'There was a Door to which I found no Key:
There was a Veil past which I could not see:
Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee
There seem'd--and then no more of Thee and Me.'
OMAR KHAYYÁM.
'Numero Deus impare gaudet.'
VIRGIL.
I
When the man who remained in local story as the Popish Lord Wantley
built Monk's Eype, he planned the arrangements of the lower floor of his
villa in a way which was approved by neither his Neapolitan architect
nor his English acquaintances.
From the broad terrace overhanging the sea, the row of high narrow
windows on either side of the shallow stone steps giving access to the
central hall, seemed strictly symmetrical. But there was nothing uniform
behind the stately façade. Instead of a suite of reception-rooms opening
the one out of the other on either side of the frescoed hall, the whole
left side of the villa--excepting the wing, which stretched, as did its
fellow, landward, and in which were the servants' quarters--was occupied
by one vast apartment.
In this great room the creator of Monk's Eype had gathered together most
of his treasures, including the paintings which he had acquired during a
long sojourn in Italy; and his Victorian successor had added many
beautiful works of art to the collection.
In the Picture Room, as it was called, Penelope's mother always sat when
at Monk's Eype, sometimes working at delicate embroidery, oftener
writing busily at an inlaid ivory table close to one of the windows
opening on to the terrace.
On the other side of the circular hall the Italian architect had had his
way. Here there was a suite of lofty, well-proportioned rooms opening
the one out of the other.
Of these rooms, the first was the dining-room, of which the painted
ceiling harmonized with the panels of old Flemish tapestry added to the
treasures of Monk's Eype by Penelope's parents. Then came another
spacious room, of much the same proportions, which had now been for many
years regarded as specially set apart for the use of young Lord Wantley,
Mrs. Robinson's cousin and frequent guest. In this pleasant room Wantley
read, painted, and smoked, and there also he would entertain those of
Penelope's visitors whose sex made him perforce their host. Still, even
his occupancy of what some of Mrs. Robinson's friends considered the
most agreeable room in the villa was poisoned by a bitter memory. Not
long after the death of the man whom he had been taught to call uncle,
he had heard his plea for a billiard-table set aside by the new mistress
of Monk's Eype with angry decision, and he had been made to feel that he
had unwittingly offered an insult to her father's memory.
Beyond Lord Wantley's special quarters there was a third room, more
narrow, less well lighted than the others. There were those,
nevertheless, who would have regarded it as the most interesting
apartment at Monk's Eype, for there the greatest of Victorian
philanthropists had worked, spending long hours of his holiday at the
large plain knee-table so placed as both to block and to command the one
window. Here also hung a portrait which many would have come far to see.
If vile as a work of art, it was almost startlingly like the late owner
of the room, and this resemblance was the more striking because of the
familiar attitude, the left hand supporting the chin, which had had for
most of the sitter's fellow-countrymen the ridiculous associations of
caricature.
Mrs. Robinson disliked both the room and the portrait. But mingled
feelings of respect, of affection, and of fear, had caused her to leave
the room as it had been during her father's occupancy, and it was only
used by her on the rare occasions when she was compelled to have a
personal interview with one of her tenants from neighbouring Wyke Regis.
II
On the evening of the day, a Saturday, when Miss Wake's and her niece's
arrival had taken place, Lord Wantley had returned somewhat unexpectedly
from a visit paid in the neighbourhood, which had been cut short by the
sudden illness of the hostess.
After the cheerful, if commonplace, house and party he had just left,
Monk's Eype struck him as strangely quiet and depressing, though, as
always, the beauty of the villa impressed him anew as he passed through
into the circular hall, now flooded with the light of the setting sun.
'I wonder who she has got here now,' he said to himself as he noticed a
man's hat, roomy travelling-coat, and stick laid across the top of the
Italian marriage-chest, the brilliancy of whose armorial ornaments and
bright gilding had been dimmed by a hundred years of the salt wind and
soft mists of the Dorset coast.
Mrs. Robinson was fond of entertaining those of her fellow-painters
whose work attracted her fancy or excited her admiration, and Wantley's
fastidious taste sometimes revolted from the associations into which she
thrust him.
