THE CHIVALROUS BARONET
Lady Poole and her daughter had been living in rooms in the great Palace
Hotel at Brighton for a fortnight.
Marjorie, utterly broken down by the terrible mystery that enveloped
her, and shrinking from the fierce light that began to beat upon the
details of her private life, had implored her mother to take her from
London.
There had been a terrible scene between the old lady and her daughter
when, the day after Marjorie had written to Sir William Gouldesbrough
telling him that she could not marry him, she had confessed the truth to
Lady Poole.
In her anger and excitement the elder woman had said some bitter and
terrible things. She was transformed for a space from the pleasant and
easy-going society dame into something hard, furious, and even coarse.
Marjorie had shrunk in amazement and fear from the torrent of her
mother's wrath. And finally she had been able to bear it no longer, and
had lost consciousness.
Allowances should be made for the dowager. She was a worldly woman, good
and kind as far as she went, but purely worldly and material. The hope
of her life had seemed gained when her daughter became engaged to Sir
William. The revelation that, after all, the engagement was now broken,
was nothing more than a delusion, and that a younger and ineligible man,
from the worldly point of view, had won Marjorie's affection, was a
terrible blow to the woman of the world. All her efforts seemed useless.
The object of her life, so recently gained, so thoroughly enjoyed, was
snatched away from her in a sudden moment.
But when Marjorie had come to herself again, and the doctor had been
summoned to treat her for a nervous shock, she found her mother once
more the kindly and loved parent of old. Lady Poole had been frightened
at her own violence, and repented bitterly for what she had said. She
tended and soothed the girl in the sweetest and most motherly way. And
without disguising from Marjorie the bitter blow the girl's decision was
to her, she told her that she was prepared to accept the inevitable, and
to re-organize all her ideas for the future.
And then had come the black mystery of Guy's utter vanishing from the
world of men and women.
Lady Poole had always been fond of Guy Rathbone, and now, by a curious
contradiction of nature, when she had schooled herself to realize that
it was on this man her daughter's life was centred, the old lady was
terribly and genuinely affected at Guy's disappearance. No one could
have been more helpful or more sympathetic during these black hours, and
she gladly left Curzon Street for Brighton, in order that she might be
alone with her daughter and endeavour to bring her back in some measure
to happiness, or, if not happiness, to interest in life.
Soon after Marjorie had written her letter to Sir William, Lady Poole
had received a reply from the scientist, enclosing a short note for her
daughter.
It had been a wonderful letter. The writer said that he could not
disguise from himself that he had seen, or at least suspected, the way
things were going.
"Terrible," he said, "as this letter of your daughter's has been to
me, it would yet ill-become me not to receive it as a man. I had
hoped and believed that a very happy life was in store for me with
Marjorie and for her with me. Then I saw that it was not to be, and
Marjorie's letter comes as no surprise, but as only the definite
and final end of my dream. Dear Lady Poole, do realize that,
despite all this, it will always be my duty and my privilege to be
the friend of you and of your daughter if you and she will permit
me to be so. I have told her so often how I love her, and I tell
her so even now. But love, as I understand it, should have the
element of self-sacrifice in it, if it is true love. I will
therefore say no more about my personal feelings, except in one
way. Just as my whole life would have been devoted to making your
daughter happy, so I now feel it is my duty to devote myself as
well as I can to making her happy in another way. She has chosen a
man no doubt more worthy to be her husband than I should ever be.
You will forgive a natural weakness if I say no more on this point,
but the great fact is that she has chosen. Therefore, I say that my
only wish is for her life-long happiness, and that all my
endeavours, such as they are, will be still devoted to that end.
Let them be happy, let them be together. And if I can promote their
happiness, even though my own heart may be broken, believe me, dear
Lady Poole, it is my most fervent wish.
"Will you give Marjorie the enclosed little note of farewell? I
shall not trouble her more, until perhaps some day in the future we
may still be friends, though fate and her decision have forbidden
me to be anything more to her than just that.
"Believe me, my dear Lady Poole,
"In great sorrow and in sincere friendship,
"WILLIAM GOULDESBROUGH."
So the two ladies had gone to Brighton, and while the press of the
United Kingdom was throbbing with excitement, while hundreds of people
were endeavouring to solve the terrible mystery of Guy Rathbone's
disappearance, the girl more nearly interested in it than any one else
in the world stayed quietly with her mother at the pleasant sea-side
town, and was not molested by press or public.
