That evening I went to Mrs. Poyntz’s; it was one of her ordinary
“reception nights,” and I felt that she would naturally expect my
attendance as “a proper attention.”
I joined a group engaged in general conversation, of which Mrs. Poyntz
herself made the centre, knitting as usual,--rapidly while she talked,
slowly when she listened.
Without mentioning the visit I had paid that morning, I turned the
conversation on the different country places in the neighbourhood, and
then incidentally asked, “What sort of a man is Sir Philip Derval? Is it
not strange that he should suffer so fine a place to fall into decay?”
The answers I received added little to the information I had already
obtained. Mrs. Poyntz knew nothing of Sir Philip Derval, except as a man
of large estates, whose rental had been greatly increased by a rise in
the value of property he possessed in the town of L----, and which lay
contiguous to that of her husband. Two or three of the older inhabitants
of the Hill had remembered Sir Philip in his early days, when he was
gay, high-spirited, hospitable, lavish. One observed that the only
person in L---- whom he had admitted to his subsequent seclusion was
Dr. Lloyd, who was then without practice, and whom he had employed as an
assistant in certain chemical experiments.
Here a gentleman struck into the conversation. He was a stranger to
me and to L----, a visitor to one of the dwellers on the Hill, who had
asked leave to present him to its queen as a great traveller and an
accomplished antiquary.
Said this gentleman: “Sir Philip Derval? I know him. I met him in the
East. He was then still, I believe, very fond of chemical science; a
clever, odd, philanthropical man; had studied medicine, or at least
practised it; was said to have made many marvellous cures. I became
acquainted with him in Aleppo. He had come to that town, not much
frequented by English travellers, in order to inquire into the murder of
two men, of whom one was his friend and the other his countryman.”
“This is interesting,” said Mrs. Poyntz, dryly. “We who live on this
innocent Hill all love stories of crime; murder is the pleasantest
subject you could have hit on. Pray give us the details.”
“So encouraged,” said the traveller, good-humouredly, “I will not
hesitate to communicate the little I know. In Aleppo there had lived for
some years a man who was held by the natives in great reverence. He had
the reputation of extraordinary wisdom, but was difficult of access;
the lively imagination of the Orientals invested his character with
the fascinations of fable,--in short, Haroun of Aleppo was popularly
considered a magician. Wild stories were told of his powers, of his
preternatural age, of his hoarded treasures. Apart from such disputable
titles to homage, there seemed no question, from all I heard, that his
learning was considerable, his charities extensive, his manner of life
irreproachably ascetic. He appears to have resembled those Arabian sages
of the Gothic age to whom modern science is largely indebted,--a mystic
enthusiast, but an earnest scholar. A wealthy and singular Englishman,
long resident in another part of the East, afflicted by some languishing
disease, took a journey to Aleppo to consult this sage, who, among
his other acquirements, was held to have discovered rare secrets in
medicine,--his countrymen said in ‘charms.’ One morning, not long after
the Englishman’s arrival, Haroun was found dead in his bed, apparently
strangled, and the Englishman, who lodged in another part of the town,
had disappeared; but some of his clothes, and a crutch on which he
habitually supported himself, were found a few miles distant from
Aleppo, near the roadside. There appeared no doubt that he, too, had
been murdered, but his corpse could not be discovered. Sir Philip Derval
had been a loving disciple of this Sage of Aleppo, to whom he assured me
he owed not only that knowledge of medicine which, by report, Sir
Philip possessed, but the insight into various truths of nature, on the
promulgation of which, it was evident, Sir Philip cherished the ambition
to found a philosophical celebrity for himself.”
“Of what description were those truths of nature?” I asked, somewhat
sarcastically.
“Sir, I am unable to tell you, for Sir Philip did not inform me, nor
did I much care to ask; for what may be revered as truths in Asia are
usually despised as dreams in Europe. To return to my story: Sir
Philip had been in Aleppo a little time before the murder; had left the
Englishman under the care of Haroun. He returned to Aleppo on hearing
the tragic events I have related, and was busy in collecting such
evidence as could be gleaned, and instituting inquiries after our
missing countryman at the time I myself chanced to arrive in the city.
I assisted in his researches, but without avail. The assassins remained
undiscovered. I do not myself doubt that they were mere vulgar robbers.
