Angels call it heavenly joy;
Infernal tortures the devils say;
And men? They call it--Love.
“By the way, dear,” said Lady Cantourne to her niece the next afternoon,
“I have asked a Miss Gordon to come to tea this afternoon. I met her
last night at the Fitzmannerings. She lives in Loango and knows Jack.
I thought you might like to know her. She is exceptionally ladylike and
rather pretty.”
And straightway Miss Millicent Chyne went upstairs to put on her best
dress.
We men cannot expect to understand these small matters--these
exigencies, as it were, of female life. But we may be permitted to note
feebly en passant through existence that there are occasions when women
put on their best clothes without the desire to please. And, while
Millicent Chyne was actually attiring herself, Jocelyn Gordon, in
another house not so far away, was busy with that beautiful hair of
hers, patting here, drawing out there, pinning, poking, pressing with
all the cunning that her fingers possessed.
When they met a little later in Lady Cantourne's uncompromisingly solid
and old-fashioned drawing-room, one may be certain that nothing was
lost.
“My aunt tells me,” began Millicent at once, with that degage treatment
of certain topics hitherto held sacred which obtains among young folks
to-day, “that you know Loango.”
“Oh yes--I live there.”
“And you know Mr. Meredith?”
“Yes, and Mr. Oscard also.”
There was a little pause, while two politely smiling pairs of eyes
probed each other.
“She knows something--how much?” was behind one pair of eyes.
“She cannot find out--I am not afraid of her,” behind the other.
And Lady Cantourne, the proverbial looker-on, slowly rubbed her white
hands one over the other.
“Ah, yes,” said Millicent unblushingly--that was her strong point,
blushing in the right place, but not in the wrong--“Mr. Oscard is
associated with Mr. Meredith, is he not, in this hare-brained scheme?”
“I believe they are together in it--the Simiacine, you mean?” said
Jocelyn.
“What else could she mean?” reflected the looker-on.
“Yes--the Simiacine. Such a singular name, is it not? I always say they
will ruin themselves suddenly. People always do, don't they? But what do
you think of it? I SHOULD like to know.”
“I think they certainly will make a fortune,” replied Jocelyn--and
she noted the light in Millicent's eyes with a sudden feeling of
dislike--“unless the risks prove too great and they are forced to
abandon it.”
“What risks?” asked Millicent, quite forgetting to modulate her voice.
“Well, of course, the Ogowe river is most horribly unhealthy, and there
are other risks. The natives in the plains surrounding the Simiacine
Plateau are antagonistic. Indeed, the Plateau was surrounded and quite
besieged when we left Africa.”
It may have hurt Millicent, but it hurt Jocelyn more--for the smile
had left her hearer's face. She was off her guard, as she had been once
before when Sir John was near, and Millicent's face betrayed something
which Jocelyn saw at once with a sick heart--something that Sir
John knew from the morning when he had seen Millicent open two
letters--something that Lady Cantourne had known all along.
“And was Mr. Meredith on the Plateau when it was besieged?” asked
Millicent, with a drawn, crooked smile.
“Yes,” answered Jocelyn. She could not help seizing the poor little
satisfaction of this punishment; but she felt all the while that it was
nothing to the punishment she was bearing, and would bear all her life.
There are few more contradictory things than the heart of a woman who
really loves. For one man it is very tender; for the rest of the world
it is the hardest heart on earth if it is called upon to defend the
object of its love or the love itself.
“But,” cried Millicent, “of course something was done. They could never
leave Mr. Meredith unprotected.”
“Yes,” answered Jocelyn quietly, “Mr. Oscard went up and rescued him. My
brother heard yesterday that the relief had been effected.”
Millicent smiled again in her light-hearted way.
“That is all right,” she said. “What a good thing we did not know! Just
think, auntie dear, what a lot of anxiety we have been spared!”
“In the height of the season, too!” said Jocelyn.
“Ye--es,” replied Millicent, rather doubtfully.
