And so for the second time, on this strange Sunday evening, I was called
on to recount what I had heard and seen in the sad, blood-stained little
house down at Chelsea. And having done so, I withdrew, Hartover making
no effort to detain me. For I felt, and I think he felt also, whatever
remained to be said must be said behind closed doors, since it would be
both unworthy and impolitic to subject this proud woman and great lady to
further mortification. I left the two alone, the more willingly as the
boy had proved himself, kept his head, kept his temper, shown himself
at once astute and fearless. I could trust him to strike a bargain—for,
as he said, between himself and her ladyship a bargain, and a hard one,
it henceforth must be—discreditable neither to honour nor to justice. I
could trust him not to be vindictive. He had not been so towards Fédore.
He would not be so towards his stepmother.
I went downstairs and into the dining-room again, where I found William
still making a pretence of clearing the table, though it was close on
midnight.
‘His lordship ate no dinner to call a dinner, sir,’ he said tentatively;
‘and after travelling all day too!’
But I refused to be drawn. William’s curiosity would, in all probability,
be satisfied by the contents of the morning papers; and meanwhile I,
unused to such strenuous demands upon my imagination and nervous energy,
stood sorely in need of some rest.
Finding me a hopeless subject, the faithful fellow, to my relief,
departed, permitting me to meditate undisturbed.—What of the future,
Hartover’s future? He had borne himself well and manfully throughout the
evening; but would the events, now so deeply affecting him, make more
than a passing impression? Would he, a few months hence, return to his
former unprofitable ways? Would the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, the pride of life prove too strong after all, and work the undoing
of this modern Alcibiades? And what of my own future? Should I go back
to the untroubled scholarly life of Cambridge to live and die a college
don? Or, supposing he and I continued, in some sort, our renewed intimacy
of these last few days, had I the strength and wisdom to guide him? Were
we quite at one, moreover, Hartover and I, or had Halidane succeeded in
sowing discord, a suspicion which would remain and rankle in the dear
boy’s mind?
My thoughts were far from cheerful as I sat there alone, the great house
quiet within, and London hushed to midnight stillness without. Would
good come out of all this evil upon which, shrinking and aghast, I had
so lately looked? Deeper question yet—is it possible that evil ever can
breed good? And my thought wandered homelessly through labyrinths of
speculation regarding dualism, that apparently eternal inter-relation,
inter-action of evil and of good, as manifested in nature, in history, in
national and personal character, alike. Is there, verily, no good without
alloy of evil, no evil lacking a strain of good? I thought of Fédore,
as an example, at once befriending and devouring Hartover—whereby this
mystery of dualism appeared painfully deepened and increased.
But then—unable, I suppose, to support the sorrow of its own homelessness
any longer—my thought turned to the sheltered corner of the garden at
Westrea—where the high red-brick wall forms an angle with the mellow
red-brick house front—to which, in the sweet May mornings, the neat
box-edged borders gay with spring flowers, the brimming water, the
avenue of oaks and the pasture gently sloping upward to the sky-line, so
pleasantly set out before us, Nellie Braithwaite would bring her sewing
and I the book from which to read aloud.—Ah! surely this—this had been
wholly without alloy, purely and perfectly good! I pictured the scene in
all its details, felt again the emotions engendered by it, and received
comfort to my soul—for—not for very long, alas!
The door opened. Hartover swung in. His face was still drawn and
thin, but a spot of colour burned on either cheek and his eyes were
extraordinarily bright.
‘That’s over,’ he said. ‘It has been damnable, utterly damnable. But it
is done with. Now, please God, we start afresh—don’t move, Brownlow.’
This as I prepared to rise.
‘I must talk,’ he went on—‘talk to you now while the hot fit is still on
me, so that you may register and, later, whip me up if I check or show
any sign of running slack. Remind me of—of to-night. I have got what I
bargained for—my clear stage and no favour. My stepmother signs a truce,
under compulsion of—oh! yes, I know how ugly it sounds!—compulsion of
fear, the fear of exposure and social ruin. If she interferes between me
and my father, he shall be told certain facts. If, after his death, I
find she has played tricks with the property, I shall go to law, which
will be equivalent to publishing those same facts to all the world. If
she keeps faith with me, I will stand by her and do everything in my
power to shield her name from scandal and disgrace.—For, Brownlow, those
who sold her, as a little more than a child, to a man nearly twice her
age, and a weak-brained, dyspeptic valetudinarian at that, did a very
cruel thing.—All the same, the Rusher has to vanish. As long as my father
lives he shall never darken these doors, or those of Hover, again. That
is absolute.’
While he spoke, Hartover roamed up and down the room restlessly, working
off his excitement. Now he came and, sitting down on the arm of my chair,
laid his hand gently on my shoulder.
‘Dear old friend, forgive me,’ he said. ‘I ought to have known better.
It was only for an instant I distrusted you; but I was so knocked about.
The road to freedom—for it is freedom, through all this shame and misery,
this horror of crime and violence, I recognise that—has been very
frightful to tread. Nothing can ever look quite the same again. I am new
born, not only to man’s estate, but to a new vision and understanding of
what I may and will, God helping me—I don’t shy at a little bit of piety
for once!—do with my life. Only the pains of that new birth have been as
the pains of hell, dear old man.’
And here I think the tears came, for the boy’s hand went up hastily to
his eyes, and he turned away his face—from which I opined it would be
some time before he and youth parted company, even yet!
‘Gad!’ he said, ‘I believe I should be thankful never to set eyes on a
petticoat again, as long as I live; but,’ with a rather weary little
laugh, ‘I suppose the misogynist attitude of mind won’t last, whatever
else does! Look here, Brownlow, how soon can you be ready to go up to
Hover with me? I hear the grouse promise well this season, and I’ll be
hanged if Colonel Jack puts a ha’porth of shot into a solitary one of
them. And, oh! dear me, I want to get away from London, away to the clean
wind and the open moors and—forget.’
I took no reading party to North Wales that summer, but rode Warcop’s
horses and tramped the fells with Hartover instead. And when I went back
to Cambridge at the beginning of the October term, the boy—having sent in
his papers on his twenty-first birthday—went back with me, thus carrying
out his old wish of passing at least one year at the university.
And Marsigli never came to trial, but died by his own hand in gaol, to
Lady Longmoor’s immense relief, as I imagine; but to Detective Inspector
Lavender’s immense disgust and discouragement of belief in his luck.
‘The authorities may ignore it, sir,’ he said to me; ‘but I can’t. That
affair hammered more nails into the coffin of my professional reputation,
or ought to have done so if every man had his deserts, than I care to
count.’