Just a fortnight later Colin was lying in one of the window seats of the
long gallery at Stanier reading through some papers which required his
signature. They had come by the post which Nino had just given him, for
he had brought the boy with him from Capri, with a view to making him
his valet. His own, he said, always looked as if he were listening to a
reading of the ten commandments, and Colin had no use for such a person.
Nino, at any rate, would bring cheerfulness and some touch of southern
gaiety with his shaving-water; besides, no servant approached the
Italian in dexterity and willingness.
And now that the pause of death was over, adjustments, businesses, the
taking up of life again had to begin, and his lawyer was getting things
in shape for his supervision. These particular papers were tedious and
hard to follow and were expressed in that curious legal shibboleth which
makes the unprofessional mind to wander. He tried to attend, but the
effort was like clinging to some slippery edge of ice; he could get no
firm hold of it, and the deep waters kept closing over him. There, below
the terrace, lay the lake where he had seen one such incident happen.
By that he had become heir to all that this fair, shining spring day
shewed him; his father’s death put him in possession, and now this
morning, wherever he turned his eyes, whether on lake or woodland, or
within on picture and carved ceiling, all were his. This stately home,
the light and desire of his eye, with all that it meant in wealth and
position, had passed again into the hands of Colin Stanier, handed down
from generation to generation, ever more prosperous, from his namesake
who had built its enduring walls and founded its splendours.
Of his father’s death there was but little to tell him, when, coming
straight back again from Capri, he had arrived here at the set of a
stormy day. Philip had reeled as he crossed the hall one morning, and
fallen on the hearthrug in front of the Holbein. For half an hour he had
lived, quite unconscious and suffering nothing, then his breathing had
ceased. Until the moment of his stroke, that bursting of some large
blood-vessel on the brain, he had been quite well and cheerful,
rejoicing in the fact that Colin by now had found the sun again, and
already longing for his return.
Violet had been Colin’s informant, and she told him these things with
that air of detachment from him which had characterised her intercourse
with him since Raymond had come home for that last Christmas vacation.
She had watched then with some secret horror dawning in her eyes,
Colin’s incessant torture of his brother. That dismay and darkness which
had spread its shadow on her in the month of their honeymoon, when first
she really began to know Colin, interrupted for a time by their return
home and the high festivals of the autumn, had returned to her then with
a fresh infusion of blackness. Never once had she spoken to him about
his treatment of Raymond, but he was conscious that she watched and
shuddered. It did not seem that her love for him was extinguished; that
horror of hers existed side by side with it; she yearned for his love
even while she shrank from his pitilessness. She feared him, too, not
only for the ruthless iron of him, but for the very charm which had a
power over her more potent yet.
Then came the weeks after Raymond’s death, and Colin thought he saw in
her a waning of her fear of him; that, he reflected, was natural. Some
time, so he read her mind, she knew she would be mistress here in her
own right; it seemed very reasonable that she should gain confidence.
For the last few days, when the wheels of life were now beginning to
turn again, he saw with a comprehending sense of entertainment that
there was something in Violet’s mind: she was trying to bring herself
up to a certain point, and it was not hard to guess what that was. She
was silent and preoccupied, and a dozen times a day she seemed on the
verge of speaking of that which he knew was the subject of her thought.
Till to-day her father and mother and Aunt Hester in becoming mourning
had been with them, now they had gone, and Violet’s restlessness had
become quite ludicrous. She had been in and out of the room half a dozen
times; she had sat down to read the paper, and next moment it had
dropped from her lap and she was staring at the fire again lost in
frowning thought.
Knowing what her communication when it came must be, Colin, from the
very nature of the case could not help her out with it, but he wished
that she would wrestle with and vanquish her hesitation. If it had been
he who in this present juncture had had to speak to Raymond on this
identical subject, how blithely would he have undertaken it. Then,
finally, Violet seemed to make up her mind to take the plunge, and sat
down on the edge of the seat where he lounged. He extended his arm and
put it round her.
“Well, Vi,” he said, “are you finding it hard to settle down? I am, too,
but we’ve got to do it. My dear, Aunt Hester’s little black bonnet! Did
you ever see anything so chic? Roguish; she gets sprightlier every day!”
Violet looked at him gravely.
“There’s something we have to talk about, Colin,” she said, “and we both
know what it is. Will you let me speak for a minute or two without
interrupting me?”
