_Wherein it is seen that the Blood of the Oldest Families may run to
Inconsequence and Mere Vulgar Stains_
Lord Wyntwarde, his face purple with anger and his mouth uttering vile
oaths that roused ugly echoes in the ruddy old Elizabethan alleys,
strode up and down the flagged walk of the ancient cobbled courtyard
before his stables; and the family lawyer walked beside him anxiously,
with “Tut, tut!” and “Listen to me--_one_ moment,” and “Be reasonable,
Lord Wyntwarde!” whilst the wrathful lord, with much insistence of
reiteration, roundly wished him on a far and hot journey, being free
from all diffidence in naming the climate.
The coachman’s small children stood shrinking from the fury of his
lordship’s wrath, clinging to each other at the door of their home,
peeping coyly over timid little shoulders with large eyes of awe at
the cursing tyrant who strode before them. They were dressed for
travel--being tied up in large woollen mufflers that seem to be
the peculiar badge of the children of cottagers when packed for a
journey. Their tearful mother kept bringing down hastily-made parcels
and placing them about the door. In the minds of the little ones,
behind their wondering eyes, was the picture of their father, the old
coachman, sitting in the midst of his dismantled home upstairs, crying
like a child.
“Lord Wyntwarde,” said the lawyer, “you must pull yourself together
and----”
“Oh, go to----”
“Hush--you must pull yourself together and listen to me----”
“Oh, go to the devil----”
“If you will not come indoors, then I must say it here, within earshot
of these people.”
“I tell you I stand over these hounds until they have packed out of
the place--do you hear me!” roared the stout old lord of the place.
“Damn it, Overshaw, do you only understand lawyers’ swindling English?
God in heaven, is my talk too cursedly effeminate for you that I must
supply you with a glossary at the end of it? I have sworn it, by the
living God, that these people leave my land before the sun sets--or,”
he added hoarsely, “I go to hell for it.... Put that into your damned
attorney’s gabble if you will--and I’ll sign it.”
He turned about as he walked and continued his striding. The lawyer
turned and walked with him:
“Lord Wyntwarde, I will not remind you of a wise old saying that the
sun should not go down upon our wrath.”
“Oh, damn your figurative landscapes,” said my lord.
“I do not ask you to save yourself from an injustice--I am only asking
you to save yourself from an indignity--worse--from utter shame----”
“What have I to do with shame?”
“What indeed, my lord?”
The other laughed:
“By God,” said he--“you’re a wit.”
“T ask you to give me ten minutes’ close attention----”
“I will not give it.”
The old lawyer shrugged his shoulders:
“That is flat.... Then I must say it now and here. Your coachman yonder
does not even suspect the truth. He has served you loyally through rain
and sunshine and cold and heat for twenty and nine years. His loyalty
blinds him to all but shame for the master of his house----”
The master of the house laughed roughly:
“Go on, Overshaw, go on--take sides with my grooms--go on. By the
splendour of God, a most wondrous coachman!”
“But he will know it within twenty-four hours after leaving this place.
God forgive me, he ought to know it now--from my lips. My loyalty to
your house brings me near to compounding a felony.”
“For God’s sake, talk sense, Overshaw! What is the plain English for
all this?”
“Listen: your son Ponsonby has seduced this man’s daughter--which is
bad enough. But the girl is only fifteen--the which is a felony.”
The old lord burst into a storm of oaths:
“Damn it, Overshaw; don’t I tell you I was for ever drumming it into
the lad’s ears that there were enough married women of his own class
in the county for any sane man’s pleasure--and he has descended to my
coachman’s wenches! It’s the filthy vulgarity of the fellow----”
He stopped--his bloodshot eyes catching the sneer upon the old lawyer’s
lips:
“What d’ye say?” he bawled.
The lawyer put his hand on the arm of the other:
“Lord Wyntwarde, you do not understand--the girl is fifteen--this is a
common felony--if the young fellow does not marry the girl, he may have
to go to gaol--to the common gaol----”
“I am not his keeper--curse him!”
“No,” said the old lawyer drily--“but do you want the criminal law to
usurp your duties?... There is a child coming. Even if this youth put
aside common honour, common justice, as he has done before, it cannot
now save him. All depends on how you treat the girl’s father.”
A groom, on a big bay hunter, came clattering into the courtyard,
started at the sight that met him there, leaped off his horse, and
walking up to the lawyer, touched his hat and held out a yellow
envelope:
“Telegram--for you, sir.”
The old gentleman’s hands shook as he tore open the cover.
He read it; and, as he read, his face went deathly pale:
“Good God!” said he.
He glanced at the striding figure of the lord of this splendid place,
who paced up and down the courtyard.
“That will do, my man,” said he. “There is no answer.... Stay! keep
that horse saddled--I may want you--and before long.”
The groom saluted and went and stood by the horse.
The lawyer gazed under his brows at the striding lord; watched him take
a couple of turns; went at last and set himself across his path. The
other halted when he came to him.
“Lord Wyntwarde,” said the old lawyer hoarsely--“I must go back to town
at once. Our arguments are at an end--the reason for them is at an
end.... Your son is beyond the reach of penalty.” The old man took off
his hat. “He must plead before a more august judge than his own father.”
The other, his face scarlet, stared at him with bloodshot eyes of
irritable inquiry. He struck his boot with his whip, savagely, once,
twice, thrice:
“Well--what’s the cursed melodrama now?”
“Your son has been found, early this morning. He has fallen--it is
thought--he was killed in a street brawl--last night--and has lain
where he fell till this morning. It is suspected that there has been
foul play.” The old lawyer’s chin dropped on his chest: “God forgive
the poor boy his many sins and weaknesses!”
When the old gentleman roused from his mood and put on his hat, the
red anger of his lord had slowly turned to black hate; and the lawyer
waited in a strange wonder--a wonder as to what could be passing
through this harsh old brain at such a moment----
The black mood found tongue at last:
“By God,” said Lord Wyntwarde hoarsely, and struck the air with his
clenched hand, “Caroline and her cub get the estates after all!” He
laughed bitterly. “The devil has cheated me--Death plays with loaded
dice.... No, by God, I have it”--he laughed loud--“I’ll baulk them
yet--I’ll marry this fifteen-year-old she-dog myself. By the splendour
of God, my coachman shall give her ladyship away, and yonder groom
shall be my best man.”
He burst into a loud roar of coarse laughter--suddenly
gasped--struggled for air--reeled--put out his hands as though
blindness had come upon him--uttered a foul curse, lurched forward, and
fell upon his face.
They lifted him up....
Lord Wyntewarde’s life had been one long implied boast of blood.
Indeed, he had never realized that he had had too much. The blood of
the family had always gone to the head....
The grooms being fore-gathered in the harness-room that night plumbed
the deeps of the dead man:
“That was a noisy Bulgarian,” said one--“but he had a fine seat on a
horse.”
The vicar of Cavil had long owed a grudge against the castle for the
evil things that therein were done, or said to be done--indeed, it had
caused much sly winking and nodding amongst the bucolic wits. But, for
his dignity’s sake and the sake of the soil that had bred him, his
sermon left the dead lord severely alone; however, he improved the
occasion of the young man’s death to point out the evils that come of
the pursuit of art by a youth who should have been devoting himself to
a gentleman’s life; and in particular he laid it down that had this
youth not been leaving the immoral precincts of a London theatre on the
night on which he met his violent death, he would not have met that
death.
Which, of a truth, was as it might have been.