Blair was as good as his word, and sent immediately to England for a
copy of Mrs. Skelton’s will. But in those days it was a matter of three
months or more to get a thing of that kind attended to, and meanwhile
affairs with him improved greatly. Old Tom Shapleigh, urged thereto
by Sylvia, and also by Mrs. Shapleigh, who declared she never could
tolerate a new neighbour at Newington, went quietly to work and bought
up all of the most pressing claims against Blair. He knew that he could
get as good interest on his money invested in Newington, under Blair’s
admirable management, as anywhere else; and, besides, he was fond of
the Blairs, and anxious to do them a good turn for the very bad one
of selling Alabaster to Blair. So Blair suddenly found himself very
much better placed than he expected, and with an excellent chance, if
he lived ten years, of paying off his debts. He also had a strange
sense of relief when his race horses were sold, at the feeling that
it was now out of his power to be a turfite any longer. It had always
been a nightmare as well as a vampire to him, and fortunately it was
one of those passions which have a body to them, and can therefore be
destroyed, at least temporarily. His horses brought uncommonly good
prices, which enabled him to pay some of the small debts that harassed
him most. He began to think, with a sort of savage satisfaction, that
what Skelton designed for his destruction might in the end be his
salvation. Hilary, too, began to improve rapidly, and was in six weeks’
time perfectly recovered. Mrs. Blair was amazed at the turn affairs
took; but there was yet an unspoken, still antagonism between Blair
and herself in regard to his course about the Skelton money. They had
been so happy together for so many years that the mere habit of love
was strong. The children saw no shadow between their father and mother,
but nevertheless it was there, and it pursued them; it sat down by
them, and walked with them, and never left them. Elizabeth, seeing how
happy they might have been without this, conceived a tender, womanish
superstition against the money that might be theirs. She had a faint,
quivering doubt that much money might be Blair’s destruction; and,
anyhow, the mere hint of it had brought silent dissension between them,
when nothing else ever had. Mrs. Blair, in the depths of her soul,
heartily wished Bulstrode had never told her what he did, or that she
had never told Blair. She had been able to hold up her head proudly
before Richard Skelton in all the rivalry between him and her husband;
but now, this unseemly looking after what might never be theirs and was
never intended to be theirs, this hankering after dead men’s shoes,
made her ashamed.
What Skelton thought or felt nobody knew. He expressed, however, to
Sylvia, great solicitude in speaking of Hilary Blair’s recovery, and
sent Bob Skinny formally, once or twice, to ask how the boy was.
Sylvia was making herself felt on Skelton’s heart and mind; but, like a
man, he put off entertaining the great guest as long as he could. And
there was his engagement to the world to do something extraordinary.
In the long summer days he was haunted by that unfulfilled promise. He
was so tormented and driven by it, and by his inability to settle down
steadily to his book, that he looked about him for some distraction. He
found it only too often, he began to think, in Sylvia Shapleigh’s soft
eyes and charming talk.
Skelton was not averse to occasional hospitalities on a grand scale,
and one day it occurred to him that he would give a great ball as a
return for the invitations he had received.
On mentioning this embryonic scheme to Sylvia, that young woman
received it with enthusiasm, and even slyly put Lewis Pryor up
to reminding Skelton of it. Lewis, too, was immensely taken with
the notion, and when Skelton found himself the victim of two such
conspirators, he yielded gracefully enough. He declared that he would
send for a man from Baltimore who knew all about balls, that he
might not be bothered with it, and Sylvia forcibly encouraged him in
everything calculated to make the ball a success. The man was sent for
and plans were made, upon which Sylvia’s opinion was asked--to Mrs.
Shapleigh’s delight and consternation and to old Tom’s secret amusement.
“Mr. Shapleigh, the county will say at once that Sylvia is engaged to
Richard Skelton, and then what shall we do?”
“Do, ma’am? Do as the French do in a gale of wind.”
“What is that, Mr. Shapleigh?”
“The best they can.”
“Now, Mr. Shapleigh, why will you say such senseless things? Of course,
there’s nothing for us to do--nothing; and, although Richard Skelton is
the greatest match in the county, even if he does have to give up his
wife’s money, yet there are drawbacks to him. You told me yourself he
didn’t believe in the devil.”
“Well, he will if he ever gets married,” responded old Tom, with an
enormous wink.
The giving of a ball such as Skelton designed was in those days an
undertaking little short of a crusade in the Middle Ages. A sailing
vessel had to be sent to Baltimore for the supper, musicians,
decorations, and everything the plantation did not supply; and it
might return in one week, and it might return in two weeks, and it
might never return at all. Sylvia Shapleigh hypocritically made light
of these difficulties, and handsome cards were sent out to the whole
county, including the Blairs. By some sort of hocus-pocus, Sylvia and
Lewis obtained the privilege of addressing the invitations, so fearful
were they of leaving Skelton a loophole of escape. It was done one June
morning in the summerhouse on the bridge--Skelton sitting back smiling,
while Sylvia and Lewis alternately conspired and squabbled. Skelton
had a way of looking at Sylvia that always agitated her, although she
thought she gave no sign of it. She had by this time acknowledged to
herself that there were only two places in the world for her--the one
where Skelton was, and the other where he was not. She had not, with
all her native acuteness, the slightest idea what Skelton felt for her.
