He saw them again, however, no later than the next afternoon, and
learned who they were. He was seated with dark, lantern-jawed, deepeyed,
tragical-looking Lewis Vincent, under the colonnade at the Florian,
when they passed, in the full blaze of the sun, down the middle of the
Piazza.
“Hello,” said Vincent, in the light and cheerful voice, that contrasted
so surprisingly with the dejected droop of his moustaches, “there goes
the richest spinster in England.” He nodded towards their retreating
backs.
“Oh?” said Bertram, raising interested eyebrows.
“Yes--the thin girl in grey, with the white sunshade,” Vincent
apprised him. “Been bestowing largesse on the pigeons, let us hope.
The Rubensy-looking woman with her is Lady Dor--a sister of Harry
Pontycroft's. I think you know Pontycroft, don't you?”
Bertram showed animation. “I know him very well indeed--we've been
friends for years--I'm extremely fond of him. That's his sister? I've
never met his people. Dor, did you say her name was?”
“Wife of Sir Frederick Dor, of Dortown, an Irishman, a Roman Catholic,
and a Unionist M.P.,” answered Vincent, and it seemed uncanny in a way
to hear the muse of small-talk speaking from so tenebrous a mien. “The
thin girl is a Miss Ruth Adgate--American, I believe, but domiciled in
England. You must have seen her name in the newspapers--they've had a
lot about her, apropos of one thing or another; and the other day she
distinguished herself at the sale of the Rawleigh collection, by paying
three thousand pounds for one of the Karasai ivories--record price, I
fancy. She's said to have a bagatelle of something like fifty thousand a
year in her own right.”
“Really?” murmured Bertram.
But he could account now for his puzzled feeling last night, that he had
seen Lucilla before. With obvious unlikenesses--for where she was plump
and smooth, pink and white, Harry Pontycroft was brown and lined and
bony--there still existed between her and her brother a resemblance so
intimate, so essential, that our friend could only marvel at his failure
to think of it at once. 'Twas a resemblance one couldn't easily have
localised, but it was intimate and essential and unmistakable.
“So that is Ponty's sister. I see. I understand,” he mused aloud.
“Yes,” said Lewis Vincent, stretching his long legs under the table,
while a soul in despair seemed to gaze from his haggard face. “She looks
like a fair, fat, feminine incarnation of Ponty himself, doesn't she?
Funny thing, family likeness; hard to tell what it resides in. Not
in the features, certainly; not in the flesh at all, I expect. In
the spirit--it's metaphysical. One might know Lady Dor anywhere for
Pontycroft's sister; yet externally she's as unlike him as a pat of
butter is unlike a walnut. But it's the spirit showing through, the
kindred spirit, the sister spirit? What? You don't think so?”
“Oh, yes, I think you're quite right,” answered Bertram, a trifle
perfunctorily perhaps. “By the by, I wish you'd introduce me to her.”
“Who? I?” exclaimed Vincent, sitting up and opening his deep eyes wide,
with a burlesque of astonishment that was plainly intended to convey
a sarcasm. “Bless your soul, _I_ don't know her. I know Pontycroft, of
course, as everybody does--or as everybody did, in the old days, before
he came into his kingdom. It isn't so easy to make his acquaintance
nowadays. But Lady Dor flies with the tippest of the toppest. And I, you
see--well, I'm merely a well-born English gentleman. I ain't a duke, I
ain't a Jew, and I ain't a millionaire cheesemonger.”
He leaned his brow on the tips of his long slender fingers and gloomed
blackly at the marble table-top.
“I see,” said Bertram with a not altogether happy chuckle. “You mean
that she's a snob.”
But Vincent put in a quick disclaimer. “Oh, no; oh dear, no. I don't
know that she's a snob--any more than every one is in England. I mean
that she happens to belong to the set that counts itself the smartest,
just as I happen not to. It's mostly a matter of accident, I imagine.
You fall where you fall. She isn't to blame for having fallen among the
rich and great; and she looks like a very decent sort. But I say, if you
really want to meet her, of course it would be the easiest thing in the
world--for _you_.”
“Oh? How?” asked Bertram.
“Why,” answered Vincent, with the inflection and the gesture of a
man expounding the self-evident, “drop her a line at her hotel,--no
difficulty in finding out where she's staying; at the Britannia,
probably. Tell her you're an old friend of her brother's, and propose to
call. I hope I don't need to say whether she'll jump at the chance when
she sees your name.”
Bertram laughed.
“Yes,” he said. “I don't think I should care to do that.”
“Hum,” said Vincent. “Of course,” he added after a minute, as a sort of
_envoi_ to his tale, “rumour has it that Pontycroft and the heiress are
by way of making a match. Well, why not? It would be inhuman to let her
pass out of the family. Heigh? and the girl is really very pretty. Yes,
I expect before a great while we'll read in the _Morning Post_ that a
marriage has been arranged.”