The young man's relations to his beautiful cousin were at once singular
and natural--best, perhaps, explained by a word said in the frankness of
grief during the hours which had immediately followed his predecessor's
death. 'You know, Penelope,' the heir had said in all good faith, if a
little awkwardly--for at that time nothing was definitely known of the
famous philanthropist's will, and none doubted that the new peer would
find himself to have been treated fairly, if not generously, by the
great Lord Wantley--'you know that now you must consider me as your
brother; your father himself told me he hoped it would be so.'
The wilful girl had looked at him in silence for a moment, and then,
very deliberately, had answered: 'What nonsense! Did my father ever
treat you as a son? No, Ludovic, we will go on as we have always done.
But if you like'--and she had smiled satirically--'I will look upon you
as a kind and well-meaning stepbrother!' And it was with the eyes of a
critical, but not unfriendly stepbrother that Wantley came in due course
to regard her.
Concerning his cousin's--to his apprehension--extraordinary marriage, he
had not been in any way consulted. Indeed, at the time the engagement
and marriage took place he had been far away from England; but after
Melancthon Robinson's tragic death Penelope for a moment had clung to
him as if he had indeed been her brother, showing such real feeling,
such acute pain, such bitter distress, that he had come to the
conclusion that the tie between the oddly-assorted couple had been at
any rate one worthy of respect.
When, somewhat later, Mrs. Robinson had begged Wantley to help her with
the complicated business details connected with the Melancthon
Settlement, he had drawn back, or rather he had advised her, not
unkindly, to hand the work over to one of the great social philanthropic
organizations already provided with suitable machinery.
As he had learnt to expect, his cousin entirely disregarded his advice;
instead, she found another to give her the help the head of her family
refused her, and this other, as the young man sometimes remembered with
an uneasy conscience, was one whom they should both have spared, partly
because he was engaged in public affairs which took up what should have
been the whole of his working time, partly because he had been the hero
of Penelope's first romance, and had once been her accepted lover.
Wantley had watched the renewal of the link between the grave young
statesman and his old love with a certain cynical interest.
Penelope had not cared to hide her annoyance and disappointment at her
cousin's somewhat pusillanimous refusal of responsibility, and so he had
not been asked to take any part in the conferences which were held
between David Winfrith and the widow of the philanthropic millionaire;
but weeks, months, and even the first years, of Penelope's widowhood
wore themselves away, and to Wantley's astonishment the relations
between Mrs. Robinson and her adviser and helper remained unchanged.
The Melancthon Settlement went on its way, nominally under the
management of its founder's widow, in reality owing everything in it
that was practical and worthy of respect to the mind and to the tireless
industry of the man who had come to regard this work of supererogation
as the principal relaxation of a somewhat austere existence. But
Winfrith was not able to conceal from himself the fact that the
necessary interviews with his old love were the salt of what was
otherwise a laborious and often thankless task.
Of course at one time his marriage with Mrs. Robinson had been regarded
as a certainty, but, as the years had gone on, the gossips admitted
their mistake, and, according to their fancy, declared either the lovely
widow or Winfrith disappointed.
Alone, Wantley arrived very near the truth. He was sure that there had
been no renewal of the offer made and accepted so ardently in the days
when the two had been boy and girl; but a subtle instinct warned him
that Winfrith still regarded Penelope as nearer to himself than had
been, or could ever be, any other woman; and of the many things which he
envied his cousin, the young peer counted nothing more precious than the
chivalrous interest and affection of the man who most realized his own
ideal of the public-spirited Englishman who, born to pleasant fortune,
is content to work, both for his country and for his countrymen, for
what most would consider an inadequate reward.
David Winfrith's existence formed a contrast to his own life of which
Wantley was ashamed. He was well aware that had the other been in his
place, even burdened with all his own early disadvantages, Winfrith
would by now have made for himself a position in every way befitting
that of the successor of such a man as had been Penelope's father.
III
On the evening of his unexpected return to the villa, an evening long to
be remembered by him, Wantley dressed early and made his way into the
Picture Room. He went expecting to find an ill-assorted party, for Mrs.
Robinson was one of those women whose own personal relationship to those
whom they gather about them is the only matter of moment, and whose
guests are therefore rarely in sympathy one with another.