He put his finger on the line to which he had come in this tiresome
document, which his solicitor assured him required his immediate
attention.
“An hour or two, darling; the longer the better,” he said. “What is it?
Are you sure I know? Something nice I hope. Ah, is it about my birthday
perhaps? The last affair that dear father was busy over were plans for
my birthday. Of course I have counter-ordered everything and we must
keep it next year. Well, what is it? I won’t interrupt any more.”
Colin leaned back with his hand still under Violet’s arm, as if to draw
her with him. She bent with him a little way and then disengaged
herself.
“I hate what lies before me,” she said, “and I ask you to believe that I
have struggled with myself. I have tried, Colin, to give the whole thing
up, to let it be yours. But I can’t. I long to be Lady Yardley in my own
right, as you told me I should be on Uncle Philip’s death. All that it
means! I fancy you understand that. But I think I might have given that
up, if it was only myself of whom I had to think. I don’t know; I can’t
be sure.”
She paused, not looking at him. She did not want to know till all was
done how he was taking it. Of course he anticipated it: he knew it must
be, and here was the plain point of it....
“But I haven’t got only myself to think about,” she said. “Before many
months I shall bear you a child; I shall bear you other children after
that, perhaps. I am thinking of them and of you. Since we married I have
learned things about you. You are hard in a way that I did not know was
possible. You have neither love nor compassion. I must defend my
children against you; the only way I can do it is to be supreme myself.
I must hold the reins, not you. I will be good to you, and shall never
cease loving you, I think, but I can’t put myself in your hands, which I
should do, if I did not now use the knowledge which you yourself
conveyed to me. You did that with your eyes open; you asked for and
accepted what your position here will be, and you did it chiefly out of
hatred to Raymond. That was your motive, and it tells on my decision.
You hate more than you love, and I am frightened for my children.
“It is true that when I accepted Raymond, I did it because I should get
Stanier--be mistress here anyhow. But I think--I was wavering--that I
should have thrown him over before I married him and have accepted you,
though I knew that marriage with you forfeited the other. Then you told
me it was otherwise, that in forfeiting Stanier, I found it even more
completely.”
Colin--he had promised not to interrupt--gave no sign of any sort. His
finger still marked the place in this legal document.
“I have sent for my father’s solicitor,” she said, “and they have told
me he is here. But before I see him I wanted to tell you that I shall
instruct him to contest your succession. I shall tell him about the
register in the Consulate at Naples and about your mother’s letters to
your uncle. You said you would let me have them on your father’s death.
Would you mind giving me them now, therefore? He may wish to see them.”
Colin moved ever so slightly, and she for the first time looked at him.
There he lay, with those wide, child-like eyes, and the mouth that
sometimes seemed to her to have kissed her very soul away. He had a
smile for her grave glance; just so had he smiled when torturingly he
tried to remember exactly what had happened in the Old Park on the day
that Raymond shot pigeons. But even while she thought of his relentless,
pursuing glee, the charm of him, the sweet supple youth of him, all fire
and softness, smote on her heart.
“Won’t you go away, till it is all over?” she said. “It will be horrible
for you, Colin, and I don’t want you to suffer. The letters are all I
want of you; I will tell Mr. Markham about the register and he will do
whatever is necessary. Go back to your beloved island; you were robbed
of your stay there. Wait there until all this business, which will be
horrible for you, is done. You can see your dear Mr. Cecil again....”
she added, trying to smile back at him.
“Yes, I might do that,” said Colin thoughtfully. “In fact, I probably
shall. But I must try to take in what you have been saying. I can’t
understand it: you must explain. You referred, for instance, to my
mother’s letters. What letters? I don’t know of any letters of my
mother as being in existence. Still less have I got any. How could I
have? She died when I was but a few weeks old. Do mothers write letters
to the babies at their breasts?”
“The two letters to your uncle,” said she.
Colin planted a levering elbow by his side, and sat up.
“I suppose it is I who am mad,” he said, “because you talk quite quietly
and coherently, and yet I don’t understand a single word of what you
say. Letters from my mother to my uncle? Ah....”
He took her hand again, amending his plan in accordance with his talk
with Salvatore.