True, he had a manner of paying her small attentions and compliments,
insignificant in themselves, but which he invested with a deep and
peculiar meaning. On this very morning, as she and Lewis chattered,
Skelton sat looking at her with an expression of enjoyment, as if her
mere presence and talk gave him exquisite pleasure. It did give him
pleasure to see how much he dominated her; it was a royal sort of
overbearing, a refined and subtle tyranny, that gratified his secret
inordinate pride.
Sylvia confided in him that she was to have a new white-lutestring
gown, and Mrs. Shapleigh had ordered a turban with a bird of paradise
on it for the occasion. Nothing could exceed Sylvia’s interest and
delight, except Lewis’s.
Bulstrode locked and barred himself in his room when Bridges, the
functionary who was to arrange the ball, arrived from Baltimore.
Skelton took refuge in the library, which was the one spot in the house
upon which Bridges dare not lay his sacrilegious hands. But even the
fastidious and scholarly Skelton could not wholly escape the domestic
hullabaloo of a ball in the country. Lewis Pryor, at first delighted,
soon found that if he showed his nose outside of the library he was
pounced upon by Bridges--a saturnine-looking person, who had exchanged
the calling of an undertaker for that of a caterer--and sent on an
errand of some sort. Lewis, who was not used to this sort of thing,
would have promptly resented it, except that it was for the great, the
grand, the wonderful ball. Why he should be so anxious about the ball,
he did not know; there was nobody to take any notice of him; but still,
he wanted it, and Sylvia had promised to dance the first quadrille
with him. This invitation was given far in advance, with a view of
out-generalling Skelton.
Bob Skinny’s disgust was extreme. The idea that he was to be superseded
by a person of such low origin and inferior talents as Bridges was
exasperating to the last degree.
“Dat ar owdacious Bridges man,” he complained to Lewis, “he think
he know ev’ything. He come a-countin’ my spoons an’ forks, an’ he
say, ‘How many spoons an’ forks has you got?’ An’ I say, ‘Millions
on ’em--millions on ’em; de Skeltons allers had more’n anybody in
de worl’. I nuvver count all on ’em, myse’f.’ _He_ ain’ nuvver been
to furrin parts; an’ when I ax him, jist to discomfuse him, ef he
couldn’ play on de fluke er nuttin’, he say he ain’ got no time fer
sich conjurements. I tole him, maybe he so us’ ter settin’ up wid
dade folks an’ undertakin’ dat he dunno nuttin’ ’bout a party; an’ he
went an’ tole Mr. Skelton. But Mr. Skelton, he shet him up. He say,
‘Well, Bridges, I daresay you’ll have to put up wid Bob Skinny. De
wuffless rascal done had he way fur so long dat nobody now kin hardly
conflagrate him.’ So now, sence de Bridges man know my corndition, I
jes’ walks out in de g’yardin, a-playin’ my fluke, an’ when he sen’ fur
me, I tell him ter go long--I doan’ do no wuk dese days; ’tain’t none
o’ my ball--’tis his’n--an’ ter be sho’ an’ doan’ make no mistake dat
it is a funeral.”
As this was literally true, war to the knife was inaugurated between
Bridges and Bob Skinny. Bob consoled himself, though, by promising
that, when the musicians arrived, “I gwi’ jine ’em, an’ take my place
’longside de hade man, an’ gwi’ show ’em how I play de fluke fo’ de
Duke o’ Wellingcome, an’ de Prince Rejump, and Napoleon Bonyparte, an’
all dem high-flyers dat wuz allus arter Mr. Skelton ter sell me ter ’em
when we wuz ’broad.”
Mrs. Shapleigh was in a state of much agitation, first, for fear
the bird of paradise wouldn’t come, and then for fear it wouldn’t
be becoming. Nor was Sylvia’s mind quite easy until the new
white-lutestring ball dress was an accomplished fact.
And at Newington, too, was much concern. An invitation had been sent
to the Blairs, of course, and as Hilary was now on the highroad to
recovery, there was no reasonable excuse for the Blairs not going.
According to the hospitable customs of the age, to decline to go to a
certain house was an acknowledgment of the most unqualified enmity. The
resources of the people were so few, that to refuse an invitation to a
festivity could only proceed from the most deadly ill-will. People who
avowedly disliked each other yet kept up a visiting acquaintance, for,
as they were planted by each other in perpetuity, they were forced to
be wary in their enmities.