All that Wantley knew concerning those strangers he was about to meet
was that he would be called upon to make himself pleasant to an elderly
Roman Catholic spinster, and to her niece, a girl closely associated
with the work of the Melancthon Settlement; and the double prospect was
far from being agreeable to him.
He was therefore relieved to find the Picture Room empty, save for the
immobile presence of Lady Wantley. She was sitting gazing out of the
window, her hands clasped together, absorbed in meditation. As he came
in she turned and smiled, but said no word of welcome; and he respected
her mood, knowing well that she was one of those who feel the invisible
world to be very near, and who believe themselves surrounded by unseen
presences.
Lady Wantley's personality had always interested and fascinated the
young man. Even as a child he had never sympathized with his mother's
dislike of her, for he had early discerned how very different she was
from most of the people he knew; and to-night, fresh as he was from the
company of cheerful dowagers who were of the earth earthy, this
difference was even more apparent to him than usual.
Penelope's mother doubtless owed something of her aloofness of
appearance to her singular and picturesque dress, of which the mode had
never varied for twenty years and more. The long sweeping skirts of
black silk or wool, the cross-over bodice and the lace coif, which
almost wholly concealed her banded hair, while not hiding the beautiful
shape of her head, had originally been designed for her by the painter
to whom, as a younger woman, she had so often sat. Since the great
artist had first brought her the drawing of the dress in which he wished
once more to paint her, she had never given a thought to the vagaries of
fashion, so it came to pass that those about her would have found it
impossible to think of her in any other garments than those composing
the singular, stately costume which accentuated the mingled severity and
mildness of her pale cameo-like face.
After Melancthon Robinson's death, his widow had at once made it clear
that she had no intention of returning to her mother; but every winter
saw the two ladies spending some weeks together in London, and each
summer Lady Wantley became her daughter's guest at Monk's Eype.
The rest of the year was spent by the elder woman at Marston Lydiate,
the great Somersetshire country-seat to which she had been brought as a
bride, and for which she now paid rent to her husband's successor. To
Wantley the arrangement had been a painful one. He would have much
preferred to let the place to strangers, and he had always refused to go
there as Lady Wantley's guest.
As he stood, silent, by one of the high windows of the Picture Room, he
remembered suddenly that the next day, August 8th, was his birthday, and
that no human being, save a woman who had been his mother's servant for
many years, was likely to remember the fact, or to offer him those
congratulations which, if futile, always give pleasure. The bitterness
of the thought was perhaps the outcome of foolish sentimentality, but it
lent a sudden appearance of sternness and of purpose to his face.
Mrs. Robinson, coming into the room at that moment, was struck, for a
moment felt disconcerted, by the look on her cousin's face. She was
surprised and annoyed that he had returned so soon from the visit which,
of course unknown to him, she had herself arranged he should make, in
order that he might be absent at the time of the assembling of her
ill-assorted guests.
Penelope feared the young man's dispassionate powers of observation; and
as she walked down the long room, at the other end of which she saw
first her mother's seated figure, and then, standing by one of the long,
uncurtained windows, the unwelcome form of her cousin, her heart beat
fast, for the little scene with Cecily Wake, added to other matters of
more moment, had set her nerves jarring. She dreaded the evening before
her, feared the betrayal of a secret which she wished to keep profoundly
hidden. Still, as was her wont, she met danger halfway.
'I am glad you are back to-night,' she said, addressing Wantley, 'for
now you will be able to play host to Sir George Downing. I met him
abroad this spring, and he has come here for a few days.'
'The Persian man?' She quickly noted that the young man's voice was full
of amused interest and curiosity, nothing more; and, as she nodded her
head, assurance and confidence came back.
'Well, you are certainly a wonderful woman.' He turned, smiling, to Lady
Wantley, who was gazing at her daughter with her usual almost painful
tenderness of expression. 'Penelope's romantic encounters,' he said
gaily, 'would fill a book. Such adventures never befall me on my
travels. In Spain a fascinating stranger turns out to be Don Carlos in
disguise! In Germany she knocks up against Bismarck!'
'I knew the son!' she cried, protesting, but not ill-pleased, for she
was proud of the good fortune that often befell her during her frequent
journeys, of coming across, if not always famous, at least generally
interesting and noteworthy people.