Lady Cantourne was puzzled. There was something going on which she did
not understand. Within the sound of the pleasant conversation there was
the cliquetis of the foil; behind the polite smile there was the gleam
of steel. She was rather relieved to turn at this moment and see Sir
John Meredith entering the room with his usual courtly bow. He always
entered her drawing-room like that. Ah! that little secret of a mutual
respect. Some people who are young now will wish, before they have grown
old, that they had known it.
He shook hands with Lady Cantourne and with Millicent. Then he stood
with a deferential half-bow, waiting for the introduction to the girl
who was young enough to be his daughter--almost to be his granddaughter.
There was something pathetic and yet proud in this old man's
uncompromising adherence to the lessons of his youth.
“Sir John Meredith--Miss Gordon.”
The beginning--the thin end of the wedge, as the homely saying has
it--the end which we introduce almost every day of our lives, little
suspecting to what it may broaden out.
“I had the pleasure of seeing you last night,” said Sir John at once,
“at Lady Fitzmannering's evening party, or 'At Home,' I believe we call
them nowadays. Some of the guests read the invitation too much au pied
de la lettre for my taste. They were so much at home that I, fearing to
intrude, left rather early.”
“I believe the skirt-dancing frightened you away, Sir John,” said
Millicent merrily.
“Even old birds, my dear young lady, may sometimes be alarmed by a
scarecrow.”
“I missed you quite early in the evening,” put in Lady Cantourne,
sternly refusing to laugh. She had not had an opportunity of seeing him
since her conversation with Jocelyn, and the dangers of the situation
were fully appreciated by such an experienced woman of the world.
“They began to clear the upper end of the room,” he explained, “and I
assisted them in the most practical manner in my power.”
He was beginning to wonder why he had been invited--nay, almost
commanded--to come, by an imperious little note. And of late, whenever
Sir John began to wonder he began also to feel old. His fingers strayed
towards his unsteady lips as if he were about to make one of those
little movements of senile helplessness to which he sometimes gave way.
For a moment Lady Cantourne hesitated between two strokes of social
diplomacy--but only for a moment. She had heard the bell ring, and
trusted that at the other end of the wire there might be one of those
fatuous young men who nibbled at that wire like foolish fish round a
gilt spoon-bait. Her ladyship decided to carry on the social farce a
few minutes longer, instead of offering the explanation which all were
awaiting.
“We women,” she said, “were not so easily deterred from our social
duties.”
At this moment the door opened, and there entered a complex odour of
hairwash and perfumery--a collar which must have been nearly related to
a cuff, and a pair of tight patent-leather boots, all attached to and
somewhat overpowering a young man.
“Ah, my dear Mr. Grubb,” said Lady Cantourne, “how good of you to call
so soon! You will have some tea. Millicent, give Mr. Grubb some tea.”
“Not too strong,” added Sir John, apparently to himself, under the cover
of Mr. Grubb's somewhat scrappy greeting.
Then Lady Cantourne went to the conservatory and left Sir John and
Jocelyn at the end of the long room together. There is nothing like a
woman's instinct. Jocelyn spoke at once.
“Lady Cantourne,” she said, “kindly asked me to meet you to-day on
purpose. I live at Loango; I know your son, Mr. Meredith, and we thought
you might like to hear about him and about Loango.”
She knew that with a man like Sir John any indirect approach to the
subject would be courting failure. His veiled old eyes suddenly lighted
up, and he turned to glance over his shoulder.
“Yes,” he said, with a strange hesitation, “yes--you are kind. Of course
I am interested. I wonder,” he went on, with a sudden change of manner,
“I wonder how much you know?”
His unsteady hand was resting on her gloved fingers, and he blinked at
it as if wondering how it got there.
Jocelyn did not seem to notice.
“I know,” she answered, “that you have had a difference of opinion--but
no one else knows. You must not think that Mr. Meredith has spoken of
his private affairs to any one else. The circumstances were exceptional,
and Mr. Meredith thought that it was due to me to give me an
explanation.”
Sir John looked a little puzzled, and Jocelyn went on rather hastily to
explain
“My brother and Mr. Meredith were at Eton together. They met somewhere
up the Coast, and my brother asked Mr. Meredith to come and stay. It
happened that Maurice was away when Mr. Meredith arrived, and I did not
know who he was, so he explained.”