“You’re right,” he said. “Uncle Salvatore did once give me two letters
from my mother to him. Little faint things. I destroyed them not so long
ago: one should never keep letters. But you’re right, Vi. Uncle
Salvatore did give me a couple of letters once, but when on earth did I
mention them to you? What a memory you have got! It’s quite true; one
announced my mother’s marriage, the other spoke of the birth of poor
Raymond and me. But what of them? And what--oh, I must be mad--what in
heaven’s name do you mean, when you talk, if I understand you correctly,
about sending somebody out to Naples? The register in the Consulate
there? And my succession? Are they connected? Isn’t it usual for a son
to succeed his father? I’m all at sea--or am I asleep and dreaming?
Pinch me, darling. I want to wake up. What register?”
Some nightmare sense of slipping, slipping, slipping took hold of
Violet.
“The erasure in the register,” she said. “All that you told me.”
Colin swung his legs off the window-seat and got up. There was an
electric bell close at hand and he rang it.
“There’s some plot,” he said, “and I have no idea what it is. I want a
witness with regard to anything further that you wish to say to me.
What’s his name? Your father’s solicitor, I mean. Oh, yes, Markham.
Don’t speak another word to me.”
He turned his back on her and waited till a servant came in.
“Her ladyship wishes to see Mr. Markham,” he said. “Ask Mr. Markham to
come here at once.”
“Colin....” she began.
It was just such a face that he turned on her now as he had given to her
one evening at Capri.
“Not a word,” he said. “Hold your tongue, Violet. You’ll speak
presently.”
Mr. Markham appeared, precise and florid. Colin shook hands with him.
“My wife has a statement to make to you,” he said. “I don’t know what it
is: she has not yet made it. But it concerns me and the succession to my
father’s title and estates. It had therefore better be made to you in my
presence. Please tell Mr. Markham what you were about to tell me,
Violet.”
In dead silence, briefly and clearly, Violet repeated what Colin had
told her on the night that they were engaged. All the time he looked at
her, Mr. Markham would have said, with tenderness and anxiety, and when
she had finished he spoke:
“I hope you will go into this matter without any delay, Mr. Markham,” he
said. “My wife, as I have already told her, is perfectly right in saying
that my uncle--you will need his address--gave me two letters from my
mother to him. She is right also about the subject of those letters. But
she is under a complete delusion about the dates of them. I destroyed
them not so long ago, I am afraid, so the only person who can possibly
settle this is my uncle, to whom I hope you will apply without delay. No
doubt he will have some recollection of them; indeed, he cherished them
for years, and if the dates were as my wife says that I told her they
were, he must have known that my brother and I were illegitimate. So
much for the letters.”
Colin found Violet’s eyes fixed on him; her face, deadly pale, wore the
stillness of stone.
“With regard to my wife’s allegation about the register,” he said. “I
deny that I ever told her any such story. I have this to add: when my
father and I were in Naples last summer, I made, at his request, a copy
of the record of his marriage from the consular register. He thought, I
fancy, that in the event of his death, a certified copy of it, here in
England, might be convenient for the purpose of proving the marriage. I
made that copy myself, and Mr. Cecil, our Consul in Naples, certified it
to be correct. I gave it my lawyer a few days ago, when he was down
here, and it is, of course, open to your inspection.”
Colin paused and let his eyes rest wistfully on Violet.
“My wife, of course, Mr. Markham,” he said, “is under a delusion. But
she has made the allegation, and in justice to me, I think you will
agree that it must be investigated. She supposes--don’t you,
darling?--that there is an erasure in the register at the Consulate
showing that it has been tampered with, and that erasure points to an
attempt on some one’s part, presumably my father’s or my own, to
legitimatise his children. In answer to that I am content for the
present to say that when I made the copy I saw no such erasure, nor did
Mr. Cecil who certified the correctness of it. Mr. Cecil, to whom I will
give you an introduction, no doubt will remember the incident. I am glad
I have got that copy, for if the register proves to have been tampered
with, it may be valuable. My belief is that no such erasure exists. May
I suggest, Mr. Markham, that you or some trustworthy person should start
for Naples at once? You will take the affidavits--is it not--of my uncle
with regard to the letters, and of Mr. Cecil with regard to the
genuineness of the copy of my father’s marriage. You will also inspect
the register. The matter is of the utmost and immediate importance.”