Blair and his wife discussed it amicably; they were more conciliatory
and forbearing, now that there was an inharmonious chord between them,
than before, when they had had their little differences, secure in
their perfect understanding of each other. Blair promptly decided that
they must go, else it would appear as if he were still unreasonably
sore over his defeat. Mrs. Blair acquiesced in this. She could not,
like Sylvia Shapleigh, have a new ball gown, but her white-silk wedding
dress, that cherished gown, bought for her to be married to Skelton
in, and in which she was actually married to Blair, was turned and
furbished up for the occasion. Mrs. Blair felt the exquisite absurdity
of this, and could not forbear smiling when she was engaged in her work.
The night of the ball arrived--a July night, cool for the season.
By seven o’clock the roads leading to Deerchase were full of great,
old-fashioned coaches, gigs, stanhopes, and chaises, bringing the
county gentry to the grand and much-talked-of ball. Mrs. Shapleigh,
whose remains of beauty were not inconsiderable, had begun making her
toilet at three o’clock in the day, and was in full regalia at six. She
had on a superb crimson satin gown, and the bird of paradise nodded
majestically on her head, while she wore so many necklaces around her
neck that she looked like a Christmas turkey. Old Tom was out in his
best full dress, of swallow-tailed blue coat and brass buttons, with a
fine lawn tie to muffle up his throat, after the fashion, and thread
cambric ruffles rushing out of his yellow-satin waistcoat. Sylvia
had resisted her mother’s entreaties to wear a sash, to wear another
necklace, to wear a wreath of artificial flowers, and various other
adornments, and by the charming simplicity of her dress was even more
successful than usual in persuading the world that she was handsome.
At Deerchase, the house was lighted with wax candles as soon as it was
dark. The grounds were illuminated with Chinese lanterns, a luxury
never before witnessed in those parts; there was to be a constant
exhibition of fireworks on the river, and a band of musicians played
in the grounds, and another band in the great hall, which was cleared
for dancing. A ball upon a plantation was always as much enjoyed
by the negroes as the white people, and every negro at Deerchase
was out in his or her Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes, some to help in
the house, some at the stables to take care of the carriages and
horses, and others who merely enjoyed looking on with intense though
regulated delight. Bob Skinny was simply immense, and fairly outshone
Mrs. Shapleigh in the number and variety of his rings, chains, and
breastpins. He stood on the square portico that faced the drive,
with his arms magnificently folded, his “fluke” under his arm, and
occasionally, with an air of tremendous solemnity, he consulted a
huge silver watch which didn’t run, that Skelton had given him. Bob
arrogated to himself the honour of receiving the guests as they
alighted, while Skelton occupied a comparatively unimportant position
in the hall. Bulstrode was prowling about, completely subdued by his
evening coat and a pair of large white kid gloves. Lewis Pryor, full
of delighted excitement, was surveying his handsome boyish figure in
the glass over the hall chimney-piece, as Skelton descended the stairs,
putting on his gloves.
“How do you like yourself?” he called out.
Lewis blushed furiously and laughed.
Meanwhile Bob Skinny and the “hade man” of the musicians were having a
lively verbal scrimmage in the porch.
“Here you is!” remarked Bob, with an air of lofty patronage, as the
leader of the band, a red-faced German, accompanied by his satellites,
appeared on the porch with their instruments. “Now, I gwi’ show you how
ter play de fluke, an’ I gwi’ play wid you, arter I done git th’u wid
receivin’ de cump’ny. I kin play de fluke better’n anybody you ever
see, but I ain’ proud; I doan’ min’ playin’ wid you.”
“You holt your tongue,” calmly remarked the German. “I got no dime der
drifle.”
“Look a-here,” answered Bob Skinny severely, “doan’ you go fer to
wex me; doan’ you wex nor aggrawate me. I done been ter Germany, and
’tain’t nobody d’yar ’cept po’ white trash. _You’s_ de hade man o’ dem
fiddlers, an’ _I_ is de hade man o’ Mr. Richard Skelton, dat’s got mo’
lan’ an’ niggers en all de wuffless Germans put toge’rr.” Bob’s remarks
were cut short untimely by Skelton’s appearing in the porch, when he
became as mute as an oyster. Meanwhile the musicians had carried their
instruments in, and began tuning up. Bob, however, could not refrain
from tuning and blowing on his “fluke” at the most critical time, when
his enemy, the German, was trying to give the pitch.
In a very little while the carriages began rolling up to the door, in
the soft purple twilight of July. The Blairs and the Shapleighs were
among the first to arrive. Sylvia was really pretty that night, and the
excitement of the music and the Chinese lanterns and the fireworks that
were being set off upon the river, which was all black and gold with
the fire and darkness, was not lost upon her. Never had she seen such
a ball; it was worth a dozen trips to the Springs.
Mrs. Blair, too, was in great form, and her turned wedding-gown set so
gracefully upon her that she looked to be one of the best-dressed women
in the room. Blair put on all his most charming ways, and honey-fuggled
Mrs. Shapleigh and several other ladies of her age most audaciously.