“Hum,” said Bertram.
And then the next afternoon he saw them still again, and learned
still more about them. Mrs. Wilberton, the brisk, well-dressed,
elderly-handsome, amiably-worldly wife of the Bishop of Lanchester, was
having tea with him on his balcony, when all at once she leaned forward,
waved her hand, and bestowed her most radiant smile, her most gracious
bow, upon the occupants of a passing gondola. Afterwards, turning
to Bertram, her finely-modelled, fresh-complexioned face, under its
pompadour of grey hair, charged with mystery and significance. “Do you
know those women?” she asked.
Well, strictly speaking, he didn't know them; and his visitor's
countenance was a promise as well as a provocative to curiosity; so I
hope he was justified in answering, “Who are they?”
The mystery and significance in Mrs. Wilberton's face had deepened to
solemnity, to solemnity touched with severity. She sank back a little
in her red-and-white cane armchair and slowly, solemnly shook her head.
“Ah, it's a sad scandal,” she said, making her voice low and impressive.
But this was leagues removed from anything that Bertram had bargained
for. “A scandal?” he repeated, looking blank.
Mrs. Wilberton fixed him with solemn eyes.
“Have you ever heard,” she asked, “of a man, one of our great
landowners, the head of one of our oldest families, a very rich man, a
man named Henry Pontycroft?”
Bertram smiled, though there was anxiety in his smile, though there was
suspense. “I know Henry Pontycroft very well,” he answered.
“Do you?” said she. “Well, the elder of those two women was Henry
Pontycroft's sister, Lucilla Dor.”
Her voice died away and she gazed at her listener in silence, meaningly,
as if this announcement in itself contained material for pause and
rumination.
But Bertram was anxious, was in suspense. “Yes?” he said, his eyes,
attentive and expectant, urging her to continue.
“But it's the other,” she presently did continue, “it's the young woman
with her. Of course one has read of such things in the papers--one knows
that they are done--but when they happen under one's own eyes, in one's
own set! And she a Pontycroft! The other, the young woman with Lucilla
Dor,--oh, it's quite too disgraceful.”
Again Mrs. Wilberton shook her head, this time with a kind of horrified
violence, causing the jet spray in her bonnet to dance and twinkle, and
again she sank back in her chair.
Bertram sat forward on the edge of his, hands clasping its arms. “Yes?
Yes?” he prompted.
“She's an American,” said Mrs. Wilberton, speaking with an effect of
forced calm. “Her name is Ruth Adgate. She's an American of worse than
common extraction, but she's immensely rich. It's really difficult to
see in what she's better than an ordinary adventuress, but she has a
hundred thousand pounds a year. And she's bought the Pontycrofts--Henry
Pontycroft and his sister--she's bought them body and soul.”
Her voice indicated a full stop, and she allowed her face and attitude
to relax, as one whose painful message was delivered.
But Bertram looked perplexed. An adventuress? Of worse than common
extraction? That fresh young girl, with her prettiness, her fineness?
His impulse was to cry out, “Allons donc!” And then--the Pontycrofts?
Frowning perplexity, he repeated his visitor's words: “Bought the
Pontycrofts? I don't think I understand.”
“Oh, it's a thing that's done,” Mrs. Wilberton assured him, on a note
that was like a wail. “One knows that it is done. It's a part of the
degeneracy of our times. But the Pontycrofts! One would have thought
_them_ above it. And the Adgate woman! One would have thought that even
people who are willing to sell themselves must draw the line somewhere.
But no. Money is omnipotent. So, for money, the Pontycrofts have taken
her to their bosoms; presented her; introduced her to every one;
and they'll end, of course, by capturing a title for her. Another
'international marriage.' Another instance of American gold buying the
due of well-born English girls over their heads.”
Bertram smiled,--partly, it may be, at the passion his guest showed, but
partly from relief. He had dreaded what was coming: what had come was
agreeably inconclusive and unconvincing.
“I see,” he said. “But surely this seems in the last degree improbable.
What makes you think it?”
“Oh, it isn't that _I_ think it,” Mrs. Wilberton cried, with a movement
that lifted the matter high above the plane of mere personal opinion;
“it's known,--it's known.”
But Bertram knitted his brows again. “How can such a thing be _known?_”
he objected.
“At most, it can only be a suspicion or an inference. What makes you
suspect it? What do you infer it _from?_”
“Why, from the patent facts,” said Mrs. Wilberton, giving an upward
motion to her pretty little white-gloved hands. “They take her
everywhere. They've presented her. They've introduced her to the best
people. She's regularly _lancée_ in their set. I myself was loth, loth
to believe it. But the facts--they'll bear no other construction.”
Bertram smiled again. “Yes,” he said. “But why should you suppose that
they do all this for money?”
