A QUESTION OF OBLIGATION
Afternoon tea was being served in the hall at Beauleys on the day
after Saton's arrival. Saton himself was sitting with Lois Champneyes
in a retired corner.
"I was going to ask you," he remarked, as he handed her some cakes,
"about Mr. Rochester's marriage. He was a bachelor when I--first met
him."
"Were you very intimate in those days?" she asked.
"Not in the least," he answered, with a faint reminiscent smile.
"Then you never heard about the romance of his life?" she asked.
Saton shook his head.
"Never," he declared. "Nor should I ever have associated the word with
Mr. Rochester."
She sighed gently.
"I daresay he was very different in those days," she said. "Before the
Beauleys property came to him, he was quite poor, and he was very much
in love with the dearest woman--Pauline Hambledon. It was impossible
for them to marry--her people wouldn't hear of it--so he went abroad,
and she married Sir Walter Marrabel! Such a pig! Everyone hated him.
Then old Mr. Stephen Rochester died suddenly, without a will, and all
this property came to Henry!"
"And then he married, I suppose?" Saton remarked.
"I was going to tell you about that," Lois continued. "Mary was a
niece of Stephen Rochester, and a daughter of the Marquis of Haselton,
who was absolutely bankrupt when he died. Stephen Rochester adopted
her, and then died without leaving her a farthing! So there she was,
poor dear, penniless, and Henry had everything. Of course, he had to
marry her."
"Why not?" Saton remarked. "She is quite charming."
"Yes! But this is the tantalizing part of it," Lois continued. "They
hadn't been married a year when Sir Walter Marrabel died. Pauline is a
widow now. She is coming here in a few days. I do hope you will meet
her."
"This is quite interesting," Saton murmured. "How do Lady Mary and her
husband get on?"
Lois made a little grimace.
"They go different ways most of the time," she answered. "I suppose
they're only what people call modern. Isn't that a motor horn?" she
cried out, springing to her feet. "I wonder if it's Guerdie!"
"For a man who has been a great lawyer," Lord Penarvon declared,
"Guerdon is the most uncertain and unpunctual of men. One never knows
when to expect him."
"He was to have arrived yesterday," Lady Mary remarked. "We sent to
the station twice."
"I suppose," Rochester said, "that even to gratify the impatience of
an expectant house-party, it is not possible to quicken the slow
process of the law. If you look at the morning papers, you will see
that he was at the Central Criminal Court, trying some case or other,
all day yesterday. The man who pleads 'Not Guilty,' and who pays for
his defence, expects to be heard out to the bitter end. It is really
only natural."
Saton, who had been left alone in his corner, rose suddenly to his
feet and came into the circle. He handed his cup to his hostess, and
turned toward Rochester.
"You were speaking of judges?" he remarked.
Rochester nodded.
"In a few moments," he said, "you will probably meet the cleverest one
we have upon the English bench. Without his robe and wig, some people
find him insignificant. Personally, I must confess that I never feel
his eyes upon me without a shiver. They say that he never loses sight
of a fact or forgets a face."
"And what is the name of this wonderful person?" Saton asked.
"Lord Guerdon," Rochester answered. "Even though you have spent so
little time in England of late years, you must have heard of him."
The curtains were suddenly thrown aside, and a footman entered
announcing the newly-arrived guest. From the hall beyond came the
sound of a departing motor, and the clatter of luggage being brought
in. The footman stood on one side.
"Lord Guerdon!" he announced.
Lady Mary held out her hands across the tea-tray. Rochester came a
few steps forward. Everyone ceased their conversation to look at the
small, spare figure of the man who, clad in a suit of travelling
clothes of gray tweed, and cut after a somewhat ancient pattern,
insignificant-looking in figure and even in bearing, yet carried
something in his clean-shaven, wrinkled face at once impressive and
commanding. Everyone seemed to lean forward with a little air of
interest, prepared to exchange greetings with him as soon as he had
spoken to his host and hostess. Only Saton stood quite still, still as
a figure turned suddenly into stone. No one appeared to notice him, to
notice the twitching of his fingers, the almost ashen gray of his
cheeks--no one except the girl with whom he had been talking, and
whose eyes had scarcely left his. He recovered himself quickly. When
Rochester turned towards him, a moment or so later, he was almost at
his ease.