Sir Philip had a darker suspicion of which he made no secret to me; but
as I confess that I thought the suspicion groundless, you will pardon
me if I do not repeat it. Whether since I left the East the Englishman’s
remains have been discovered, I know not. Very probably; for I
understand that his heirs have got hold of what fortune he left,--less
than was generally supposed. But it was reported that he had buried
great treasures, a rumour, however absurd, not altogether inconsistent
with his character.”
“What was his character?” asked Mrs. Poyntz.
“One of evil and sinister repute. He was regarded with terror by the
attendants who had accompanied him to Aleppo. But he had lived in a
very remote part of the East, little known to Europeans, and, from all I
could learn, had there established an extraordinary power, strengthened
by superstitious awe. He was said to have studied deeply that knowledge
which the philosophers of old called ‘occult,’ not, like the Sage
of Aleppo, for benevolent, but for malignant ends. He was accused of
conferring with evil spirits, and filling his barbaric court (for
he lived in a kind of savage royalty) with charmers and sorcerers. I
suspect, after all, that he was only, like myself, an ardent antiquary,
and cunningly made use of the fear he inspired in order to secure his
authority, and prosecute in safety researches into ancient sepulchres or
temples. His great passion was, indeed, in excavating such remains, in
his neighbourhood; with what result I know not, never having penetrated
so far into regions infested by robbers and pestiferous with malaria. He
wore the Eastern dress, and always carried jewels about him. I came
to the conclusion that for the sake of these jewels he was murdered,
perhaps by some of his own servants (and, indeed, two at least of his
suite were missing), who then at once buried his body, and kept their
own secret. He was old, very infirm; could never have got far from the
town without assistance.”
“You have not yet told us his name,” said Mrs. Poyntz.
“His name was Grayle.”
“Grayle!” exclaimed Mrs. Poyntz, dropping her work. “Louis Grayle?”
“Yes; Louis Grayle. You could not have known him?”
“Known him! No; but I have often heard my father speak of him. Such,
then, was the tragic end of that strong dark creature, for whom, as a
young girl in the nursery, I used to feel a kind of fearful admiring
interest?”
“It is your turn to narrate now,” said the traveller.
And we all drew closer round our hostess, who remained silent some
moments, her brow thoughtful, her work suspended.
“Well,” said she at last, looking round us with a lofty air, which
seemed half defying, “force and courage are always fascinating, even
when they are quite in the wrong. I go with the world, because the world
goes with me; if it did not--” Here she stopped for a moment, clenched
the firm white hand, and then scornfully waved it, left the sentence
unfinished, and broke into another.
“Going with the world, of course we must march over those who stand
against it. But when one man stands single-handed against our march, we
do not despise him; it is enough to crush. I am very glad I did not see
Louis Grayle when I was a girl of sixteen.” Again she paused a moment,
and resumed: “Louis Grayle was the only son of a usurer, infamous for
the rapacity with which he had acquired enormous wealth. Old Grayle
desired to rear his heir as a gentleman; sent him to Eton. Boys are
always aristocratic; his birth was soon thrown in his teeth; he was
fierce; he struck boys bigger than himself,--fought till he was
half killed. My father was at school with him; described him as
a tiger-whelp. One day he--still a fag--struck a sixth-form boy.
Sixth-form boys do not fight fags; they punish them. Louis Grayle was
ordered to hold out his hand to the cane; he received the blow, drew
forth his schoolboy knife, and stabbed the punisher. After that, he left
Eton. I don’t think he was publicly expelled--too mere a child for that
honour--but he was taken or sent away; educated with great care under
the first masters at home. When he was of age to enter the University,
old Grayle was dead. Louis was sent by his guardians to Cambridge, with
acquirements far exceeding the average of young men, and with unlimited
command of money. My father was at the same college, and described him
again,--haughty, quarrelsome, reckless, handsome, aspiring, brave.
Does that kind of creature interest you, my dears?” (appealing to the
ladies).
“La!” said Miss Brabazon; “a horrid usurer’s son!”