His question appeared to take the lady's breath away. She sat
up straight, lips parted, and gazed at him with something like
stupefaction. “For what other earthly reason should they do it?” she was
able, at last, in honest bewilderment, to gasp out.
“One has heard of such a motive-power as love,” Bertram, with deference,
submitted. “Why shouldn't they do it because they like the girl--because
she's their friend?”
Mrs. Wilberton breathed freely, and in her turn smiled. “Ah, my dear
Prince,” she said, with a touch of pity, “you don't know our English
world. People in the Pontycroft's position don't take up nameless young
Americans for love. Their lives are too full, too complicated. And it
means an immense amount of work, of bother--you can't get a new-comer
accepted without bestirring yourself, without watching, scheming,
soliciting, contriving. And what's your reward? Your friends find you a
nuisance, and no one thanks you. There's only one reward that can meet
the case--payment in pounds sterling from your client's purse.”
But Bertram's incredulity was great. “Harry Pontycroft is himself
rich,” he said.
“Yes,” Mrs. Wilberton at once assented, “he's rich _now_. But he wasn't
always rich. There were those lean years when he was merely his cousin's
heir--and that's a whole chapter of the story. Besides, is his sister
rich? Is Freddie Dor rich?”
“Ah, about that of course I know nothing,” Bertram had with humility to
admit.
“Freddie Dor is an Irish baronet, whose sole fortune consists of
an Irish bog. Then where does Lucilla Dor get her money? She
spends--there's no limit to the extravagance with which she spends, to
the luxury in which she lives. She has a great house in town, a great
house in the country--Lord Bylton's place, Knelworth Castle--she's taken
it on a lease. She has a villa near Florence. She entertains like a
duchess. She has a box at the opera. She has motor-cars and electric
broughams--you know what _they_ cost. And sables and diamonds, she has
as many as an Indian begum. Where does she get her money?”
Mrs. Wilberton eyed him with a kind of triumphant fierceness. Bertram
had an uncomfortable laugh.
“It's conceivable,” he suggested, “that her husband's bog produces peat.
But I should imagine, in the absence of other evidence, that her brother
subsidises her.”
Mrs. Wilberton stared at him for a second doubtfully. “Of course you're
not serious,” she said. “Brothers? Brothers don't do things on quite
such a lavish scale.”
“Oh, but Ponty's different,” Bertram argued. “Ponty's eccentric. I could
imagine Ponty doing things on a scale all his own. Anyhow, I don't see
what there is to connect Lady Dor's affluence with Miss Adgate.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Wilberton, with an air of being about to clench the
matter, “the connection is unfortunately glaring. Lady Dor's affluence
dates precisely from the moment of Miss Adgate's entrance upon the
scene.” And with an air of _having_ clenched the matter, she threw back
her head.
Bertram bent his brow, as one in troubled thought. Then, presently,
reviewing his impressions, “I never saw a nicer-looking girl,” he
said. “I never saw a face that expressed finer or higher qualities. She
doesn't look in the least like a girl with low ambitions,--like one
who would try to buy her way into society, or pay people to find her a
titled husband. And where, in all this, does Harry Pontycroft himself
come in? I think you said that she had bought them both, brother and
sister.”
“Ah,” cried Mrs. Wilberton, triumphing again, “you touch the very point.
Harry Pontycroft was head over ears in debt to Miss Adgate's father.”
“Oh----?” said Bertram, his eyebrows going up.
“It's wheels within wheels,” said the lady. “Miss Adgate's father was a
mysterious American who, for reasons of his own, had left his country,
and never went back. He never went to his embassy, either: you can make
what you will of that. And even in Europe he had no settled abode; he
lived in hotels; he was always flitting--London,--Paris, Rome, Vienna.
And wherever he went, though he knew no one else, he knew troops of
young men--_young_ men, mark, and young men with expectations. He wasn't
received at his embassy; he wasn't received in a single decent house;
he was an utter outcast and pariah; but he always managed to surround
himself with troops of young men who had expectations. He was nothing
more or less, in short, than a money-lender. Yes, your 'nice-looking'
girl with the face full of high qualities, whom you think incapable of
low ambitions, is just the daughter of a common money-lender--nothing
better than that. And Henry Pontycroft was one of his victims. This, of
course, was while Pontycroft was poor--while his rich cousin was alive
and flourishing. And then, when the old usurer had him completely in
his toils, he proposed a compact. If Pontycroft would exert his social
influence on behalf of his daughter, and get her accepted in the right
circles, Adgate would forgive him his debt, and pay him handsomely into
the bargain. The next one knew, Miss Adgate was living with Lucilla Dor,
like a member of the family, and Lucilla was beginning to spend money.
Not long afterwards old Adgate died, and his daughter came into his
millions. And so the ball goes on. They haven't ensnared a Duke for her
yet, but that will only be a question of time.”