"You find us all old friends, Guerdon," he said, "except that I have
to present to you my friend Mr. Saton. Saton, this is Lord Guerdon,
whose caricature you have doubtless admired in many papers, comic and
otherwise, and who I am happy to assure you is not nearly so terrible
a person as he might seem from behind that ominous iron bar."
Saton held out his hand, but almost immediately withdrawing it,
contented himself with a murmured word, and a somewhat low bow. For a
second the judge's eyebrows were upraised, his keen eyes seemed to
narrow. He made no movement to shake hands.
"I am very glad to meet Mr. Saton," he said slowly. "By the bye," he
continued, after a second's pause, "is this our first meeting? I seem
to have an idea--your face is somehow familiar to me."
There were few men who could have faced the piercing gaze of those
bright brown eyes, set deep in the withered face, without any sign of
embarrassment. Yet Saton smiled back pleasantly enough. He was
completely at his ease. His face showed only a reasonable amount of
pleasure at this encounter with the famous man.
"I am afraid, Lord Guerdon," he said, "that I cannot claim the
privilege of any previous acquaintance. Although I am an Englishman,
my own country has seen little of me during the last few years."
"Come and have some tea at once," Lady Mary insisted, looking up at
the judge. "I want to hear all about this wonderful Clancorry case.
Oh, I know you're not supposed to talk about it, but that really
doesn't matter down here. You shall have a comfortable chair by my
side, and some hot muffins."
Saton went back to his seat by the side of Lois Champneyes, carrying
his refilled teacup in his hand. She looked at him a little curiously.
"Tell me," she said, "have you really never met Lord Guerdon before?"
"Never in my life," he answered.
"Did he remind you of anyone?" she asked.
"It is curious that you should ask that," Saton remarked. "In a way he
did."
"I thought so," she declared, with a little breath of relief. "That
was it, of course. Do you know how you looked when you first heard
his name--when he came into the room?"
"I have no idea," he answered. "I only know that when I saw him enter,
it gave me almost a shock. He reminded me most strangely of a man who
has been dead for many years. I could scarcely take my eyes off him at
first."
"I will tell you," she said, "what your look reminded me of. Many
years before I was out--in my mother's time--there was a man named
Mallory who was tried for murder, the murder of a friend, who everyone
knew was his rival. Well, he got off, but only after a long trial, and
only by a little weakness in the chain of evidence, which even his
friends at the time thought providential. He went abroad for a long
time. Then he came into a title and returned to England. He was
obliged to take up his position, and people were willing enough to
forget the past. He opened his London house, and accepted every
invitation which came. At the very first party he went to, he came
face to face with the judge who had tried him. My mother was there. I
remember she told me how he looked. It was foolish of me, but I
thought of it when I saw you just then."
Saton smiled sympathetically.
"And the end of the story?" he asked.
"The man had such a shock," she continued, "that he shut up his house,
gave up all his schemes for re-entering life, left England, and never
set foot in the country again."
Saton rose to his feet.
"I see that my host is beckoning me," he said. "Will you excuse me for
a moment?"
Rochester passed his arm through the younger man's.
"Come into the gun-room for a few minutes," he said. "I want to show
you the salmon flies I was speaking of."
Saton smiled a little curiously, and followed his host across the hall
and down the long stone passage which led to the back quarters of the
house. The gun-room was deserted and empty. Rochester closed the door.
"My young friend," he said, "if you do not object, I should like to
have a few minutes of plain speaking with you."
"I should be delighted," Saton answered, seating himself deliberately
in a battered old easy-chair.