He turned to Violet. “Vi, darling,” he said, “let us agree not to speak
of this again until Mr. Markham has obtained full information about it
all. Now, perhaps, you would like to consult him in private. I will
leave you.”
* * * * *
Mr. Markham shared Colin’s view as to the urgency and importance of
setting this matter at rest, and left for Naples that evening with due
introductions to Salvatore and the Consul. Colin had a word with him
before he left, and with tenderness and infinite delicacy, spoke of
Violet’s condition. Women had these strange delusions, he believed, at
such times, and the best way of settling them was to prove that they had
no foundation. Mr. Markham, he was afraid, would find that he had made a
fruitless journey, as far as the ostensible reason for it went, but he
had seen for himself how strongly the delusion had taken hold on his
wife, and in that regard he hoped for the best results. In any case the
thing must be settled....
* * * * *
Never had the sparkle and sunlight of Colin’s nature been so gay as
during these two days when they waited for the news that Mr. Markham
would send from Naples. It had been agreed that the issues of his errand
should not be spoken of until they declared themselves, and here, to all
appearance, was a young couple, adorably adorned with all the gifts of
Nature and inheritance, with the expectation of the splendour of half a
century’s unclouded days spread in front of them. They had lately passed
through the dark valley of intimate bereavement, but swiftly they were
emerging into the unshadowed light, where, in a few months now, the
glory of motherhood, the pride of fatherhood, awaited them. In two days
from now, as both knew, a disclosure would reach them which must be, one
way or the other, of tremendous import, but for the present, pending
that revelation, presage and conjecture, memory even of that interview
with Mr. Markham, which had sent him across the breadth of Europe, were
banished; they were as children in the last hour of holidays, as lovers
between whom must soon a sword be unsheathed.
They wandered in the woods where in the hot, early spring the daffodils
were punctual, and, “coming before the swallow dares,” took the winds of
March with beauty, and Colin picked her the pale cuckoo-pint which,
intoxicated with nonsense, he told her comes before the cuckoo dares....
They spoke of the friendship of their childhood which had so swiftly
blossomed into love, and of the blossom of their love that was budding
now.
All day the enchantment of their home and their companionship waved its
wand over them, and at night, tired with play, they slept the light
sleep of lovers. Certainly, for one or other of them, there must soon
come a savage awakening, or, more justly, the strangle-hold of
nightmare, but there were a few hours yet before the dreams of
spring-time and youth were murdered.
The third day after Mr. Markham’s departure for Naples was Colin’s
birthday, when he would come of age, and Violet, waking early that
morning, while it was still dark, found herself prey to some crushing
load and presage of disaster, most unpropitious, most unbirthday-like.
For the last two days, these days of waiting for news, they had made for
themselves a little artificial oasis of sunshine and laughter; now some
secret instinct told her that she could linger there no more. To-day,
she felt sure, would come some decisive disclosure, and she dreaded it
with a horror too deep for the plummet of imagination. In that dark hour
before dawn, when the vital forces are at their lowest, she lay hopeless
and helpless.
Colin had denied all knowledge of what he had himself told her; he had
been eager for Mr. Markham to disprove it.... He knew something which
she did not. What that could be she could form no idea at all. At the
worst, Salvatore would confirm his account of those letters, and no such
erasure as Colin had spoken of would be found in the register. Had he,
then, invented this merely to ensure her marrying him; and now that
Raymond’s death had given him mastership at Stanier, was he simply
denying what never existed at all? From what she knew of him now, he was
capable of having done that in order to make her throw over Raymond, but
it was not that which she dreaded. There was something more; a black
curtain seemed to hang before her, and presently some hot blast would
blow it high in the air, and she would see what lay behind it.
It was rapidly growing light, and outside the birds were busy with their
early chirrupings. By the window which last night Colin had opened,
pulling back the curtains, the silver of her Paul Lamerie toilet-set
glimmered with the increasing brightness. Colin lay close to her, with
face turned towards her, fast asleep. His cheek was on his hand, the
other arm, languid and slack, was stretched outside the bedclothes, his
mouth was a little parted, and it seemed to be smiling. And then he
stirred and, leaning his head a little back, his smile broadened and he
laughed in his sleep with open mouth. At that some nameless panic seized
her, and, stopping her ears, she buried her face in the clothes. A child
might laugh so, but was the merriment of his dream that of a child? Or
had some sense that did not sleep reminded him that his twenty-first
birthday was now dawning?
