Produced by Les Bowler
WITH EDGED TOOLS
By Henry Seton Merriman
“Of the same clay he maketh both the vessels that serve for clean
uses, and likewise also such as serve to the contrary; but what is
the use of either sort, the potter himself is the judge.”
TO JAMES PAYN
A TOKEN OF SINCERE REGARD
CONTENTS
I. TWO GENERATIONS
II. OVER THE OLD GROUND
III. A FAREWELL
IV. A TRAGEDY
V. WITH EDGED TOOLS
VI. UNDER THE LINE
VII. THE SECRET OF THE SIMIACINE
VIII. A RECRUIT
IX. TO PASS THE TIME
X. LOANGO
XI. A COMPACT
XII. A MEETING
XIII. IN BLACK AND WHITE
XIV. PANIC-STRICKEN
XV. A CONFIDENCE
XVI. WAR
XVII. UNDERHAND
XVIII. A REQUEST
XIX. IVORY
XX. BROUGHT TO THE SCRATCH
XXI. THE FIRST CONSIGNMENT
XXII. THE SECOND CONSIGNMENT
XXIII. MERCURY
XXIV. NEMESIS
XXV. TO THE RESCUE
XXVI. IN PERIL
XXVII. OFF DUTY
XXVIII. A SLOW RECOVERY
XXIX. A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE
XXX. OLD BIRDS
XXXI. SEED-TIME
XXXII. AN ENVOY
XXXIII. DARK DEALING
XXXIV. AMONG THORNS
XXXV. ENGAGED
XXXVI. NO COMPROMISE
XXXVII. FOUL PLAY
XXXVIII. THE ACCURSED CAMP
XXXIX. THE EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCE
XL. SIR JOHNS LAST CARD
XLI. A TROIS
XLII. A STRONG FRIENDSHIP
XLIII. A LONG DEBT
XLIV. MADE UP
XLV. THE TELEGRAM
CHAPTER I. TWO GENERATIONS
Why all delights are vain, but that most vain
Which with pain purchased doth inherit pain.
“My dear--Madam--what you call heart does not come into the question at
all.”
Sir John Meredith was sitting slightly behind Lady Cantourne, leaning
towards her with a somewhat stiffened replica of his former grace. But
he was not looking at her--and she knew it.
They were both watching a group at the other side of the great ballroom.
“Sir John Meredith on Heart,” said the old lady, with a depth of
significance in her voice.
“And why not?”
“Yes, indeed. Why not?”
Sir John smiled with that well-bred cynicism which a new school has not
yet succeeded in imitating. They were of the old school, these two;
and their worldliness, their cynicism, their conversational attitude,
belonged to a bygone period. It was a cleaner period in some ways--a
period devoid of slums. Ours, on the contrary, is an age of slums
wherein we all dabble to the detriment of our hands--mental, literary,
and theological.
Sir John moved slightly in his chair, leaning one hand on one knee. His
back was very flat, his clothes were perfect, his hair was not his own,
nor yet his teeth. But his manners were entirely his own. His face was
eighty years old, and yet he smiled his keen society smile with the best
of them. There was not a young man in the room of whom he was afraid,
conversationally.
“No, Lady Cantourne,” he repeated. “Your charming niece is heartless.
She will get on.”
Lady Cantourne smiled, and drew the glove further up her stout and
motherly right arm.
“She will get on,” she admitted. “As to the other, it is early to give
an opinion.”
“She has had the best of trainings--,” he murmured. And Lady Cantourne
turned on him with a twinkle amidst the wrinkles.
“For which?” she asked.
“Choisissez!” he answered, with a bow.
One sees a veteran swordsman take up the foil with a tentative turn of
the wrist, lunging at thin air. His zest for the game has gone; but the
skill lingers, and at times he is tempted to show the younger blades a
pass or two. These were veteran fencers with a skill of their own, which
they loved to display at times. The zest was that of remembrance; the
sword-play of words was above the head of a younger generation given to
slang and music-hall airs; and so these two had little bouts for their
own edification, and enjoyed the glitter of it vastly.