"Seven years ago," Rochester continued, leaning his elbow against
the mantelpiece, "we made a bargain. I sent you out into the world,
an egotistical Don Quixote, and I provided you with the means with
which you were to turn the windmills into castles. I made one
condition--two, in fact. One that you came back. Well, you have kept
that. The other was that you told me what it was like to build the
castles of bricks and mortar, which in the days when I knew you, you
built in fancy only."
"Aren't you a little allegorical?" Saton asked, calmly.
"I admit it," Rochester answered. "I was very nearly, in fact, out of
my depth. Tell me, in plain words, what have you done with yourself
these seven years?"
"You want me," Saton remarked, "to give an account of my stewardship."
"Put it any way you please," Rochester answered. "The fact remains
that though you are a guest in my house, you are a complete stranger
to me."
Saton smiled.
"You might have thought of that," he said, "before you asked me here."
Rochester shrugged his shoulders.
"Perhaps," he said, "I preferred to keep up my reputation as an
eccentric person. At any rate, you must remember that it was open to
me at any moment to ask you the question I have asked you now."
Saton sat perfectly still in his chair, his eyes apparently fixed upon
the ground. All the time Rochester was watching him. Was it seven
years ago, seven years only, since he had stood by the side of that
boy, whose longing eyes had been fixed with almost passionate
intensity upon that world of shadows and unseen things? This was a
different person. With the swiftness of inspiration itself, he
recognised something of the change which had taken place. Saton had
fought his battle twice over. He might esteem himself a winner. He
might even say that he had proved it. Yet there was another side. This
young man with the lined face, and the almost unnatural restraint of
manner, might well have taken up the thread of life which the boy had
laid down. But there was a difference. The thread might be the same,
but it was no longer of gold.
Then Saton raised his eyes, and Rochester, who was watching him
intensely, realized with a sudden convincing thrill something which he
had felt from the moment when he had stepped into the library and
welcomed this unexpected visitor. There was nothing left of gratitude
or even kindly feeling in the heart of this young man. There was
something else which looked out from his eyes, something else which he
did not even trouble to conceal. Rochester knew, from that moment,
that he had an enemy.
"There are just two things," Saton said quietly, "of which I should
like to remind you. The first is that from the day I left this house
with five hundred pounds in bank-notes buttoned up in my pocket, I
regarded that sum as a loan. I have always regarded it as a loan, and
I have repaid it."
"I do not consider your obligation to me lessened," Rochester remarked
coldly. "If it was a loan, it was a loan such as no sane man would
have made. You had not a penny in the world, and I did not even know
your name. The chances were fifty to one against my ever seeing a
penny of my money again."
"I admit that," Saton answered. "Yet I will remind you of your own
words--five hundred pounds were no more to you than a crown piece to
me. You gave me the money. You gave me little else. You gave me no
encouragement, no word of kindly advice. Go back that seven years, and
remember what you said to me when you stood by my side, toying with
your gun, and looking at me superciliously, as though I were some sort
of curiosity which it amused you to turn inside out.--The one
unforgivable thing in life, you said, was failure. Do you remember
telling me that if I failed I was to swim out on a sunny day--to swim
and swim until the end came? Do you remember telling me that death was
sometimes a pleasant thing, but that life after failure was Hell
itself?"
Rochester nodded.
"I always had such a clear insight into life," he murmured. "I was
perfectly right."
"From your point of view you doubtless were," Saton answered. "You
were a cynic and a pessimist, and I find you now unchanged. I went
away with your words ringing in my brain. It was the first poisonous
thought which had ever entered there, and I never lost it. I said to
myself that whatever price I paid for success, success of some sort I
would gain. When things went against me, I seemed to hear always those
bitter, supercilious words. I could even see the curl of your lips as
you looked down upon me, and figured to yourself the only possible
result of trusting me, an unfledged, imaginative boy, with the means
to carve his way a little further into the world. Failure! I wrote the
word out of the dictionary of my life. Sin, crime, ill-doing of any
sort if they became necessary--I kept them there. But failure--no! And
this was your doing. Now you come to ask me questions. You want to
know if I am a fit and proper person to receive in your house. Perhaps
I have sinned. Perhaps I have robbed. Perhaps I have proved myself a
master in every form of ill-doing. But I have not failed! I have paid
you back your five hundred pounds."