The women all smiled on him, and Elizabeth suffered the most ridiculous
pangs of jealousy that could be imagined. But she was not quite like
her old self; the possibilities of the future were always before her;
her mind was too often engaged in picturing that dim future when she
and Blair and Skelton would be dust and ashes, and her children might
be leading a strange, brilliant, dazzling existence, which would be
immeasurably removed from any life that she had ever known. And that
strong but impalpable estrangement between Blair and herself--she was
ashamed and humiliated when she thought of his investigation and prying
and peering into Skelton’s affairs; and suppose, after all, Skelton
should find a way out of it, and then they would get no fortune at all;
and what a mortifying position would be theirs! for the whole county
must know it--the whole county knew everything.
There was dancing in the main hall and cards in the library, and the
lofty and beautiful drawing-rooms were for lookers-on. Skelton, who
when he greeted her had pressed Sylvia’s hand for the pleasure of
seeing the blood mount in her smooth cheek, asked if she was engaged
for the first dance.
[Illustration: THERE WAS DANCING IN THE MAIN HALL, AND THE
DRAWING-ROOMS WERE FOR LOOKERS-ON.--_Page 224_]
“Yes,” answered Sylvia. “I have been engaged for it for three
weeks--” Skelton scowled; perhaps Sylvia was not as much under his
spell as he fancied, but he smiled when Sylvia continued--“to Lewis
Pryor.”
“The little scamp has circumvented me, I see,” he remarked, and did not
seem displeased at the idea.
Lewis soon sidled up to Sylvia, proud and delighted at her notice. But
it was all the notice he had, except from Mr. Conyers, who patted him
on the head, and a smile from Mrs. Blair. The clergyman had come in
response to a personal note as well as a card from Skelton, and walked
about sadly, thinking on the vast and sorrowful spectacle of human
nature even in the presence of so much fleeting joy. He had not been
in the house an hour, though, before he came up to say good-night.
There was not only much card playing going on in the library, but
considerable betting, which was the fashion in those days, and to that
Conyers was unalterably opposed.
“Mr. Skelton,” said he, coming up to him, “I must say good-night.”
“Why so early?” asked Skelton graciously. “Since you have done me the
honour of coming, why not do me the pleasure of staying?”
“Because,” said Conyers, who spoke the truth in season and out of
season, “it is against my conscience to stay where betting is going
on. Forgive me, if I apparently commit a breach of hospitality, but
consider, Mr. Skelton, you will one day be held accountable for the
iniquity that is now taking place under your roof.”
“I accept the responsibility,” answered Skelton, with unabated
politeness, “and I regret your decision. You are always welcome at
Deerchase, Mr. Conyers, and you have the most perfect liberty of
expressing your opinions.”
“Thank you,” replied poor Conyers, with tears in his eyes. “If
everybody was as tolerant as you, my ministry would be easier than it
is.”
As Conyers went one way, Skelton went off another, thinking to himself,
“Was ever a man so openly defied as I?” True it was he could be openly
defied, and everybody had full liberty, until Skelton’s own orbit was
crossed: then there was no liberty.
Old Tom Shapleigh swung, like a pendulum, between cards and dancing. He
danced with all the vigor of colonial days, and his small, high-bred
feet, cased in white-silk stockings and low shoes, with silver buckles,
twinkled like a ballet dancer’s as he cut the pigeon wing. Mrs. Blair,
who danced sedately and gracefully, was his partner. Bob Skinny, his
head thrown back and wearing an expression of ecstatic delight, watched
the dancers from a corner, occasionally waving his “fluke” to mark the
time. However, by some occult means he had become acquainted with the
champagne punch, and when Skelton’s back was turned, Bob proceeded to
cut the pigeon wing too, and to back-step and double-shuffle with the
most surprising agility. In the midst of this performance, though, a
hint of Skelton’s approach being given, Bob instantly assumed the most
rigid and dignified pose imaginable.
Lewis, after dancing once with Sylvia and once with Mrs. Blair, who
spoke to him kindly, wandered about, lonely enough. The people did not
relax in the least their aloofness towards him. He felt inexpressibly
sad and forlorn, and at this ball, too, which, as a matter of fact,
might never have been given but for him. But the beauty and splendour
of the scene dazzled him. He could not tear himself away.
Something of the same spell was upon Bulstrode. He knew little and
cared less for social life; he was one of those unfortunates who have
but one single, solitary source of enjoyment--the purely intellectual;
but the lights, the music, the gaiety, the festal air, had its
effect even on his sluggish temperament. He sat in a corner of the
drawing-room, his bulky, awkward figure filling up a great chair, and
Lewis came and leaned silently upon the back of it. In some way, master
and pupil felt strange to the rest of the world that night, and drawn
together.
“Mr. Bulstrode,” said Lewis presently, “I always feel alone in a crowd.