“Ay, true; the vulgar proverb says it is good to be born with a silver
spoon in one’s mouth: so it is when one has one’s own family crest on
it; but when it is a spoon on which people recognize their family
crest, and cry out, ‘Stolen from our plate chest,’ it is a heritage that
outlaws a babe in his cradle. However, young men at college who want
money are less scrupulous about descent than boys at Eton are. Louis
Grayle found, while at college, plenty of wellborn acquaintances willing
to recover from him some of the plunder his father had extorted from
theirs. He was too wild to distinguish himself by academical honours,
but my father said that the tutors of the college declared there were
not six undergraduates in the University who knew as much hard and dry
science as wild Louis Grayle. He went into the world, no doubt, hoping
to shine; but his father’s name was too notorious to admit the son into
good society. The Polite World, it is true, does not examine a scutcheon
with the nice eye of a herald, nor look upon riches with the stately
contempt of a stoic; still the Polite World has its family pride and
its moral sentiment. It does not like to be cheated,--I mean, in
money matters; and when the son of a man who has emptied its purse and
foreclosed on its acres rides by its club-windows, hand on haunch, and
head in the air, no lion has a scowl more awful, no hyena a laugh more
dread, than that same easy, good-tempered, tolerant, polite, well-bred
World which is so pleasant an acquaintance, so languid a friend, and--so
remorseless an--enemy. In short, Louis Grayle claimed the right to be
courted,--he was shunned; to be admired,--he was loathed. Even his old
college acquaintances were shamed out of knowing him. Perhaps he
could have lived through all this had he sought to glide quietly into
position; but he wanted the tact of the well-bred, and strove to storm
his way, not to steal it. Reduced for companions to needy parasites,
he braved and he shocked all decorous opinion by that ostentation of
excess, which made Richelieus and Lauzuns the rage. But then Richelieus
and Lauzuns were dukes! He now very naturally took the Polite World into
hate,--gave it scorn for scorn. He would ally himself with Democracy;
his wealth could not get him into a club, but it would buy him into
parliament; he could not be a Lauzun, nor, perhaps, a Mirabeau, but he
might be a Danton. He had plenty of knowledge and audacity, and with
knowledge and audacity a good hater is sure to be eloquent. Possibly,
then, this poor Louis Grayle might have made a great figure, left his
mark on his age and his name in history; but in contesting the borough,
which he was sure to carry, he had to face an opponent in a real fine
gentleman whom his father had ruined, cool and highbred, with a tongue
like a rapier, a sneer like an adder. A quarrel of course; Louis Grayle
sent a challenge. The fine gentleman, known to be no coward (fine
gentlemen never are), was at first disposed to refuse with contempt. But
Grayle had made himself the idol of the mob; and at a word from Grayle,
the fine gentleman might have been ducked at a pump, or tossed in
a blanket,--that would have made him ridiculous; to be shot at is a
trifle, to be laughed at is serious. He therefore condescended to accept
the challenge, and my father was his second.
“It was settled, of course, according to English custom, that both
combatants should fire at the same time, and by signal. The antagonist
fired at the right moment; his ball grazed Louis Grayle’s temple. Louis
Grayle had not fired. He now seemed to the seconds to take slow and
deliberate aim. They called out to him not to fire; they were rushing to
prevent him, when the trigger was pulled, and his opponent fell dead on
the field. The fight was, therefore, considered unfair; Louis Grayle was
tried for his life: he did not stand the trial in person.(1) He escaped
to the Continent; hurried on to some distant uncivilized lands; could
not be traced; reappeared in England no more. The lawyer who conducted
his defence pleaded skilfully. He argued that the delay in firing was
not intentional, therefore not criminal,--the effect of the stun which
the wound in the temple had occasioned. The judge was a gentleman, and
summed up the evidence so as to direct the jury to a verdict against
the low wretch who had murdered a gentleman; but the jurors were not
gentlemen, and Grayle’s advocate had of course excited their sympathy
for a son of the people, whom a gentleman had wantonly insulted. The
verdict was manslaughter; but the sentence emphatically marked the
aggravated nature of the homicide,--three years’ imprisonment. Grayle
eluded the prison, but he was a man disgraced and an exile,--his
ambition blasted, his career an outlaw’s, and his age not yet
twenty-three. My father said that he was supposed to have changed his
name; none knew what had become of him. And so this creature, brilliant
and daring, whom if born under better auspices we might now be all
fawning on, cringing to,--after living to old age, no one knows
how,--dies murdered at Aleppo, no one, you say, knows by whom.”