Sir John's face relaxed into the only repose he ever allowed it; for he
had a habit of twitching and moving his lips such as some old men have.
And occasionally, in an access of further senility, he fumbled with his
fingers at his mouth. He was clean shaven, and even in his old age he
was handsome beyond other men--standing an upright six feet two.
The object of his attention was the belle of that ball, Miss Millicent
Chyne, who was hemmed into a corner by a group of eager dancers anxious
to insert their names in some corner of her card. She was the fashion at
that time. And she probably did not know that at least half of the men
crowded round because the other half were there. Nothing succeeds like
the success that knows how to draw a crowd.
She received the ovation self-possessedly enough, but without that
hauteur affected by belles of balls--in books. She seemed to have a
fresh smile for each new applicant--a smile which conveyed to each
in turn the fact that she had been attempting all along to get her
programme safely into his hands. A halting masculine pen will not be
expected to explain how she compassed this, beyond a gentle intimation
that masculine vanity had a good deal to do with her success.
“She is having an excellent time,” said Sir John, weighing on the modern
phrase with a subtle sarcasm. He was addicted to the use of modern
phraseology, spiced with a cynicism of his own.
“Yes, I cannot help sympathising with her--a little,” answered the lady.
“Nor I. It will not last.”
“Well, she is only gathering the rosebuds.”
“Wisely so, your ladyship. They at least LOOK as if they were going to
last. The full-blown roses do not.”
Lady Cantourne gave a little sigh. This was the difference between them.
She could not watch without an occasional thought for a time that was no
more. The man seemed to be content that the past had been lived through
and would never renew itself.
“After all,” she said, “she is my sister's child. The sympathy may only
be a matter of blood. Perhaps I was like that myself once. Was I? You
can tell me.”
She looked slowly round the room and his face hardened. He knew that she
was reflecting that there was no one else who could tell her; and he did
not like it.
“No,” he answered readily.
“And what was the difference?”
She looked straight in front of her with a strange old-fashioned
demureness.
“Their name is legion, for they are many.”
“Name a few. Was I as good-looking as that, for instance?”
He smiled--a wise, old, woman-searching smile.
“You were better-looking than that,” he said, with a glance beneath his
lashless lids. “Moreover, there was more of the grand lady about you.
You behaved better. There was less shaking hands with your partners,
less nodding and becking, and none of that modern forwardness which is
called, I believe, camaraderie.”
“Thank you, Sir John,” she answered, looking at him frankly with a
pleasant smile. “But it is probable that we had the faults of our age.”
He fumbled at his lips, having reasons of his own for disliking too
close a scrutiny of his face.
“That is more than probable,” he answered, rather indistinctly.
“Then,” she said, tapping the back of his gloved hand with her fan, “we
ought to be merciful to the faults of a succeeding generation. Tell
me who is that young man with the long stride who is getting himself
introduced now.”
“That,” answered Sir John, who prided himself upon knowing every
one--knowing who they were and who they were not--“is young Oscard.”
“Son of the eccentric Oscard?”
“Son of the eccentric Oscard.”
“And where did he get that brown face?”
“He got that in Africa, where he has been shooting. He forms part of
some one else's bag at the present moment.”
“What do you mean?”
“He has been apportioned a dance. Your fair niece has bagged him.”
If he had only known it, Guy Oscard won the privilege of a waltz by the
same brown face which Lady Cantourne had so promptly noted. Coupled with
a sturdy uprightness of carriage, this raised him at a bound above the
pallid habitues of ballroom and pavement. It was, perhaps, only natural
that Millicent Chyne should have noted this man as soon as he crossed
the threshold. He was as remarkable as some free and dignified denizen
of the forest in the midst of domestic animals. She mentally put him
down for a waltz, and before five minutes had elapsed he was bowing
before her while a mutual friend murmured his name. One does not know
how young ladies manage these little affairs, but the fact remains
that they are managed. Moreover, it is a singular thing that the young
persons who succeed in the ballroom rarely succeed on the larger
and rougher floor of life. Your belle of the ball, like your Senior
Wrangler, never seems to do much afterwards--and Afterwards is Life.