Don’t you?”
“Yes, boy,” answered Bulstrode, glancing about him with an odd look of
dejection. “And in a crowd of merry-makers my old heart grows chill
with loneliness.”
“It is much worse to be lonely when you are young,” Lewis moralised.
“But there is Miss Sylvia Shapleigh. I wonder if she will come up and
talk to us?”
Sylvia did come up and speak to them. There was a new brilliancy in her
smile, and a deep and eloquent flush upon her cheek. Bulstrode felt
compelled to pay her one of his awkward compliments.
“My dear young lady,” he said, “to-night you look like one of those
fair Greek girls of old, who lived but to smile and to dance and to
love.”
Sylvia’s colour deepened; she stood quite still, gazing at Bulstrode as
if he had uttered a prophecy; but then Lewis, suddenly seeing people
going out of the bay windows on the lawn, cried out excitedly: “Now the
finest part of the fireworks is going off! Come along!” And, seizing
her hand, they went out on the smooth-shaven lawn as far as the river.
In spite of the coloured lights, it was dim, as there was no moon.
The house, with its great wings, was so illuminated, that it looked
enormously large. Afar off came the strains of music, while in the half
darkness figures moved about like ghosts. Lewis and Sylvia, standing
hand in hand, watched the great golden wheels that rose from a boat in
the river magnificently lighting up the blue-black sky, and reflected
in the blue-black water as they burst in a shower of sparkles. How
good, in those days, were beautiful things to eyes unjaded, to minds
prepared to marvel, to tastes so simple that almost anything could
inspire wonder and delight!
Sylvia had no wrap around her shoulders, and after a while, as she and
Lewis watched the fireworks, she felt a shawl gently placed about her.
She realised, without turning her head, that the hand was Skelton’s.
The rest of the time he stood with them. They were separated from the
house by great clumps of crape myrtle, then in its first pink glory.
Some invisible bond seemed to unite all three. Skelton felt with the
keenest delight the delicious emotions of youth--he was too true a
philosopher not to rejoice that he could still feel--and he had always
feared and dreaded that chilling of his sensibilities which is the
beginning of old age. How bewitching was Sylvia Shapleigh to him then,
and if ever they should be married how kind she would be to Lewis! when
suddenly came a piercing sense of chagrin and chafing rebellion. He was
bound by a chain. All coercion was abnormally hateful to him; and, as
Bulstrode had said, the wonder was that he had not gone mad in thinking
over how he had been bound by the act of a dead woman.
Sylvia felt instinctively a change in him when he spoke. The fireworks
were then over, and they went back to the house, where the dancers’
feet still beat monotonously and the music throbbed. They entered
through the library windows, and Sylvia admired, as she always did, the
noble and imposing array of books.
“Let them alone,” said Skelton, with his rare smile that always had
something melancholy in it. “See what an old fossil it has made of me!”
Sylvia smiled at him archly, and said: “Yes, an old fossil, indeed!
But then, when you have written your great book, you will be among the
immortals. You will never grow old or die.”
The smile died away quickly from Skelton’s face. That book was another
bond upon him--that unfulfilled promise to the world to produce
something extraordinary. Nobody but Skelton knew the misery that
unwritten book had cost him. It had shadowed his whole life.
Lewis Pryor had begun to be sleepy by that time, and after supper
had been served he slipped back into the library, to which the card
players had not yet returned, and curled up on a leather sofa in the
embrasure of a window, where he could see the river and listen to the
music. He pulled the damask curtains around him, and lay there in a
sort of tranquil, happy dream. How far away was the music, and how odd
looked the negroes, peering in at the windows, with their great white
eyeballs! and before Lewis knew it he was sound asleep, with only a
part of his small, glossy-black head showing beyond the curtain.
Bulstrode, as usual, was attentive to the decanters. He hated cards,
and after he had played a few games of loo in the early part of the
evening, and had lost some money, he had had enough of it. He wandered
aimlessly from one room to another. It was all excessively pretty
to him, but childish. His eyes followed Mrs. Blair, and he began to
speculate, as he lounged about, his hands in the pockets of his tight
black trousers, what would be the result if the Blairs should get all
of Skelton’s wife’s money.
“But I sha’n’t be here to see it,” he thought rather cheerfully, “for
Skelton will outlast this old carcass.” Then he began to think, with
the sardonic amusement that always inspired him when his mind was
on that particular subject, how the bare possibility must infuriate
Skelton; and, after all, it would be better to let Lewis alone, and
give him Deerchase and all of Skelton’s own money--that would be quite
as much as would be good for him. On the whole, he was glad he had told
Mrs. Blair, and he hoped the dear soul would live to enjoy all that
would be hers.