“I saw some account of his death in the papers about three years ago,”
said one of the party; “but the name was misspelled, and I had no idea
that it was the same man who had fought the duel which Mrs. Colonel
Poyntz has so graphically described. I have a very vague recollection of
the trial; it took place when I was a boy, more than forty years since.
The affair made a stir at the time, but was soon forgotten.”
“Soon forgotten,” said Mrs. Poyntz; “ay, what is not? Leave your place
in the world for ten minutes, and when you come back somebody else has
taken it; but when you leave the world for good, who remembers that you
had ever a place even in the parish register?”
“Nevertheless,” said I, “a great poet has said, finely and truly,
“‘The sun of Homer shines upon us still.’”
“But it does not shine upon Homer; and learned folks tell me that we
know no more who and what Homer was, if there was ever a single Homer
at all, or rather, a whole herd of Homers, than we know about the man in
the moon,--if there be one man there, or millions of men. Now, my dear
Miss Brabazon, it will be very kind in you to divert our thoughts
into channels less gloomy. Some pretty French air--Dr. Fenwick, I have
something to say to you.” She drew me towards the window. “So Annie
Ashleigh writes me word that I am not to mention your engagement. Do you
think it quite prudent to keep it a secret?”
“I do not see how prudence is concerned in keeping it secret one way or
the other,--it is a mere matter of feeling. Most people wish to abridge,
as far as they can, the time in which their private arrangements are the
topic of public gossip.”
“Public gossip is sometimes the best security for the due completion of
private arrangements. As long as a girl is not known to be engaged,
her betrothed must be prepared for rivals. Announce the engagement, and
rivals are warned off.”
“I fear no rivals.”
“Do you not? Bold man! I suppose you will write to Lilian?”
“Certainly.”
“Do so, and constantly. By-the-way, Mrs. Ashleigh, before she went,
asked me to send her back Lady Haughton’s letter of invitation. What
for,--to show to you?”
“Very likely. Have you the letter still? May I see it?”
“Not just at present. When Lilian or Mrs. Ashleigh writes to you, come
and tell me how they like their visit, and what other guests form the
party.”
Therewith she turned away and conversed apart with the traveller.
Her words disquieted me, and I felt that they were meant to do so,
wherefore I could not guess. But there is no language on earth which has
more words with a double meaning than that spoken by the Clever Woman,
who is never so guarded as when she appears to be frank.
As I walked home thoughtfully, I was accosted by a young man, the son
of one of the wealthiest merchants in the town. I had attended him with
success some months before, in a rheumatic fever: he and his family were
much attached to me.
“Ah, my dear Fenwick, I am so glad to see you; I owe you an
obligation of which you are not aware,--an exceedingly pleasant
travelling-companion. I came with him to-day from London, where I have
been sight-seeing and holidaymaking for the last fortnight.”
“I suppose you mean that you kindly bring me a patient?”
“No, only an admirer. I was staying at Fenton’s Hotel. It so happened
one day that I had left in the coffee-room your last work on the Vital
Principle, which, by the by, the bookseller assures me is selling
immensely among readers as non-professional as myself. Coming into the
coffee-room again, I found a gentleman reading the book. I claimed it
politely; he as politely tendered his excuse for taking it. We made
acquaintance on the spot. The next day we were intimate. He expressed
great interest and curiosity about your theory and your experiments. I
told him I knew you. You may guess if I described you as less clever in
your practice than you are in your writings; and, in short, he came
with me to L----, partly to see our flourishing town, principally on my
promise to introduce him to you. My mother, you know, has what she calls
a dejeuner tomorrow,--dejeuner and dance. You will be there?”
“Thank you for reminding me of her invitation. I will avail myself of
it if I can. Your new friend will be present? Who and what is he,--a
medical student?”
“No, a mere gentleman at ease, but seems to have a good deal of general
information. Very young, apparently very rich, wonderfully good-looking.
I am sure you will like him; everybody must.”
“It is quite enough to prepare me to like him that he is a friend of
yours.” And so we shook hands and parted.
(1) Mrs. Poyntz here makes a mistake in law which, though very evident,
her listeners do not seem to have noticed. Her mistake will be referred
to later.