. "I shall not be alone altogether, for
there is poor Nicholas, you know. I must take care of him; and then I
suppose some of these people will want to amuse me, or entertain me--not
that they are very entertaining; but they mean well. Besides, my being
mixed up in a Nihilist persecution adds to my social value." The Duke,
however, was not listening, his mind being full of other things--what
there was of it, and his heart had long determined to sympathise with
Margaret in her troubles; so there was nothing more to be said.
"Dear me," thought Miss Skeat, "what a pity! They say she might have had
the Duke when she was a mere child--and to think that she should have
refused him! So admirably suited to each other!" But Miss Skeat, as she
sat at the other end of the room trying to find "what it was that people
saw so funny" in the _Tramp Abroad_, was mistaken about her patroness
and the very high and mighty personage from the aristocracy. The Duke
was much older than Margaret, and had been married before he had ever
seen her. It was only because they were such good friends that the
busybodies said they had just missed being man and wife.
But when the Duke was gone, Margaret and Miss Skeat were left alone, and
they drew near each other and sat by the table, the elder lady reading
aloud from a very modern novel. The Countess paid little attention to
what she heard, for she was weary, and it seemed as though the evening
would never end. Miss Skeat's even and somewhat monotonous voice
produced no sensation of drowsiness to-night, as it often did, though
Margaret's eyes were half-closed and her fingers idle. She needed rest,
but it would not come, and still her brain went whirling through the
scenes of the past twenty-four hours, again and again recurring to the
question "Why is he gone?" unanswered and yet ever repeated, as the
dreadful wake-song of the wild Irish, the "Why did he die?" that haunts
the ear that has once heard it for weeks afterwards.
She tried to reason, but there was no reason. Why, why, why? He was gone
with her kiss on his lips and her breath in his. She should have waited
till he came back from over the sea before giving him what was so very
precious. More than once, as she repeated the words he had spoken at
parting, she asked herself whether she doubted him after all, and
whether it would not be wiser to speak to the Duke. But then, the latter
so evidently believed in Claudius that it comforted her to think of his
honest faith, and she would dismiss every doubt again as vain and
wearying. But still the eternal question rang loudly in her soul's ears,
and the din of the inquisitive devil that would not be satisfied
deafened her so that she could not hear Miss Skeat. Once or twice she
moved her head nervously from side to side, as it rested on the back of
the chair, and her face was drawn and pale, so that Miss Skeat
anxiously asked whether she were in any pain, but Margaret merely
motioned to her companion to continue reading, and was silent. But Miss
Skeat grew uneasy, feeling sure that something was the matter.
"Dear Countess," she said, "will you not retire to rest? I fear that
this horrid accident has shaken you. Do go to bed, and I will come and
read you to sleep." Her voice sounded kindly, and Margaret's fingers
stole out till they covered Miss Skeat's bony white ones, with the green
veins and the yellowish lights between the knuckles.
Miss Skeat, at this unusual manifestation of feeling, laid down the book
she held in her other hand, and settled her gold-rimmed glasses over her
long nose. Then her eyes beamed across at Margaret, and a kindly,
old-fashioned smile came into her face that was good to see, and as she
pressed the hot young hand in hers there was a suspicion of motherliness
in her expression that would have surprised a stranger. For Miss Skeat
did not look motherly at ordinary times.
"Poor child!" said she softly. Margaret's other hand went to her eyes
and hid them from sight, and her head sank forward until it touched her
fingers, where they joined Miss Skeat's.
"I am so unhappy to-night," murmured Margaret, finding at last, in the
evening hours, the sympathy she had longed for all day. Miss Skeat
changed her own position a little so as to be nearer to her.
"Poor child!" repeated Miss Skeat almost in a whisper, as she bent down
to the regal head that lay against her hand, smoothing the thick hair
with her worn fingers. "Poor child, do you love him so very dearly?" She
spoke almost inaudibly, and her wrinkled eyelids were wet. But low as
was her voice, Margaret heard, and moved her head in assent, without
lifting it from the table.
Ah yes--she loved him very, very much. But she could not bear to confess
it, for all that, and a moment afterwards she was sitting upright again
in her chair, feeling that she had weathered the first storm. Her
companion, who was not ignorant of her ways, contented herself then with
patting Margaret's hand caressingly during the instant it remained in
her own, before it was drawn away. There was a world of kindness and of
gentle humanity in the gaunt gentlewoman's manner, showing that the
heart within was not withered yet. Then Miss Skeat flattened the book
before her with the paper-cutter, and began to read. Reading aloud had
become to her a second nature, and whether she had liked it or not at
first, she had learned to do it with perfect ease and indifference,
neither letting her voice drag languidly and hesitatingly when she was
tired, nor falling into that nerve-rending fault of readers who vainly
endeavour to personate the characters in dialogue, and to give
impressiveness in the descriptive portions. She never made a remark, or
asked her hearer's opinion. If the Countess was in the humour to sleep,
the reading was soporific; if she desired to listen, she felt that her
companion was not trying to bias her judgment by the introduction of
dramatic intonation and effect. With an even, untiring correctness of
utterance, Miss Skeat read one book just as she read another--M. Thiers
or Mr. Henry James, Mark Twain or a Parliamentary Report--it was all one
to her. Poor Miss Skeat!
But to Margaret the evening seemed long and the night longer, and many
days and evenings and nights afterwards. Not that she doubted, but that
she thought--well--perhaps she thought she ought to doubt. Some cunning
reader of face and character, laughing and making love by turns, had
once told her she had more heart than head. Every woman knows she ought
to seem flattered at being considered a "person of heart," and yet every
woman cordially hates to be told so. And, at last, Margaret began to
wonder whether it were true. Should she have admitted she loved a man
who left her a moment afterwards in order to make a voyage of two months
for the mere furthering of his worldly interest? But then--he told her
he was going before he kissed her. What could be the "other reason"?