She feigned to be asleep when Nino’s tap came to the door of his
dressing-room, and she heard Colin get up. He spoke to her quietly, but
she did not answer or open her eyes. Then his room door opened and
closed and she was alone.
Colin was already at breakfast when she came down, and apparently his
mood of the last two days had suffered no ungenial change.
“Good morning, darling,” he said. “I tried to say that to you before,
but you were busy sleeping. What shall I give you? There’s some nasty
fish and some tepid bacon.”
He looked at her with some sort of wistful expectancy, as if wondering
if she would remember something, and the thoughts, the wild imaginings
which had made the dawn a plunge into some dark menace, dropped from her
mind like drugged creatures.
“Colin dear, your birthday. What can I give you?” she said, kissing him.
“It was the first thing I thought of when I woke. We’re the same age
again. I was a year ahead of you till this morning.”
“Delicious of you to remember it, Vi,” said he. “Yes, we’re forty-two
years old between us. A great age! Hullo, Nino.”
“_Pella signora_,” said Nino, and gave Violet a telegram.
Colin watched her fingers fumbling at the gummed flap of the envelope,
as if numb and nerveless. Then with a jerk she tore it across and opened
it. Only once before had he seen a living face as white as that, when
fingers were slipping from the ice.
“Read it for me,” she said at length. “I don’t seem to see what it
means.”
Colin took it; it had been sent from Naples late last night, and came
from Mr. Markham. He read:
“Salvatore Viagi’s account of letters agrees with your husband’s.
Page containing marriages of year and month in question has been
cut out of register at Consulate.”
Colin passed the sheet back to Violet. She did not take it from his hand
and he let it drop on to the tablecloth. He leaned a little towards her.
“Vi, you’re magnificent,” he said. “That was a glorious stroke of yours!
That night when you and I stayed at the Consulate. No, darling, don’t
interrupt, let me speak for two or three minutes just as you did a few
mornings ago. Eat your bacon and listen.... I see now the reason of your
pretended reluctance to stay with Mr. Cecil. It put me off the scent
completely at the time.”
“What scent?” she asked. “What do you mean?”
“I asked you not to interrupt. There we were on our honeymoon and so
casually, so unthinkingly, I told Mr. Cecil that we would stay with him
on our way home. You objected, but eventually you agreed. Your
reluctance to stay with him, as I say, put me quite off the scent.
Having done that you yielded. Little did I dream then of your superb
project....”
She gazed at him like some bird hypnotised by the snake that coil after
coil draws nearer. Colin, too, drew nearer; he pushed his chair sideways
and leaned towards her, elbows on the table.
“I remember that night so well,” he said. “I was sleeping in the
dressing-room next door to you, and the door was wide, for it was hot. I
heard you get out of bed. I heard your latch creak. Oh, yes, you called
to me first, and I did not answer. I called to you this morning, you
remember, and you did not answer. Sometimes one pretends to be asleep.
Till this minute I knew nothing for certain more of what you did. Now I
know. You were playing for a great stake: I applaud you. You got hold of
Mr. Cecil’s keys (he is careless about them) and tore that leaf out of
the register. You knew that on my father’s death his marriage to my
mother must be proved before Raymond or I (poor Raymond) could succeed,
for, of course, it was common property that he lived with her before
they were married. Giuseppe, his boatman, Uncle Salvatore, half-a-dozen
people, could have told you that. And then, oh! a crowning piece of
genius, you make up a cock-and-bull story about erasure and letters
which force us to have the register examined, and lo! there is no record
of the marriage at all. What is the presumption? That Raymond and I
were, well, an ugly word. But just there fate was unkind to you through
no fault of yours, except that failure is a fault and the most fatal
one. You did not know that I had made a copy of the entry and got it
signed and certified by our charming Mr. Cecil, before the curious
disappearance of that page. And then you made just one terrible mistake.
How could you have done it?”
She turned to him a face of marble, faultlessly chiselled, but wholly
lifeless.
“What mistake did I make?” she said.
“You kept that leaf,” said Colin pityingly. “A record of your triumph, I
suppose, like a cotillon-toy, to dream over when you were mistress
here.”
“Go on,” said she.
Colin came closer yet. “Darling, will you be awfully nice to me,” he
said, “and give me that leaf as a birthday present? It would be a
delightful souvenir. You know where it is.”