As the night wore on and the fumes of the liquor Bulstrode had drank
mounted to his brain, clearing it, as he always protested, the sense of
slavery to Skelton vanished. He was a free man; he was not simply an
embodied intellect kept by Skelton for his uses, as the feudal barons
of old kept the wearers of the motley. Bulstrode began to walk about
jovially, to hold up his head, to mend his slouchy gait and careless
manners. He strolled up to Mrs. Blair, standing by the library door,
with as much of an air as if he owned Deerchase. Skelton, who was not
far off, said, smiling, to Sylvia:
“Drink _does_ improve Bulstrode. He always declares that it makes a
gentleman of him.”
It was now getting towards four o’clock, and people with drives of
ten and fifteen miles before them began to make the move to go. A
few dancers were yet spinning about in the hall. Bulstrode gallantly
complimented Mrs. Blair upon her looks, her gown--everything.
Elizabeth, with a smile, received his praises. Then, emboldened, he
began to be rash, saying:
“And when the time comes, my dear madam, that you are in the commanding
place you ought to have--when you are possessed of the power which
money gives--when what is Skelton’s now shall be yours and your
children’s--”
“Hush!” cried Mrs. Blair nervously and turning pale. Her eyes sought
for Skelton; he was not five feet off, and one look at him showed
that he had heard every word, and he was too acute and instant of
comprehension not to have taken it in at once. Sylvia Shapleigh had
just gone off with her father, and practically Skelton and Mrs. Blair
and Bulstrode were alone.
“You think, perhaps,” said Bulstrode, laughing wickedly, “that I am
afraid Mr. Skelton will hear--” Bulstrode had not seen Skelton, and
thought him altogether out of earshot. “But, to use a very trifling
standard of value, madam, I don’t at this moment care a twopenny damn
whether Skelton hears me or not! The money ought to be yours one day,
and it will be--” As he spoke, there was Skelton at his elbow.
Skelton’s black eyes were simply blazing. He looked ready to fell
Bulstrode with one blow of his sinewy arm. His first glance--a
fearful one--seemed to sober Bulstrode instantly. The music was still
crashing melodiously in the hall; the warm, perfumed air from the long
greenhouse with its wide-open doors floated in; the yellow light from a
group of wax candles in a sconce fell upon them.
Skelton said not a word as he fixed his eyes wrathfully on Bulstrode,
but Bulstrode seemed actually to wither under that look of concentrated
rage.
“Skelton,” said Bulstrode in an agony, the drops appearing upon his
broad forehead, “I have violated no promise.” He stopped, feeling the
weakness of the subterfuge.
“I would scarcely exact a promise from one so incapable of keeping
one,” answered Skelton in calm and modulated tones. He had but one wish
then, and that was to get Mrs. Blair out of the way that he might work
his will on Bulstrode. The restraint of her presence infuriated him,
the more when she said, in trembling tones:
“Pray, forgive him; he was imprudent, but the secret is safe with us.”
“With us!” Then Blair knew as well.
“I have no secret, Mrs. Blair,” answered Skelton with indomitable
coolness. “What this--person told you is no secret. As it is very
remote, and as there are chances of which Bulstrode himself does not
take into account, I thought it useless to inform you. But, if you
desire, I will, to-morrow morning, explain the whole thing to you and
your husband.”
“Pray--pray, do not!” cried Elizabeth.
Skelton bowed, and said: “As you please. But rest assured that,
although I never volunteered the information as this man has, yet I
stand ready to answer all questions from those who are authorised to
ask them.”
Bulstrode gazed helplessly from one to the other, strangely overcome.
There was something inexpressibly appealing in the look; he feared that
he had lost the regard of the only woman who had for him any tenderness
of feeling, had revealed a stain upon the boy he loved better than any
creature in the world, and had mortally offended the man upon whom he
depended for bread.
“Skelton,” he cried, almost in tears, “I told her when the ruin
that you promised Jack Blair seemed to be accomplished; when she,”
indicating Mrs. Blair, “was likely to be houseless and homeless; when
her only son lay stretched upon his bed more dead than alive; when, I
tell you, any man who had not a stone in his bosom for a heart would
have felt for her; when I would have laid down my worthless life for
her to have brought ease. Can you blame me?”
It was getting to be too much of a scene. Skelton turned towards
Bulstrode, who was utterly abject and pitiable. The collapse of any
human being is overpowering, but of a man with an intellect like
Bulstrode’s it became terrible. Mrs. Blair’s large and beautiful eyes
filled with tears that rolled down her cheeks and upon her bare, white
neck. She put her hand on Bulstrode’s arm; it was the first kind touch
of a woman’s hand that he had felt for thirty years.
“It was your kindness, your tenderness for me and mine that made you
tell me; and if all the world turns against you, I will not.”
Bulstrode raised her hand to his lips and kissed it reverently, and her
womanly compassion seemed to awaken some spark of manliness in him. He
made no further appeal.
Skelton all this time was cold with rage. He had been in rages with
Bulstrode many times, and he had wreaked vengeance on him; he could say
words to Bulstrode that would make him wince, but he could not say them
before Mrs. Blair. After a moment he bowed low to her again.