"The question of ethics," Rochester remarked, "interests me very
little if at all. The only point is that whereas on the hillside you
were simply a stray unit of humanity, and the things which we said to
one another concerned ourselves only, here matters are a little
different. In a thoughtless moment, I asked you to become a guest
under my roof. It was, I frankly admit, a mistake. I trust that I need
not say more."
"If you will have my things removed to the Inn," Saton said slowly--
"No such extreme measures are necessary," Rochester answered. "You
will stay with us until to-morrow morning. After luncheon you will
probably find it convenient to terminate your visit as soon as
possible."
"I shall be gone," Saton answered, "before any of your guests are up.
In case I do not see you again alone, let me ask you a question, or
rather a favor."
Rochester bowed slightly.
"There is a house below the Convalescent Home--Blackbird's Nest, they
call it," Saton said. "It is empty now--too large for your keepers,
too small for a country seat. Will you let it to me?"
Rochester looked at him with uplifted eyebrows.
"Let it to you?" he repeated. "Do you mean to say that after an
adventurous career such as I imagine you have had, you think of
settling down, at your age, in a neighborhood like this?"
"Scarcely that," Saton answered. "I shall be here only for a few days
at a time, at different periods in the year. The one taste which I
share in common with the boy whom you knew, is a love for the country,
especially this part of it."
"You wish to live there alone?" Rochester asked.
"There is one--other person," Saton answered with some hesitation.
Rochester sighed gently.
"Alas!" he said. "Instinct tells me that that person will turn out to
be of the other sex. If only you knew, my young friend, what the
morals of this neighborhood are, you would understand how fatal your
proposal is."
Something that was almost malign gleamed for a moment in Saton's eyes.
"It is true," he said, "that the person I spoke of is a woman, but as
she is at least sixty years old, and can only walk with the help of a
stick, I do not think that she would be apt to disturb the moral
prejudices of your friends."
"What has she to do with you?" Rochester asked, a little shortly.
"Have you found relatives out in the world, or are you married?"
Saton smiled.
"I am not married," he answered, "and as the lady in question is a
foreigner, there is no question of any relationship between us. I am,
as a matter of fact, her adopted son."
"You can go and see my agent," Rochester answered. "Personally, I
shall not interfere. I am to take it for granted, then, I presume,
that you have nothing more to tell me concerning yourself?"
"At present, nothing," Saton answered. "Some day, perhaps," he added,
rising, "I may tell you everything. You see," he added, "I feel that
my life, such as it is, is in some respects dedicated to you, and that
you therefore have a certain right to know something of it. But that
time has not come yet."
Once more there was a short and somewhat inexplicable pause, and once
more Rochester knew that he was in the presence of an enemy. He
shrugged his shoulders and turned toward the door.
"Well," he said, "we had better be getting off. Guerdon is a decent
fellow, but he always needs looking after. If he is bored for five
minutes, he gets sulky. If he is bored for a quarter of an hour, he
goes home. You never met Lord Guerdon before, I suppose?" he asked, as
he threw open the door.
They were men of nerve, both of them. Neither flinched. Rochester's
question had been asked in an absolutely matter-of-fact tone, and
Saton's reply was entirely casual. Yet he knew very well that it was
only since the coming of the great judge that Rochester had suddenly
realized that amongst the guests staying in his house, there was one
who might have been any sort of criminal.
"I have seen him in court," Saton remarked, with a slight smile, "and
of course I have seen pictures of him everywhere. Do not let me keep
you, please. I have some letters to write in my room."
Rochester went back to his guests. His brows were knitted. He was
unusually thoughtful. His wife, who was watching him, called him
across to the bridge table, where she was dummy.
"Well?" she asked. "What is it?"
Rochester looked down at her. The corners of his mouth slowly unbent.
"Have you ever heard," he whispered in her ear, "of the legend of the
Frankenstein?"