She paused. She remembered the tradition of the icy self-repression of
the Lady Yardleys who had preceded her, the frost that fell on them.
From personal knowledge there was her grandmother. That Arctic night was
darkening on her now, and she shivered.
“I don’t know where it is,” she said. “Make up another lie.”
He rose. “You must learn politeness, Violet,” he said. “You must learn
many useful things. I am being very kind to you. You don’t appreciate
that.”
Night had not quite fallen yet.
“Just as you were kind to Raymond,” she said.
He smiled at her. “Yes, the same sort of kindness,” he said.
He spoke to her as to a troublesome child with soft persuasion.
“Now you know where it is quite well, but you want to give me the
trouble of reminding you. You won’t say you’re sorry, or anything of
that sort. Not wise.”
“Spring the trap on me,” she said.
“Very well; you put it in the secret drawer in the stand of your lovely
Lamerie looking-glass, the evening we came back from our honeymoon. You
had left me talking to father, but as soon as you had gone, I followed
you. It was pure chance: I suspected nothing then. But I looked in from
my dressing-room and saw you with the secret drawer open, putting
something into it. I went downstairs again. But I am bound to say that
my curiosity was aroused; perhaps you might have been having a
billet-doux from Nino. So I took a suitable opportunity--I think it was
when you were at church--and satisfied myself about it.”
Colin reviewed this speech, which seemed to come to him impromptu,
except for the one fact that underlay it, which in a few minutes now
would be made manifest to Violet.
“So poor Nino was not my rival,” he said. “That was such a relief, Vi
darling, for I should have had to send him away. But I never really gave
a serious thought to that, for I believed you liked your poor Colin. But
what I found did surprise me. I could not believe that any one so clever
could have been so stupid as to keep the evidence of her cleverness.
When you have been clever, it is wise to destroy the evidence of your
cleverness. Shall we come?”
“But my looking-glass? A secret drawer?” said Violet. “There’s no secret
drawer that I know of.”
“No, no, of course not,” said Colin. “I shall be obliged to show it you.
But wait a minute. I had better have a witness of what I find in the
secret drawer of which you are ignorant. My solicitor is here, but with
this other disclosure, he might urge me to proceed against you for
conspiracy, which I don’t at present intend to do. Your maid, now; no,
you would not like her to know such things about you. She might
blackmail you. How about Nino? He will do no more than understand that a
paper has been found, and that he witnesses to the finding of it. One
has to protect oneself. I had to protect myself against Raymond. May I
ring for Nino?”
At that the Arctic night fell on Violet, and presently the three of them
were in her bedroom. Round the base of the looking-glass ran a repoussé
cable band, and Colin was explaining to her how, if she pressed the stud
at the corner of it, just where the silversmith’s name--L. A. for
Lamerie--was punched in the metal, the side of the base would fly open.
And so it was; she pressed it herself while he stood aside, and within
was the drawer and the folded paper.
Colin took a swift step and plucked the paper out, holding it at arm’s
length.
“There, darling, all your responsibility is over,” he said. “I will keep
it for you now. I will just open it and show you what it is, but do not
come too close or try to snatch it. There! Names of happy couples one
below the other, and in the space next the name the date of their
marriage. Half-way down the page you see the names we are looking for,
Rosina Viagi and Philip Lord Stanier and the date, March the first,
1893.”
He turned to Nino and spoke in Italian.
“And you, Nino,” he said, “you saw me take this paper out of the drawer
of the signora’s looking-glass. And now you see me--give me a big
envelope from the table--you see me put it in this envelope and close
it--it is as if I did a conjuring trick--and I sit down and write on the
envelope for the signora to read. I say that in your presence and in
mine the enclosed was taken from the secret drawer in the looking-glass
where it had been placed for safe custody by Violet Stanier, Countess of
Yardley, and given into the care of her husband, Colin Stanier, Earl of
Yardley. Sign it, Nino, and observe that I sign. I date it also. That’s
all, Nino; you may go.”
Colin laid his hand on Violet’s neck.