“I will not detain you further. Only, pray remember that you are at
liberty to take me at my word at any time.”
Mrs. Blair paused a moment, and then, recovering herself, replied, with
something like haughtiness:
“I have no desire to inquire further; and since this knowledge has
certainly not made me any happier, and as I am clear that the affair
is in the hands of the law, I have no intention of making it known to
anybody whatever.” Then she said to Bulstrode: “Good-night, my friend.”
Skelton accompanied her quite to her carriage. He doubted the capacity
of any woman to keep a secret, and he was in that state of furious
displeasure and disappointment that the betrayal of what he earnestly
desired to keep secret would place any man. But he had an unshakable
composure. Mrs. Blair, knowing him as well as she did, could not but
admire his coolness under agitating circumstances.
Everybody then was going. Great family carriages were being drawn up
before the broad porch. The lights had burned low, and there was a
greyness over everything; a cloud of white mists lay over the green
fields; the woods were bathed in a ghostly haze; it was the unearthly
morning hour which is neither night nor day.
Skelton stood in the middle of the hall telling everybody good-bye,
receiving calmly and smilingly congratulations on his charming ball.
Sylvia Shapleigh, her eyes languid with excitement and want of sleep,
followed in her mother’s wake to say good-bye. She knew Skelton’s
countenance perfectly, and she alone perceived that something strange
and displeasing had happened.
At last everybody was gone, even the musicians, the negroes--everybody.
Skelton stood in the porch watching the rosy dawn over the delicious
landscape, his face sombre, his whole air one of tension. His fury
against Bulstrode had partly abated. On the contrary, a feeling of
cynical pleasure at the way he would confute him took its place.
So, the heedless old vagabond had gone over to Newington with that
cock-and-bull story of a fortune whenever he, Skelton, was married or
buried; and Mrs. Blair and her husband had been foolish enough to
believe him. Well, they would find out their mistake in short order.
Skelton went straight to the library. Bulstrode was still there,
sitting in a great chair leaning heavily forward. The daylight had
begun to penetrate through the heavy curtains, and the candles were
spluttering in their sockets. The first shock over, Bulstrode had got
back some of his courage. Skelton, with an inscrutable smile on his
face, walked up to him. Never was there a greater contrast between two
men--one, a thoroughbred from the crown of his head to the sole of his
foot, accustomed to the habit of command; the other, bourgeois all
over, and only asserting himself by an effort. Bulstrode, meaning to
show that he was not cowed, began, like a vulgarian, to be violent.
“Look here, Skelton,” he began aggressively, “it’s done, and
there’s no use talking. But recollect that I’m Lewis Pryor’s
guardian--recollect--I--er--” Here Bulstrode began to flounder.
“I recollect it all,” answered Skelton contemptuously; “and I
recollect, too, that you are still half drunk. When you are sober--”
“Sober,” said poor Bulstrode with something like a groan of despair.
“When I’m sober I’m the most miserable, contemptible man on God’s
earth. When I’m sober you can do anything with me. I’m sober now, I’m
afraid.”
He was grotesque even in his deepest emotions. Skelton’s quick eye had
caught sight of Lewis Pryor lying asleep on the sofa. He went towards
him and drew back tenderly the curtains that half enveloped him. The
boy was sleeping the sleep of youth and health, a slight flush upon his
dark cheek, his hair tumbled over his handsome head, one arm thrown
off; there was something wonderfully attractive in his boyish beauty.
“Look at him well,” said Skelton, with a new, strange pride in his
voice. “See how manly, how well formed he is--slight, but a powerful
fellow--worth two of that hulking Blair boy. See his forehead; did you
ever see a fool with a forehead like that? and the cut of the mouth
and chin! Think you, Bulstrode, that with this boy I will ever let the
Blairs get any of that money that you foolishly told them they would?
Could not any father be proud of such a boy? I tell you there are times
when I yearn over him womanishly--when I cannot trust myself near him
for fear I will clasp him in my arms. I envy Blair but one thing, and
that is, that he can show the fondness for his son that I feel for mine
but cannot show. Did you think, did you dream for a moment, that I
would not see this boy righted?” He said “this boy” with an accent of
such devoted pride that Bulstrode could only gaze astounded, well as he
knew Skelton’s secret devotion to the boy. He had never in all his life
seen Skelton so moved by anything. Skelton bent down and kissed Lewis
on the forehead. If the portrait of Skelton’s great-grandfather that
hung over the mantelpiece had stepped down from its frame and kissed
the boy, Bulstrode could scarcely have been more surprised. No mother
over her first-born could have shown more fondness than Skelton.
