CALLED TO ACCOUNT.
Gilbert walked over to Heatherly after luncheon next day, taking of
preference the way which led him past Captain Sedgewick's cottage and
through the leafless wood where he and Marian had walked together when
the foliage was in its summer glory. The leaves lay thick upon the mossy
ground now; and the gaunt bare branches of the trees had a weird awful
look in the utter silence of the place. His footsteps trampling upon the
fallen leaves had an echo; and he turned to look behind him more than
once, fancying he was followed.
The old house, with its long lines of windows, had a prison-like aspect
under the dull November day. Gilbert wondered how such a man as Sir David
Forster could endure his existence there, embittered as it was by the
memory of that calamity which had taken all the sunlight out of his life,
and left him a weary and purposeless hunter after pleasure. But Sir David
had been prostrate under the heavy hand of his hereditary foe, the gout,
for a long time past; and was fain to content himself with such company
as came to him at Heatherly, and such amusement as was to be found in the
society of men who were boon companions rather than friends. Gilbert
Fenton heard the familiar clash of the billiard-balls as he went into the
hall, where a couple of liver-coloured setters were dozing before a great
fire that roared half-way up the wide chimney. There was no other life in
the hall; and Mr. Fenton was conducted to the other end of the house, and
ushered into that tobacco-tainted snuggery in which he had last seen the
Baronet. His suspicions were on the alert this time; and he fancied he
could detect a look of something more than surprise in Sir David's face
when the servant announced him--an uneasy look, as of a man taken at a
disadvantage.
The Baronet was very gracious, however, and gave him a hearty welcome.
"I'm uncommonly glad to see you, my dear Fenton," he said, "Indeed, I
have been pleased to see worse fellows than you lately, since this
infernal gout has laid me up in this dreary old place. The house is
pretty full now, I am happy to say. I have friends who will come to shoot
my partridges, though they won't remember my solitude in a charitable
spirit before the first of September. You'll stop and dine, I hope; or
perhaps you can put up here altogether for a week or so. My housekeeper
shall find you a good room; and I can promise you pleasant company. Say
yes, now, like a good fellow, and I'll send a man to Lidford for your
traps."
"Thanks--no. You are very kind; but I am staying with my sister for a few
days, and must return to town before the end of the week. The fact of the
matter is, Sir David, I have come here to-day to ask you for some
explanation of your conduct at our last interview. I don't want to say
anything rude or disagreeable; for I am quite willing to believe that you
felt kindly towards me, even at the time when you deceived me. I suppose
there are some positions in which a man can hardly expect fair play, and
that mine was such a position. But you certainly did deceive me, Sir
David, and grossly."
"That last is rather an unpleasant word, Mr. Fenton. In what respect did
I deceive you?"
"I came here on purpose to ask you if Mr. Holbrook, the man who robbed me
of my promised wife, were a friend of yours, and you denied all knowledge
of him."
"Granted. And what then, my dear sir?"
"When I came to ask you that question, I had no special reason for
supposing this Mr. Holbrook was known to you. It only struck me that,
being a stranger in the village, as the result of my inquiries had proved
to me, he might be one of your many visitors. I knew at that time that
Mr. Holbrook had taken his wife to a farm-house in Hampshire immediately
after their marriage--a house lent to him by a friend; but I did not know
that you had any estate in that county. I have been to Hampshire since
then, and have found Mrs. Holbrook at the Grange, near Crosber--in your
house."
"You have found her! Well, Mr. Fenton, the circumstantial evidence is too
strong for me, so I must plead guilty. Yes; I did deceive you when I told
you that Holbrook was unknown to me; but I pledged my word to keep his
secret--to give you no clue, should you ever happen to question me, that
could lead to your discovery of your lost love's whereabouts. It was
considered, I conclude, that any meeting between you two must needs
result unpleasantly. At any rate, there was a strong desire to avoid you;
and in common duty to my friend I was compelled to respect that desire."
"Not a very manly wish on the part of my successful rival," said Gilbert.
"It may have been the lady's wish rather than Mr. Holbrook's."
"I have reason to know that it was otherwise. I have heard from Marian's
own lips that she would have written a candid confession of the truth had
she been free to do so. It was her husband who prevented her giving me
notice of my desertion."
"I cannot pretend to explain his conduct," Sir David answered gravely. "I
only know that I pledged myself to keep his secret; and felt bound to do
so, even at the cost of a lie."
"And this man is your friend. You must know whether he is worthy to be
Marian Nowell's husband. The circumstances of her life do not seem to me
favourable to happiness, so far as I have been able to discover them; nor
did I think her looking happy when we met. But I should be glad to know
that she has not fallen into bad hands."