'And now,' concluded Wantley, 'the lion whom most people--unofficial
people of course I mean'--he spoke significantly--'are all longing to
see and to entertain, is bound to her chariot wheels!'
'Ah!' she cried eagerly, 'but that's just the point: he has a horror of
being lionized. He's promised to write a report, and I suggested that he
should come and do it here, where there's no fear of his being run to
earth by the wrong kind of people. I don't suppose Theresa Wake knows
there's such a person in the world as "Persian Downing."'
'And the niece, the young lady who is to be my special charge?' Wantley
was still smiling. 'She's sure to know something about him--that is, if
you take in a daily paper at the Settlement.'
'Cecily?' Mrs. Robinson's voice softened. 'Dear little Cecily won't
trouble her head about him at all.' She turned away quickly as Lady
Wantley's gentle, insistent voice floated across the room to where the
two cousins were standing.
'George Downing? I remember your father bringing a youth called by that
name to our house, many years ago, when you were a child, my love.' She
hesitated, as if seeking to remember something which only half lingered
in her memory.
Her daughter waited in painful silence. 'Would the ghost of that old
story of disgrace and pain never be laid?' she asked herself
rebelliously.
But Lady Wantley was not the woman to recall a scandal, even had she
been wont to recall such things, of one who was now under her daughter's
roof. Her next words were, however, if a surprise, even less welcome to
one of her listeners than would have been those she expected to hear.
'There was an American Mrs. Downing, a lady who came with an
introduction to see your father. She wished to consult him about a home
for emigrant children, and I heard--now what did I hear?' Again Lady
Wantley paused.
Mrs. Robinson straightened her well-poised head.
'You probably heard, mamma, what is, I believe, true: that Lady Downing,
as she is of course now, is not on good terms with her husband. They
parted almost immediately after their marriage, and I believe that they
have not met for years.'
Wantley looked at his cousin with some surprise; she spoke impetuously,
a note of deep feeling in her voice, and as if challenging
contradiction. Then, suddenly, she held up her hand with a quick warning
gesture.
Her ears had caught the sound of footsteps for whose measured tread she
had learnt to listen, and a moment later the door opened, and the man of
whom they had been speaking, advancing into the great room, stood before
them.
IV
Few of us realize how very differently our physical appearance and
peculiarities strike each one of any new circle of persons to whose
notice we are introduced; and, according to whether we are humble-minded
or the reverse, the results of such inspection, were they suddenly
revealed, would surprise or amaze us.
When Sir George Downing came forward to greet his hostess, and to be
introduced to her mother and to her cousin, his outer man impressed each
of them with direct and almost startling vividness. But in each case the
impression produced was a very different one.
The first point which struck Lady Wantley in the tall, loosely-built
figure was its remaining look of youth, of strength of will, and of
purpose. This woman, to whom the things of the body were of such little
moment, yet saw how noteworthy was the brown sun-burnt face, with its
sharply-outlined features, and she gathered a very clear impression of
the distinction and power of the man who bowed over her hand with
old-fashioned courtesy and deference; more, she felt that there had been
a time in her life when her daughter's guest would have attracted and
interested her to a singular degree.
As he raised his head, their eyes met--deep-sunk, rather light-grey
eyes, in some ways singularly alike, as Penelope had perceived with a
certain shock of surprise, very soon after her first meeting with Sir
George Downing. As these eyes, so curiously similar, met for a moment,
fixedly, Downing, with a tightening of the heart, said to himself: 'She
I must count an enemy.'
Lord Wantley, as he came forward to meet the distinguished stranger to
whom he had just been told he must play host, observed him at once more
superficially, and yet more narrowly and in greater detail, than
Penelope's mother had done.
In the pleasant country-house--of the world worldly--from which Wantley
had come, the man before him had been the subject of eager, amused
discussion.
One of the talkers had known him as a youth, and had some recollection
(of which he made the most) of the romantic circumstances which had
attended his disgrace. His return was generally approved, all hoped to
meet him, and even, vaguely, to benefit in purse by so doing; but it had
been agreed that the recent change of Government lessened Downing's
chances of persuading the Foreign Office to carry out the policy which
he was known to have much at heart, and on which so many moneyed
interests depended. It was said that the Prime Minister had refused to
see him, that the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had left town
to avoid him! On the other hand, a lady present had heard, 'on the best
authority,' that he had not been in England two days before he had been
sent for by the Sovereign, with whom he had had a long private talk.