Marjorie had become, even in these few days, a ghost of her former self.
The light had faded out of her eyes, they had ceased to appear
transparent and had become opaque. Her beautifully chiselled lips now
drooped in pathetic and habitual pain, her pallor was constant and
unvarying. She drank in the keen sea breezes, and they brought no colour
to her cheeks. She walked upon the white chalk cliffs and saw nothing of
the shifting gold and shadow as the sun fell upon the sea, heard nothing
of the harmonies of the Channel winds. Her whole heart was full of a
passionate yearning and a terrible despair; she was like a stately
flower that had been put out of its warm and sheltered home into an icy
blast, and was withered and blackened in an hour.
Kind as her mother was, Marjorie felt that there was nobody now left to
lean upon, to confide in. A girl of her temperament needs some stronger
arm than any woman can provide, to help and comfort, to keep awake the
fires of hope within her, and nothing of the sort was hers. In all the
world she seemed to have no one to confide in, no one to lean upon, no
one who would give her courage and hope for the black and impenetrable
future.
At the end of the first fortnight, Marjorie knew, though her mother only
just referred to the matter, that letters were daily arriving from Sir
William Gouldesbrough.
One evening Lady Poole, unable to keep the news from her daughter any
longer, told her of these communications.
"I dare say, darling," the old lady said, "I may give you pain, but I
think you really ought to know how wonderfully poor dear William is
behaving in this sad affair. Though it must be terribly hard for him,
though it must fill him with a pain that I can only guess at, he is
moving heaven and earth to discover what has become of your poor boy. He
is daily writing to me to tell me what he is doing, to inform me of his
hopes, and I tell you, Marjorie, that if human power can discover what
has happened to Guy, William Gouldesbrough will discover it. Do realize,
dear, what a noble thing this is in the man you have rejected. Whenever
I receive his letters I can't help crying a little, it seems so noble,
so touching, and so beautiful of him."
Marjorie was sitting at the table. The ladies dined in their private
rooms, and it was after the meal. Her head was in her hands and her eyes
were full of tears. She looked up as her mother said this, with a white,
wan face.
"Ah, yes, dear," she replied, "there is no doubt of that, William was
always noble. He is as great in heart as he is in intellect. He is
indeed one of the chosen and best. Don't think I don't realize it,
mother, now you've told me, indeed I _do_ realize it. My whole heart is
filled with gratitude towards him. No one else would have done as much
in his position."
"You do feel that, do you, dear?" Lady Poole said.
"Oh, indeed I do," she answered, "though I fear that even he, great as
his intellect is, will never disperse this frightful, terrible
darkness."
Lady Poole got up and came round to where her daughter was sitting. She
put her hand upon the shining coil of hair and said--
"Dear, do you think that you could bear to see him?"
"To see William?" Marjorie answered quickly with a curious catch in her
voice.
"Yes, darling, to see William. Would it give you too much pain?"
"But how, why, what for?"
"Oh, not to revive any memories of the past, there is nothing further
from his thoughts. But this morning he wrote me the very sweetest
letter, saying that in this crisis he might be able to give you a little
comfort."
"Has he discovered anything, then?" Marjorie asked.
"I fear not as yet. But he says that at this moment you must feel very
much alone. As you know, he is doing all that a mortal man can. Of
course, I have told him how broken you are by it all, and he thinks that
perhaps you might like to hear what he is doing, might like to confide
in him a little. 'If,' he says in his letter, 'she will receive me as a
brother, whose only wish is to help her in this terrible trial, can I
say how proud and grateful I shall be to come to her and tell her what I
can?'"
Marjorie gave a great sob. It was too much. In her nervous and weak
condition the gentle and kindly message her mother had given her was
terribly affecting.
"How good he is!" she murmured. "Yes, mother, if only he would come I
should like to see him."
"Then, my dear," Lady Poole replied, "that is very easily arranged, for
he is in the hotel to-night."
Marjorie started. Her mother went to a side table on which was a little
portable telephone. She held the receiver to her ear, and when the clerk
from the down-stairs office replied, asked that Sir William
Gouldesbrough should be told at once that Lady Poole would be very glad
to see him in Number 207.
Marjorie rose and began to pace the room. A growing excitement mastered
her, her hands twitched, her eyes were dilated. Perhaps she was at last
going to hear something, something definite, something new, about Guy.
There was a knock at the door. A waiter opened it, and Sir William
Gouldesbrough came into the room.