“Go, now,” presently cried Skelton. His anger had quite vanished. It
seemed as if in that one burst of paternal feeling all pride and anger
had melted away. He could defy the Blairs now. Bulstrode might have
retaliated on him what he had said to Mrs. Blair about it. He might
have said: “How can you prove it? So anxious you were to give this
child a respectable parentage, that you cannot now undo, if you will,
your own work. And who could not see an object in it that would make
people believe you seized upon this boy merely as an instrument against
the Blairs?” But he said not a word. He got up and went out, and, as he
passed, he laid his hand upon the boy’s head.
“I, too, have loved him well,” he said.
“Yes,” said Skelton, “and that may help you yet. No man that loves that
boy can my anger hold against.”
And so poor Lewis, who often felt and said sadly that he had no one to
love him, was fondled adoringly by the last person in the world that he
would have expected.
Skelton shut and locked the library door, and, tenderly placing the
boy’s head in a more comfortable position, sat down in a great chair
and watched him. He could not at that moment bear to have Lewis out of
his sight. Yes, the time had now come that he could tell him what had
burned within him for so long. The boy was in himself so graceful, so
gifted, there was so much to give him, that the foolish world would
be compelled to court him and to forget that stain upon him. Skelton
said to himself that, had he the choice of every quality a boy should
have, he would have chosen just such a mind and character as Lewis
had. He was so thoroughly well balanced; he had a fine and vigorous
mind, high up in the scale of talent, but far removed from the abnormal
quality of genius; there would be for him no stupendous infantile
performances to haunt the whole of his future life, no overweighting
of any one faculty to the disproportion of the rest. And then, he
had an eaglet’s spirit. Skelton smiled when he remembered that no
human being had ever so stood upon punctilio with him as this little
black-eyed boy. He had, too, an exquisite common sense, which enabled
him to submit readily to proper authority; he was obedient enough to
Bulstrode. And then, he had so much pride that he could never be vain;
and he had naturally the most modest and graceful little air in the
world. Ah, to think that with such a boy the Blairs should dream that
heaven and earth would not be moved to see him righted! And, since the
boy was the instrument to defeat the Blairs, there was no reason that
Skelton should not follow up that fancy for Sylvia Shapleigh. On the
whole, he could part with the money with an excellent grace to Lewis,
and he would still be rich, according to the standard of the people
about him. Sylvia would forgive Lewis’s existence. Skelton was no mean
judge of women, and he knew instinctively that Sylvia Shapleigh would
be the most forgiving woman in the world for what had happened in the
past, and the most unforgiving one of any future disloyalty. He even
smiled to himself when he imagined the discomfiture of the Blairs. He
would give them no warning; and he felt perfectly certain that Blair
would not avail himself of that suggestion made to Mrs. Blair to
ride over to Deerchase and see for himself. And then, if Sylvia would
marry him, imagine the excitement of the Blairs, the fierce delight,
and then the chagrin, the disappointment of finding out that Lewis
Pryor was to step in and get all that they had looked upon as theirs.
Skelton even began to see that possibly this forcing a decision upon
him was not half a bad thing. He had been haunted for some months by
Sylvia Shapleigh’s wit and charm; her beauty, he rightly thought, was
overestimated, but her power to please was not esteemed half enough. He
had begun lately for the first time to look forward apprehensively to
old age. He sometimes fancied himself sitting alone in his latter days
at his solitary hearth, and the thought was hateful to him. He realised
well enough that only a woman in a thousand could make him happy, but
Sylvia Shapleigh, he began to feel, was the woman. And, considering
the extreme affection he felt for Lewis, it was not unlikely--here
Skelton laughed to himself--that he was by nature a domestic character.
He began to fancy life at Deerchase with Sylvia, and became quite
fascinated with the picture drawn by his own imagination. She was a
woman well calculated to gratify any man’s pride, and deep down in his
own heart Skelton knew that was the great thing with him. And she had a
heart--in fact, Skelton would have been a little afraid of a creature
with so much feeling if she had not had likewise a fine understanding.
And if that one boy of his gave him such intense happiness, even with
all the wrath and humiliation that had been brought upon him thereby,
what could he not feel for other children in whose existence there
was no shame? And then, the thought of a lonely and unloved old age
became doubly hateful to him. Until lately he had not really been able
to persuade himself that he must bear the common fate; that he, Richard
Skelton, must some day grow old, infirm, dependent. Seeing, though,
that youth had departed in spite of him, he began to fear that old age
might, after all, come upon him. But growing old soothed by Sylvia’s
charming companionship and tender ministrations, and with new ties,
new emotions, new pleasures, was not terrifying to him. He revolved
these things in his mind, occasionally looking fondly at the sleeping
boy, who was indeed all that Skelton said he was. Skelton had no idea
of falling asleep, but gradually a delicious languor stole on him. How
merrily the blackbirds were singing outside, and the sparrows chirped
and chattered under the eaves! Afar off he heard in the stillness of
the summer morning the tinkling of the bells as the cows were being
driven to the pasture, then all the sweet country sounds melted away
into golden silence, and he slept.