It was further declared that 'the city,' that mysterious potentate, more
powerful nowadays than any Sovereign, held him in high esteem, regarding
him as a benefactor to that race of investors who like to think that
they have Imperial as well as personal interests at heart. And even
those who deprecated the fact that one holding no official post should
be allowed to influence the policy of their country, admitted that, in
the past, England had owed much to such men as Persian Downing. 'Yes,
but in these days the soldier of fortune has been replaced by the banker
of fortune,' an ex-diplomatist had observed, and the _mot_ had been
allowed to pass without challenge.
'And so,' thought Wantley, remembering the things which had been said,
'this is Persian Downing!'
The lean, powerful figure, habited in old-fashioned dress-clothes,
looked older than he had imagined the famous man could be. The bushy,
dark-brown moustache, streaked with strands of white hair, and the
luminous grey eyes, penthoused under singularly straight eyebrows, gave
a worn and melancholy cast to the whole countenance.
The younger man also noticed that Downing's hands and feet were
exceptionally small, considering his great height. 'I wonder if he will
like me,' he said to himself, and this, it must be admitted, was
generally Wantley's first thought; but he no longer felt as he had done
but a few moments before, listless and discontented with life--indeed,
so keenly interested had he, in these few moments, become in Penelope's
famous guest that he scarcely noticed the entrance into the room of the
young girl of whom his cousin had spoken, and whom she had specially
commended to his good offices.
Dressed in a plain white muslin frock, presenting her aunt's excuses in
a low, even voice, Cecily Wake suggested to Lady Wantley, who had never
seen her before, the comparison, when standing by Penelope, of a
snowdrop with a rose. Perhaps this thought passed in some subtle way to
Wantley's mind, for it was not till he happened to glance at the girl,
across the round table which formed an oasis in the tapestry-hung
dining-room, that he became aware that there was something attractive,
and even unusual, in the round childish face and sincere, unquestioning
eyes.
None of the party, save perhaps Wantley himself, possessed the art of
small-talk. Penelope was strangely silent. 'Even she,' her cousin
thought with a certain satisfaction, 'is impressed by this remarkable
man, who has done her the honour of coming here.'
Then he asked himself, none too soon, what had brought Persian Downing
to Monk's Eype? The obvious explanation, that Downing had been attracted
by the personality of one who was universally admitted to have an almost
uncannily compelling charm, when she cared to exercise it, he rejected
as too evident to be true.
Wantley thought he knew his beautiful cousin through and through; yet in
truth there were many chambers of her heart where any sympathetic
stranger might have easy access, but the doors of which were tightly
locked when Wantley passed that way. Like most men, he found it
difficult to believe that a woman lacking all subtle attraction for
himself could possibly attract those of his own sex whom he favoured
with his particular regard. David Winfrith was the exception which
always proves a rule, and Wantley admitted unwillingly that in that case
there was some excuse; for here, at any rate, had been on Penelope's
part a moment of response. But to-night, and for many days to come, he
was strangely, and, as he often reminded himself in later life,
foolishly, culpably blind.
Gradually the conversation turned on that still so secret and mysterious
country with which Sir George Downing was now intimately connected. His
slow voice, even, toneless, as is so often that of those who have lived
long in the East, acted, Wantley soon found, as a complete screen, when
he chose that it should be so, to his thoughts.
Suddenly, and, as it appeared, in no connection with what had just been
said at the moment, Lady Wantley, turning to Downing, observed, 'I
perceive that you have a number-led mind?'
Penelope looked up apprehensively, but her brow cleared as the man to
whom had been addressed this singular remark replied simply and
deferentially:
'If you mean that certain days are marked in my life, it is certainly
so. Matters of moment are connected in my mind with the number seven.'
Wantley and Cecily Wake both looked at the speaker with extreme
astonishment. 'I felt sure that it was so!' exclaimed Lady Wantley.
'Seven has also always been my number, but the knowledge inspires me
with no fear or horror. It simply makes me aware that my times are in
our Father's hands.' She added, in a lower voice: 'All predestination is
centralized in God's elect, and all concurrent wills of the creature are
thereunto subordinated.'