The other young men rather fell back before Guy Oscard--scared, perhaps,
by his long stride, and afraid that he might crush their puny toes. This
enabled Miss Chyne to give him the very next dance, of which the music
was commencing.
“I feel rather out of all this,” said Oscard, as they moved away
together. “You must excuse uncouthness.”
“I see no signs of it,” laughed Millicent. “You are behaving very
nicely. You cannot help being larger and stronger than--the others. I
should say it was an advantage and something to be proud of.”
“Oh, it is not that,” replied Oscard; “it is a feeling of unkemptness
and want of smartness among these men who look so clean and correct.
Shall we dance?”
He looked down at her, with an admiration which almost amounted to awe,
as if afraid of entering the throng with such a dainty and wonderful
charge upon his powers of steering. Millicent Chyne saw the glance and
liked it. It was different from the others, quite devoid of criticism,
rather simple and full of honest admiration. She was so beautiful that
she could hardly be expected to be unaware of the fact. She had merely
to make comparisons, to look in the mirror and see that her hair was
fairer and softer, that her complexion was more delicately perfect, that
her slight, rounded figure was more graceful than any around her. Added
to this, she knew that she had more to say than other girls--a larger
stock of those little frivolous, advice-seeking, aid-demanding nothings
than her compeers seemed to possess.
She knew that in saying them she could look brighter and prettier and
more intelligent than her competitors.
“Yes,” she said, “let us dance by all means.”
Here also she knew her own proficiency, and in a few seconds she found
that her partner was worthy of her skill.
“Where have you been?” she asked presently. “I am sure you have been
away somewhere, exploring or something.”
“I have only been in Africa, shooting.”
“Oh, how interesting! You must tell me all about it!”
“I am afraid,” replied Guy Oscard, with a somewhat shy laugh, “that that
would NOT be interesting. Besides, I could not tell you now.”
“No, but some other time. I suppose you are not going back to Africa
to-morrow, Mr. Oscard?”
“Not quite. And perhaps we may meet somewhere else.”
“I hope so,” replied Miss Chyne. “Besides, you know my aunt, Lady
Cantourne. I live with her, you know.”
“I know her slightly.”
“Then take an opportunity of improving the acquaintanceship. She is
sitting under the ragged banner over there.”
Millicent Chyne indicated the direction with a nod of the head, and
while he looked she took the opportunity of glancing hastily round the
room. She was seeking some one.
“Yes,” said Oscard, “I see her, talking to an old gentleman who looks
like Voltaire. I shall give her a chance of recognising me before the
evening is out. I don't mind being snubbed if--”
He paused and steered neatly through a narrow place.
“If what?” she asked, when they were in swing again.
“If it means seeing you again,” he answered bluntly--more bluntly than
she was accustomed to. But she liked it. It was a novelty after the
smaller change of ballroom compliments.
She was watching the door all the while.
Presently the music ceased and they made their way back to the
spot whence he had taken her. She led the way thither by an almost
imperceptible pressure of her fingers on his arm. There were several
men waiting there, and one or two more entering the room and looking
languidly round.
“There comes the favoured one,” Lady Cantourne muttered, with a veiled
glance towards her companion.
Sir John's grey eyes followed the direction of her glance.
“My bright boy?” he inquired, with a wealth of sarcasm on the adjective.
“Your bright boy,” she replied.
“I hope not,” he said curtly.
They were watching a tall fair man in the doorway who seemed to know
everybody, so slow was his progress into the room. The most remarkable
thing about this man was a certain grace of movement. He seemed to be
specially constructed to live in narrow, hampered places. He was
above six feet; but, being of slight build, he moved with a certain
languidness which saved him from that unwieldiness usually associated
with large men in a drawing-room.
Such was Jack Meredith, one of the best known figures in London society.
He had hitherto succeeded in moving through the mazes of that coterie,
as he now moved through this room, without jarring against any one.