Facing round to return to the house the sight of the latter met Wagram
as with a blow. The last time he had looked upon it from outside,
barely half-an-hour ago, it had been with the love of it and everything
about it--that pride of possession which had become unconsciously a part
of his very life. Now all was swept away. He passed his hand over his
eyes as though dazzled; even his walk seemed swaying and unsteady, as
that of a man recovering from a stunning shock. But not of himself must
he think just then. He must do what he could to mitigate the stroke as
regarded his father, he told himself; afterwards he might indulge in the
"luxury" of self-pity.
The old Squire was sitting in the library just where he had left him,
and as many years seemed to have gone over his head as minutes during
the time intervening.
"Well, father, this is rather a facer," he began. "The next thing is to
consider what's to be done."
"There's nothing to be done," answered the old man wearily. "Do you
think that scoundrel means to keep his word?"
"To do him justice, I think he means to at present; but whether his good
intentions will evaporate with the lapse of time, and the temptation to
try and extract more plunder, is another matter."
There was silence for a few moments between them. Then Wagram said:
"Father, would you mind telling me all the ins and outs of this while we
are on the subject? We shall get it over that way, and then we need
never refer to it again."
"Yes; perhaps it is better," said the Squire, with a sigh.
And then he set forth the whole story, which, with some additional but
immaterial detail, was the same as that which we heard him narrate to
Monsignor Culham.
"You know, this man has just been telling me where I can find Everard,"
said Wagram when he had done.
The Squire started.
"Where you can find Everard!" he echoed. "But--Wagram, you will never
be so mad as to try?"
"How can I do otherwise? Every hour that I am here I am keeping him out
of his rights."
Smiling somewhat feebly the old diplomat asserted himself.
"Hardly, my dear boy. At least not at present--for during my lifetime
Everard has no rights. After--"
Wagram looked up quickly, but the old man paused. Then he went on:
"Your first duty is to me; and, that being so, are you contemplating
leaving me alone in my old age--my very old age, some might call it--
while you scour the world in search of a wastrel who, if you find him,
will lay himself out to ruin within six months all that it has taken
me--and you--a lifetime to build up? You cannot do it, Wagram. I have
not very much longer to live, but as sure as you leave me it will hasten
my death. Now, are you anxious to start upon this search?"
"No, father. While you are here--and may that be for many years to
come--I will not leave you."
"Promise me that."
"Solemnly I promise it."
The old man's face brightened as they clasped hands. Then he went on:
"This is no conscious wrong I have done you, Wagram--God knows. We had
every reason--legal and otherwise--for supposing this man to be dead.
We acted in perfect good faith, but--can one be sure of anything? And
now give me your attention. Even if the worst comes to the very worst,
and that--that other claim should come to be established, I have already
effected my utmost to repair the wrong I have, accidentally, done you.
The very day of that blackmailer's first visit to me I sent instructions
for an entirely new will to be drawn up, and under it, after my death,
you take the whole of my personalty absolutely. That alone will
constitute you what some would call a rich man. But--as for Hilversea,
well--"
Earlier in this narrative we heard Haldane remark that its present
occupants cherished a conviction that the world revolved round
Hilversea, and being, perhaps, the most intimate friend of the said
occupants he ought to be in a position to judge. Further, he had
observed that, if possible, Wagram held that conviction rather more
firmly than his father. It was a figure of speech, of course, but that
both were wrapped up in the place and its interests, far beyond the
ordinary, we have abundantly shown. And now one of them would be called
upon to surrender it.
"I have left nothing to chance, Wagram," went on the Squire. "The will
is signed and sealed and most carefully drawn. And now observe: it
seems to me a sort of inspiration that caused me to have you christened
Wagram; but, to make everything doubly safe, the terms run: `To my son
Wagram Gerard, known as Wagram Gerard Wagram.' But I want you to go up
to town in a day or two and tell Simcox and Yaxley to let you see it.
You can then satisfy yourself."
Wagram nodded assent, and the Squire went on:
"This has come upon us--upon you at any rate--in a hurry, and for that
very reason we must not allow ourselves to do or say anything in a
hurry. Meanwhile we are in possession, which is a strong point. So
what we--what you--have got to do is to go on exactly as if this
revelation had never been made. There is no telling what Time may work,
so give Time his chance. Morally, you are just in the position you
would actually have been in--morally, for I repeat again the whole
affair was a sheer accident for which nobody is to blame--no, not
anybody. And, Wagram, if you distrust my advice as possibly too
interested, why not take other advice? There is Monsignor Culham, for
instance--no one is more competent to advise you."
"Monsignor Culham? Does he know about this, father?"
"Yes; I laid it before him when this blackmailer first approached me."
"And his opinion?"