“I see,” said Sir John. “And you and your brother have been kind to my
boy.”
Somehow he seemed to have forgotten to be cynical. He had never known
what it is to have a daughter, and she was ignorant of the pleasant
everyday amenities of a father's love. As there is undoubtedly such a
thing as love at first sight, so must there be sympathy at first sight.
For Jocelyn it was comprehensible--nay, it was most natural. This
was Jack's father. In his manner, in everything about him, there were
suggestions of Jack. This seemed to be a creature hewn, as it were, from
the same material, moulded on the same lines, with slightly divergent
tools. And for him--who can tell? The love that was in her heart may
have reached out to meet almost as great a love locked up in his proud
soul. It may have shown itself to him, openly, fearlessly, recklessly,
as love sometimes does when it is strong and pure.
He had carefully selected a seat within the shadow of the curtains; but
Jocelyn saw quite suddenly that he was an older man than she had taken
him to be the evening before. She saw through the deception of the
piteous wig--the whole art that strove to conceal the sure decay of the
body, despite the desperate effort of a mind still fresh and vigorous.
“And I dare say,” he said, with a somewhat lame attempt at cynicism,
“that you have heard no good of me?”
But Jocelyn would have none of that. She was no child to be abashed by
sarcasm, but a woman, completed and perfected by her love.
“Excuse me,” she said sharply; “but that is not the truth, and you
know it. You know as well as I do that your son would never say a word
against you.”
Sir John looked hastily round. Lady Cantourne had come into the room
and was talking to the two young people: Millicent was glancing uneasily
over Mr. Grubb's brainless cranium towards them. Sir John's stiff,
unsteady fingers fumbled for a moment round his lips.
“Yes,” he said, “I was wrong.”
“He has always spoken of you with the greatest love and respect,” said
Jocelyn; “more than that, with admiration. But he very rarely spoke of
you at all, which I think means more.”
Sir John blinked, and suddenly pulled himself together with a backward
jerk of the arms which was habitual with him. It almost seemed as if he
said to himself, as he squared his shoulders, “Come, no giving way to
old age!”
“Has his health been good?” he asked, rather formally.
“I believe so, until quite lately. My brother heard yesterday by
telegram that he was at Loango in broken health,” replied Jocelyn.
Sir John was looking at her keenly--his hard blue eyes like steel
between the lashless lids.
“You disquiet me,” he said. “I have a sort of feeling that you have bad
news to tell me.”
“No,” she answered, “not exactly. But it seems to me that no one
realises what he is doing out in Africa--what risks he is running.”
“Tell me,” he said, drawing in his chair. “I will not interrupt you.
Tell me all you know from beginning to end. I am naturally--somewhat
interested.”
So Jocelyn told him. And what she said was only a recapitulation of
facts known to such as have followed these pages to this point. But the
story did not sound quite the same as that related to Millicent. It was
fuller, and there were certain details touched upon lightly which had
before been emphasised--details of dangers run and risks incurred. Also
was it listened to in a different spirit, without shallow comment, with
a deeper insight. Suddenly he broke into the narrative. He saw--keen old
worldling that he was--a discrepancy.
“But,” he said, “there was no one in Loango connected with the scheme
who”--he paused, touching her sleeve with a bony finger--“who sent the
telegram home to young Oscard--the telegram calling him out to Jack's
relief?”
“Oh,” she explained lightly, “I did. My brother was away, so there was
no one else to do it, you see!”
“Yes--I see.”
And perhaps he did.
Lady Cantourne helped them skilfully. But there came a time when
Millicent would stand it no longer, and the amiable Grubb wriggled out
of the room, crushed by a too obvious dismissal.
Sir John rose at once, and when Millicent reached them they were talking
of the previous evening's entertainment.
Sir John took his leave. He bowed over Jocelyn's hand, and Millicent,
watching them keenly, could see nothing--no gleam of a mutual
understanding in the politely smiling eyes.
“Perhaps,” he said, “I may have the pleasure of meeting you again?”
“I am afraid it is doubtful,” she answered, with something that sounded
singularly like exultation in her voice. “We are going back to Africa
almost at once.”
And she, also, took her leave of Lady Cantourne.