"And I suppose by this time your feelings have cooled down a little. You
have abandoned those revengeful intentions you appeared to entertain,
when you were last in this house?"
"In a great measure, yes. I have promised Marian that, should I and her
husband meet, as we must do, I believe, sooner or later, she need
apprehend no violence on my part. He has won the prize; any open
resentment would seem mere schoolboy folly. But you cannot suppose that I
feel very kindly towards him, or ever shall."
"Upon my soul, I think men are hardly responsible for their actions where
a woman is concerned," Sir David exclaimed after a pause. "We are the
veriest slaves of destiny in these matters. A man sees the only woman in
the world he can love too late to win her with honour. If he is strong
enough to act nobly, he turns his back upon the scene of his temptation,
all the more easily should the lady happen to be staunch to her
affianced, or her husband, as the case may be. But if _she_ waver--if he
sees that his love is returned--heaven help him! Honour, generosity,
friendship, all go by the board; and for the light in those fatal eyes,
for the dangerous music of that one dear voice, he sacrifices all that he
has held highest in life until that luckless time. I _know_ that Holbrook
held it no light thing to do you this wrong; I know that he fought
manfully against temptation. But, you see, fate was the stronger; and he
had to give way at the last."
"I cannot agree with that way of looking at things, Sir David. The world
is made up of people who take their own pleasure at any cost to others,
and then throw the onus of their misdoings upon Providence. I have long
ago forgiven the girl who jilted me, and have sworn to be her faithful
and watchful friend in all the days to come. I want to be sure that her
future is a bright one--much brighter than it seemed when I saw her in
your lonely old house near Crosber. She has had money left her since
then; so poverty can no longer be a reason for her being hidden from the
world."
"I am very glad to hear that; my friend is not a rich man."
"So Marian told me. But I want to learn something more than that about
him. Up to this moment he has been the most intangible being I ever heard
of. Will you tell me who and what he is--his position in the world, and
so on?"
"Humph!" muttered Sir David meditatively; "I don't know that I can tell
you much about him. His position is like that of a good many others of my
acquaintance--rather vague and intangible, to use the word you employed
just now. He is not well off; he is a gentleman by birth, with some small
means of his own, and he 'lives, sir, lives.' That is about all I can say
of him--from a worldly point of view. With regard to his affection for
Miss Nowell, I know that he loved her passionately, devotedly,
desperately--the strongest expression you can supply to describe a man's
folly. I never saw any fellow so far gone. Heaven knows, I did my best to
argue him out of his fancy--urged your claim, the girl's poverty, every
reason against the marriage; but friendly argumentation of that kind goes
very little way in such a case. He took his own course. It was only when
I found the business was decided upon, that I offered him my house in
Hampshire; a place to which I never go myself, but which brings me in a
decent income in the hands of a clever bailiff. I knew that Holbrook had
no home ready for his wife, and I thought it would give them a pleasant
retreat enough for a few months, while the honey and rose-leaves still
sweetened the wine-cup of their wedded life. They have stayed there ever
since, as you seem to know; so I conclude they have found the place
agreeable. Confoundedly dreary, I should fancy it myself; but then I'm
not a newly married man."
The Baronet gave a brief sigh, and his thoughts went back for a moment to
the time when he too was in Arcadia; when a fair young wife was by his
side, and when no hour of his existence seemed ever dull or weary to him.
It was all changed now! He had billiards and whist, and horses and
hounds, and a vast collection of gunnery, and great stores of wine in the
gloomy arched vaults beneath the house, where a hundred prisoners had
been kept under lock and key when Heatherly had fallen into the hands of
the Cromwellian soldiery, and the faithful retainers of the household
were fain to lay down their arms. He had all things that make up the
common pleasures and delights of a man's existence; but he had lost the
love which had given these things a new charm, and without which all life
seemed to him flat, stale, and unprofitable. He could sympathise with
Gilbert Fenton much more keenly than that gentleman would have supposed
possible; for a man suffering from this kind of affliction is apt to
imagine that he has a copyright in that species of grief, and that no
other man ever did or ever can experience a like calamity. The same
manner of trouble may come to others, of course, but not with a similar
intensity. Others will suffer and recover, and find a balm elsewhere. He
alone is constant until death!
"And you can tell me nothing more about Mr. Holbrook?" he asked after a
pause.
"Upon my honour, nothing. I think you will do wisely to leave these two
people to take their own way in the future without any interference on
your part. You speak of watchful friendship and all that kind of thing,
and I can quite appreciate your disinterested desire to befriend the
woman whom you once hoped to make your wife. But, believe me, my dear
Fenton, no manner of good can possibly come of your intervention. Those
two have chosen their road in life, and must travel along it, side by
side, through good or evil fortune. Holbrook would naturally be jealous
of any friendship between his wife and you; while such a friendship could
not fail to keep alive bitter thoughts in your mind--could not fail to
sharpen the regret which you fancy just now is to be life-long. I have no
doubt I seem to speak in a hard worldly spirit."