"Substantially what I have been telling you. He was not in favour of
your knowing anything about the matter. Unfortunately, you forced the
blackmailer's hand--as he said himself. Morally, and in the sight of
God," went on the old Squire, lapsing into what was, for him,
extraordinary vehemence, "your position is just what it would have been
but for this--accident. There is no doubt about it. You are the one
selected to hold this place in trust, with its many cares and
responsibilities and opportunities, so, for God's sake, Wagram, bear
that in mind, and do nothing sudden or rash, either now or after my
time."
"I will bear it in mind, father; but it is a position which requires a
great deal of thinking out, and that can't be done in a day or a week or
a month where such issues are at stake."
"Quite true; leave it at that, then. And now, Wagram, all this has
exhausted me more than I can say. I think I will lie down for a bit and
try to get a little sleep. Tell them I am on no account to be
disturbed."
"Mine!"
No longer the ecstatic intonation of the entrancing possessive, as
Wagram, strolling forth to wrestle out alone the blank and deadening
revelation he had heard that day, gazed upon the surroundings which had
called forth that intensity of self-gratulation on the occasion of our
first making his acquaintance. He was now but a mere temporary
pensioner. He realised that he was here but for his father's lifetime,
for he knew that when left to himself, whatever might be the after
consequences, he would leave no stone unturned till he should find his
half-brother, and then--
He turned into a seldom-used path in the thick of the shrubbery. The
Gothic roof of the chapel rose among the trees at no great distance, and
the sight was productive of another heart-tightening. All his pride and
joy in the beautiful little sanctuary--and soon it, too, would know him
no more. He felt as though about to be cast out of Paradise. But with
the thought came another, and it was a wholesome one. What right had he
to look upon life as a broken thing simply because one side of its joys
had been reft from him? It was not even as though he were about to be
thrown forth penniless, or on a meagre, scraping, starvation pittance,
which is, perhaps, hardly better, as he had had ample occasion to know
during long years of his earlier life. As his father had said, he would
be what some would call a rich man in any case; and as an object in life
had he not his son's future to secure and his present to watch over?
And then there recurred to his mind a question which Delia Calmour had
put to him on a former occasion as to whether he did not find life too
good to be real--and his answer to it. There was something prophetic
about both. Of late years he had, indeed, found life too good to be
real, and was that a state altogether healthy for anybody in this world
of probation? He had made an idol of Hilversea.
It was late autumn, and the woodland scents were moist and earthy.
Brown leaves, crimped and curled, clustered clingingly upon the oak
boughs, and the ground was already carpeted with them. He had followed
the most secluded paths, sacred, indeed, to himself and the gamekeepers.
The white scut of a rabbit darting across a ride; the rustle of
pheasants scuttling away in the undergrowth, or the vast flap-flap of
wood-pigeon's wings--now gathered in flocks--detonating in the deep
silence of the covert as they fled disturbed from their intended roost;
a couple of squirrels chattering angrily at the intruder from the high
security of a fir limb--constituted the only sights and sounds. In a
day or two these woods would echo and re-echo the crack of guns, and now
he thought how he had been looking forward with keen enjoyment to the
best shooting party of the year. His guests would go as they had come,
thinking--as they had often thought before--that Wagram was about the
luckiest and most-to-be-envied man on earth; and, up till this morning,
would he not cordially have agreed with such opinion! Would he not?
The "pride of life!"
Now a sound of voices struck upon his ear. The path he was following
ended in a gate, beyond which was the road--a lonely woodland road,
intersecting the coverts. As he laid his hand upon this gate to open it
he recognised one of the voices--a sweet, full soprano that by this time
he had come to know fairly well. The other was strong, harsh, common,
but also feminine. Not feeling at all inclined to talk to anybody just
then he would have turned back, but--it was too late.
Delia Calmour gave a little cry of astonishment as he opened the gate.
"Why, Mr Wagram, who'd have thought of meeting you here?"
The little flush of surprise, perhaps of something else, which mantled
her cheeks as she put out a hand, half shyly, lent an additional sparkle
to her eyes, making a whole that was very alluring. She was in
semi-winter garb, with a touch of fur, and her bicycle stood against the
hedge. The other was a dark, beady-eyed, gipsy-looking woman.
"Such fun!" rattled the girl. "I've been having my fortune told; only I
can't make head or tail of it."
Here the other, with a half-knowing leer--for, of course, she had at
once decided that this meeting was no accidental one--opened on Wagram
with the stock professional whine.
"I'll tell yours too, sir, and it's sure to be bright--and--"
Then she stopped. Wagram's gaze was fixed sternly upon her.
"Go away," he said. "I've seen you before, and I've warned you before
that we had no use for such as you in this neighbourhood. You had
better leave it at once, for I shall send word to the police at
Bassingham to pay you some very particular attention."
The tramp, seeing he was in earnest, and that there was nothing more to
be got out of him, waxed bold and defiant.
"You'd do that, would you Squire?" she snarled. "All right. Maybe
there's them as knows more about your little game than you thinks of.