“It has been trying for you, dear,” he said. “Rest a little. But your
mind may be at ease now; the anxiety of having that in your possession
is removed, and it will be in safe keeping. I will give it at once to my
lawyer, with instructions that it is to be delivered to no one except to
me in person, and that at my death it is to be destroyed unopened. It
entirely depends on yourself as to whether it ever sees the light
again.... And then, when you are rested, shall we go for one of our
delicious rambles in the park. What’s that line of Wordsworth? ‘This
one day we’ll give to idleness.’ Thank you, darling, for your lovely
birthday present.”
* * * * *
Never on Walpurgis Night nor at Black Mass had there ever been so
fervent an adorer to his god as Colin, so satanic a rite as that which
he had performed on this birthday morning. No need was there for him to
make any vow of lip-service, or by any acceptation of the parchment that
was set in the frame of the Holbein, to confirm his allegiance. The
spirit was more than the letter, and in no wanton ecstasy of evil could
he have made a more sacramental dedication of himself. It was not enough
for him to have forged, ever so cunningly, the evidence which, while
Raymond lived, proved his illegitimacy, nor, more cunningly yet, to have
got rid of that evidence when Raymond’s death cleared for him the steps
to the throne. He must in the very flower and felicity of wickedness
preserve that evidence in order to produce it as the handiwork of his
wife. The edifice would have been incomplete otherwise; it would have
lacked that soaring spire of infamy. But now all was done, and on his
birthday came the consecration of the abominable temple of himself to
the spirit he adored.
* * * * *
He came to her room that night and sat as he so often did on the edge of
her bed.
“You have been perfect to me to-day, darling,” he said. “You have given
me the happiest birthday. You have been so quiet and serene and
controlled. And have you been happy?”
“Yes, Colin,” said she.
He pulled off his tie and flapped her fingers with the end of it.
“I think I shall go south again,” he said. “I was defrauded of my stay
in Capri owing to my father’s death. What about you? Had you not better
stay quietly at home? Get your father and mother to come down.”
“Just as you please,” said she.
“Let us settle it like that, then. And look at me a minute, Violet.”
She raised her eyes to his.
“Ah, that’s right,” he said. “You’ve had a lesson to-day, darling. It
has tired you, and I will leave you to sleep in one moment. We can’t
have you tired; you must take great care of yourself; eat well, sleep
well, be out a great deal. About that lesson. Take it to heart, Vi.
Never again try to cross my path: it’s much too dangerous. And you’ve no
delusions left about letters and registers, have you? Answer me, dear.”
“No,” said she.
“That’s good. Now I’ll leave you.”
* * * * *
The March night was warm and moonlit, and Colin stood by the open window
letting the breeze stream in against his skin, and looked out over
terrace and lake and woodland. All that he had so passionately desired
since first he toddled about this stately home of his race was his, and
nothing now could upset his rights. And how wonderful the process of
arriving at it had been: every step of that way was memorable; fraud,
intrigue, trickery, matchless cruelty, had paved the road, and to-day
the road was finished.
He put out his light, and curled himself up in bed.... Violet’s
first-born must surely be a son, who should learn early and well from
lips that knew what they were saying the sober truth of that which in
the legend wore the habiliment of mediæval superstition. He should learn
how poor Uncle Raymond had allowed himself to love--yes, there was a
time when he had loved mother, and--was not that tiresome for
him--mother happened to prefer father. Well, poor Uncle Raymond had
loved, and that, perhaps, was his undoing, for he had fallen into the
lake, under the ice, and the icy water had smothered him, and the fishes
had nibbled him.... Colin chuckled to himself at the thought of
recounting that.
For a moment, as he looked out on to the night, he had experienced a
dulness and dimness of spirit as of a cloud passing over the bright
circle of the moon at the thought that he had accomplished all that had
so thrillingly occupied him. But at the thought of his fatherhood, the
brightness shone forth again. How fascinating it would be to till and to
sow in that soft soil, to rear the seedlings that he would water and
tend so carefully, to watch them putting forth the buds of poisonous
flowers that swelled and prospered till they burst the sheaths of
childhood and opened wide-petalled to night and day.
His thoughts, drowsy and content, turned towards Violet. Certainly there
had been noticeable in her all day a freezing, a congealment. She was
becoming like those impassive portraits of her predecessors, marble
women out of whose eyes looked some half-hidden horror....
A flash of lightning, very remote, blinked in through the uncurtained
oblong of the window opposite his bed, and a mutter of thunder, as
drowsy as himself, answered it. He slid his hand underneath his cheek,
and fell asleep.
THE END