"You speak like a man of the world, Sir David," the other answered
quietly; "and I cannot deny that there is a certain amount of wisdom in
your advice. No, my friendship is not wanted by either of those two,
supposing even that I were generous enough to be able to give it to both.
I have learnt that lesson already from Marian herself. But you must
remember that I promised her poor old grandfather--the man who died a few
days ago--that I would watch over her interests with patient fidelity,
that I would be her friend and protector, if ever the hour should come in
which she would need friendship and protection. I am not going to forget
this promise, or to neglect its performance; and in order to be true to
my word, I am bound to make myself acquainted with the circumstances of
her married life, and the character of her husband."
"Cannot you be satisfied with knowing that she is happy?"
"I have seen her, Sir David, and am by no means assured of her
happiness."
"And yet it was a love-match on both sides. Holbrook, as I have told you,
loved her passionately."
"That passionate kind of love is apt to wear itself out very quickly with
some men. Your bailiff's daughter complained bitterly of Mr. Holbrook's
frequent absence from the Grange, of the dulness and loneliness of my
poor girl's life."
"Women are apt to be exacting," Sir David answered with a deprecating
shrug of the shoulders. "My friend Holbrook has the battle of life to
fight, and could not spend all his days playing the lover. If his wife
has had money left her, that will make some difference in their position.
A man is never at his best when he is worried by debts and financial
difficulties."
"And Mr. Holbrook was in debt when he married, I suppose?"
"He was. I must confess that I find that complaint a very common one
among my acquaintance," the Baronet added with a laugh.
"Will you tell me what this Holbrook is like in person, Sir David? I
have questioned several people about him, and have never obtained
anything beyond the vaguest kind of description."
Sir David Forster laughed aloud at this request.
"What! you want to know whether your rival is handsome, I suppose? like
a woman, who always commences her inquiries about another woman by asking
whether she is pretty. My dear Fenton, all personal descriptions are
vague. It is almost impossible to furnish a correct catalogue of any
man's features. Holbrook is just one of those men whom it is most
difficult to describe--not particularly good-looking, nor especially
ill-looking; very clever, and with plenty of expression and character in
his face. Older than you by some years, and looking older than he really
is."
"Thanks; but there is not one precise statement in your description. Is
the man dark or fair--short or tall?"
"Rather dark than fair; rather tall than short."
"That will do, Sir David," Gilbert said, starting suddenly to his feet,
and looking the Baronet in the face intently. "The man who robbed me of
my promised wife is the man whom I introduced to her; the man who has
come between me and all my hopes, who hides himself from my just anger,
and skulks in the background under a feigned name, is the one friend whom
I have loved above all other men--John Saltram!"
Sir David faced him without flinching. If it was acted surprise which
appeared upon his countenance at the sound of John Saltram's name, the
acting was perfect. Gilbert could discover nothing from that broad stare
of blank amazement.
"In heaven's name, what can have put such a preposterous notion into your
head?" Sir David asked coolly.
"I cannot tell you. The conviction has grown upon me, against my own
will. Yes, I have hated myself for being able to suspect my friend. You
do not know how I have loved that man, or how our friendship began at
Oxford long ago with something like hero-worship on my side. I thought
that he was born to be great and noble; and heaven knows I have felt the
disappointments and shortcomings of his career more keenly than he has
felt them himself. No, Sir David, I don't think it is possible for any
man to comprehend how I have loved John Saltram."
"And yet, without a shred of evidence, you believe him guilty of
betraying you."
"Will you give me your word of honour that Marian's husband and John
Saltram are not one and the same person?"
"No," answered Sir David impatiently; "I am tired of the whole business.
You have questioned and cross-questioned me quite long enough, Mr.
Fenton, and I have answered you to the best of my ability, and have given
you rational advice, which you will of course decline to take. If you
think your friend has wronged you, go to him, and tax him with that
wrong. I wash my hands of the affair altogether, from this moment; but,
without wishing to be offensive, I cannot help telling you, that to my
mind you are acting very foolishly in this business."
"I daresay it may seem so to you. You would think better of me if I could
play the stoic, and say, 'She has jilted me, and is dead to me
henceforward.' But I cannot do that. I have the memory of her peaceful
girlhood--the happy days in which I knew her first--the generous
protector who sheltered her life. I am pledged to the dead, Sir David."
He left Heatherly soon after this, though the Baronet pressed him to stay
to dinner.