Maybe you'll not be finding everything as easy always; no, and I 'opes
yer won't--tramplin' upon a pore woman who's tryin' to make a honest
livin'." And, cursing and growling, the hag shuffled off down the road.
In his then frame of mind the words were startling to Wagram. What on
earth--was his altered position already common property? was his first
thought, as he read into the malevolent words the very last meaning that
the mind of their utterer could have held.
"I am surprised at you, Miss Calmour," he said gravely, "listening to
the pestiferous humbug of the commonest type of hedge-side charlatan.
Really, I had a better opinion of you."
"And--has it fled?" answered the girl, with a pretty pleading penitence
that was not wholly mock. "I only let her tell my fortune for the fun
of the thing--and she said some very queer things--not at all after the
pattern of stock bosh which I had expected. In fact, they were rather
weird--about green seas, smooth and oily, and a battered ship--and
terrors--and perhaps death, but if not death, then great happiness.
Yes; really it was quite creepy; strange too, for what on earth can I
ever have to do with battered ships or green seas--or great happiness
either?" she added to herself mournfully. Then again, aloud: "But do
you think there may be anything in these people's powers of prediction?"
"No, I do not," he answered decisively, and with some sternness.
"Certainly not. The knowledge of the future is in other hands than
those of a common wayside impostor, whom, if I were doing my duty, I
ought to have at once had arrested and locked up on a former occasion
when she tried to play that humbugging game in my presence."
"Oh yes; she got into the wrong corner this time," laughed Delia. "You
are a magistrate, are you not, Mr Wagram?"
"I have seen this particular fraud before, and gave her a trifle, as she
seemed really in want," he answered. "In strict duty I ought to have
had her locked up, but strict duty is rather a hard thing to carry out
always. But anything that encourages superstition is to me especially
abhorrent. The greatest harm these impostors do is not merely in
obtaining hard-earned silver from ignorant people but in keeping alive
the idea that they can possess any supernatural power--let alone
wisdom--at all."
The girl looked at him with a covert smile.
"Be merciful to one of those `ignorant people,'" she said softly.
"Though, really, I did not believe in any supernatural power about the
affair; I only let her do it for the fun of the thing."
"I should hope not. With your talents and education I could not have
believed it of you. And yet--you hardly know where to draw the line.
When you find people, whose upbringing and education, and everything
else, ought to put them miles above anything of the kind, steeped over
head and ears in such puerile superstitions as throwing spilled salt
over the shoulder, scared of having a peacock's feather brought into
their houses, or of getting up first of thirteen from the table, or of
walking under a ladder--really it makes one--well, cynical."
"But--walking under a ladder is unlucky sometimes, Mr Wagram."
"_Very_ likely to be, if you don't first ascertain whether there's a
journeyman painter up it with a paint pot--not otherwise."
Then they both laughed--for Wagram the first laugh he had indulged in
since the bolt had fallen. Well, he could still laugh; yet but now it
had seemed to him that he never would laugh again.
"But--you'll admit there are people who can tell you strange--and even
startling--things about yourself that they can't possibly have got at by
any ordinary means."
"I'll admit nothing of the kind. I know the old stock business--I have
had it thrown at me too often. Some fool--usually some feminine fool--
goes to one of these impostors--not the hedge-side type of fraud but the
fashionable ditto--and pays down her guineas to be told such and such.
She is told such and such, and it amazes her. Then, in retailing it,
she invariably ends up with: `But, how do you account for it?' I always
answer I can't account for it, any more than I can account for how the
clever card conjurer takes ace and king and queen out of the top of the
head of the baldest man in the audience; but he does it, and nobody
dreams of associating the supernatural with the process. It's the same
thing here. It's part of the system to find out things; and they do it.
If you were let into the secret you'd probably laugh at the simplicity
with which it's done. No; really, I've no patience with that sort of
absurdity; it's too childish."
"Looked at in that light it is. You do put things straight, Mr Wagram."
"Well, but--isn't it so? I have even heard people attribute that sort
of quackery to satanic influence, which has almost struck me, if one may
say so, as insulting to the intelligence of the devil. But it is
getting rather dusk. You will want your lamp before you get home. Is
it in good lighting order?"
If a momentary temptation beset Delia to pretend it was not, so as to
afford a pretext for accompanying him to the house, which was not very
far distant, she heroically stifled it; so between them they lighted the
lamp.
"Good-bye, Mr Wagram. Thanks so much. I promise you I won't dabble in
the black art again," she said as they shook hands; and mounting she
skimmed away down the now shadowy road, going over in her mind every
word, every tone of the, in hard fact, utterly unmomentous interview.
And he, striking into a woodland path on the other side, continued his
walk in the deepening gloom, to the accompaniment of the ghostly hooting
of owls. It was strange that he should have fallen in with this girl
just then, and in his then frame of mind it seemed to him that her
glance and tone and demeanour were very sweet, very soothing, very
sympathetic. And then--he ceased to give her another thought.