'He may be odd, but he must certainly think us odder,' thought Wantley,
not without enjoyment.
But a cloud had come over Penelope's face. 'Mamma!' she said anxiously,
and then again, 'Mamma!'
'I think he knows what I mean,' said Lady Wantley, fixing the grey eyes
which seemed to see at once so much and so little on the face of her
daughter's guest.
Again, to Wantley's surprise, Downing answered at once, and gravely
enough: 'Yes, I think I do know what you mean, and on the whole I
agree.'
Mrs. Robinson, glancing at her cousin with what he thought a look of
appeal, threw a pebble, very deliberately, into the deep pool where they
all suddenly found themselves. 'Do you really believe in lucky numbers?'
she asked flippantly.
Downing looked at her fixedly for a moment. 'Yes,' he replied, 'and also
in unlucky numbers.'
'I hope,' she cried--and as she spoke she reddened deeply--'that your
first meeting with David Winfrith will take place on one of your lucky
days. He is believed to have more influence concerning the matter you
are interested in just now than anyone else, for he claims to have
studied the question on the spot.'
'Ah!' thought Wantley, pleased as a man always is to receive what he
believes to be the answer to a riddle; 'I know now what has brought
Persian Downing to Monk's Eype!' and he also took up the ball.
'Winfrith claims,' he said, 'to have made Persia his special study. I
believe he once spent six weeks there, on the strength of which he wrote
a book. You probably came across him when he was in Teheran.'
But as he spoke he was aware that in Winfrith's book there was no
mention of Downing, and that though at the time of the writer's sojourn
in Persia no other Englishman had wielded there so great a power, or so
counteracted influences inimical to his country's interests.
'No, I did not see him there. At the time of Mr. Winfrith's stay in
Teheran'--Downing spoke with an indifference the other thought
studied--'I was in America, where I have to go from time to time to see
my partners.' He added, with a smile: 'I think you are mistaken in
saying that Mr. Winfrith only spent six weeks in Persia. In any case,
his book is good--very good.'
'I suppose,' said Wantley, turning to his cousin, 'that you have
arranged for Winfrith to come over to-morrow, or Monday?'
'Oh no,' she answered hurriedly. 'He is going to be away for the next
few days; after that, perhaps, Sir George Downing will meet him.' She
spoke awkwardly, and Wantley felt he had been clumsy. But he thought
that now he thoroughly understood what had happened. Winfrith had
evidently no wish to meet informally the man whom his chief had not been
willing to receive. Doubtless Penelope had done her best to bring her
important new friend in contact with her old friend. She had failed,
hence her awkward, hesitating answer to his question. But the young man
knew his cousin, and the potency of her spell over obstinate Winfrith;
he had no doubt that within a week the two men would have met under her
roof, 'though whether the meeting will lead to anything,' he said to
himself, 'remains to be seen.'
Wantley was, however, quite wrong. During the hours which Mrs. Robinson
had spent that day riding with the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs,
the name of Persian Downing had not once been mentioned, and at this
very moment David Winfrith, playing, after an early dinner, a game of
chess with his old father, saw in imagination his lovely friend acting
as kind hostess to her mother, for whom he himself had never felt any
particular liking, and to Miss Wake and her niece, against both of whom
he had an unreasonable prejudice. Lord Wantley he believed to be still
away; and, as he allowed his father to checkmate him, he felt a pang of
annoyance at the thought that he himself was going to be absent during
days of holiday which might have been so much better employed, in part
at least, in Penelope's company. Not for many months, not, when he came
to think of it, for some two years, had Mrs. Robinson been at once so
joyously high-spirited and yet so submissive, so intimately confidential
while yet so willing to take advice--in a word, so enchantingly near to
himself, as she had been that day, riding along the narrow lanes which
lay in close network behind the bare cliffs and hills bounding the
coast.
But to Wantley, doing the honours of his smoking room to Sir George
Downing, and later when taking him out to the terrace where Mrs.
Robinson and Cecily were pacing up and down in the twilight, the
presence of this distinguished visitor at Monk's Eype was fully
explained by the fact that Winfrith was not only the near neighbour, but
also the very good friend, of Mrs. Robinson, and, the young man ventured
to think, of himself.