Mrs. Wilberton tilted her head a little to one side, and smiled at
poor Bertram with the smile, satisfied yet benevolent, of one who had
successfully brought off a promised feat--a smile of friendly challenge
to criticise or reply.
But Bertram had his reply ready.
“A compact,” he said. “How can any human being have any knowledge
of such a compact, except the parties to it? Besides, _I_ know Harry
Pontycroft--I've known him for years, intimately. He would be utterly
incapable of such a thing. Sell his 'social influence' for money? Worse
still, sell his sister's? Old Adgate may have been a moneylender, and
Harry Pontycroft may have owed him money. But to get out of it by a
proceeding so ignoble as that--his character is the negation of the very
idea. And then, a titled husband! Surely, a girl of Miss Adgate's beauty
and wealth would need little assistance in finding one, if she really
cared about it. And anyhow, to act as her matrimonial agent--that again
is a thing of which Harry Pontycroft would be incapable. But, for my
part, I can't believe that Miss Adgate has any such desire. She looks
to me like a young woman of mind and heart, with ideas and ideals, who
would either marry for love pure and simple, or not at all.”
His visitor's lips compressed themselves--but failed to hide her
amusement. “Oh, looks!” she said. “Ideas, ideals? What do we know of the
ideas and ideals of those queer people? Shylock's daughter. You may be
sure that whatever their ideals may be, they're very different from
any we're familiar with. A young woman who never had a _home_, whose
childhood was passed in _hotels_.” Mrs. Wilberton shuddered.
“Yes,” agreed Bertram, “that's sad to think of. But Shylock's
daughter--even Shylock's daughter married for love.”
“If you come to that,” Mrs. Wilberton answered him, “it's as easy to
love a peer as a peasant.”
“By the bye,” questioned Bertram, thinking of Lewis Vincent, “if the
Pontycrofts are really as mercenary as all this would show them to be,
why doesn't Ponty marry her himself? He's not a peer, to be sure, but in
England the headships of some of your ancient untitled families almost
outrank peerages, do they not?”
Mrs. Wilberton's face resumed its look of mystery. “Henry Pontycroft
would be only too glad to marry her--if he could,” she said. “But
alack-a-day for him, he can't, and for the best of reasons. He is
already married.”
Bertram stared, frowning.
“Pontycroft _married?_” he doubted, his voice falling. “But since when?
It must be very recent--and it's astonishing I shouldn't have heard.”
“Oh no, anything but recent,” Mrs. Wilberton returned, a kind of high
impersonal pathos in her tone; “and very few people know about it. But
it's perfectly true--I have it on the best authority. When he was
quite a young man, when he was still an undergraduate, he made a secret
marriage--with some low person--a barmaid or music-hall singer or
something. He hasn't lived with her for years--it seems she drank,
and was flagrantly immoral, and had, in short, all the vices of her
class--and most people have supposed him to be a bachelor. But there his
wife remains, you see, a hopeless impediment to his marrying the Adgate
millions.”
“This is astounding news to me,” said Bertram, with the subdued manner
of one who couldn't deny that his adversary had scored. But then,
cheering up a little, “Why doesn't he poison her?” he asked. “Or, better
still, divorce her? In a country like England, where divorce is easy,
why doesn't he divorce her, and so be free to marry whom he will?”
Mrs. Wilberton gave him a glance of wonder.
“Oh, I thought you knew,” she murmured. “The Pontycrofts are Roman
Catholics--one of the handful of families in England who have never
recanted their Popish errors. But I beg your pardon--you are a Roman
Catholic yourself? Of course. Well, surely, your Church doesn't permit
divorce.”
Bertram laughed, mirthlessly, grimly even.
“Here is an odd confounding of scruples,” he said. “A man is low enough
to take a girl's money for acting as her social tout, but too pious to
divorce a woman who must be the curse of his existence.”
“Oh,” replied Mrs. Wilberton, not without a semblance of pride in the
circumstance, “our English Roman Catholics are very strict.”
“I noticed,” said Bertram, playing with his watch-chain, “that you bowed
very pleasantly when they passed.”
Mrs. Wilberton raised her hands. “I'm not a prig,” she earnestly
protested. “Don't think I'm a prig. This thing is known, but it's not
official. In England until a thing becomes official, until it gets into
the law-courts, we treat it, for all practical purposes, as if it didn't
exist. Of course, I bowed to them.... Lucilla Dor, besides being a
Pontycroft, is a leader in the most exclusive set; and Miss Adgate,
officially, is simply her friend and protégée. And it isn't as if they
were the only persons about whom ugly tales are told. If one began
cutting one's acquaintances on that score, I don't know where one could
stop.”
“Ugly tales,” said Bertram, “yes. But this particular ugly tale--upon
my word I can't see a single reason why it should be believed. The only
scrap of evidence in support of it, as far as I can make out, is the
fact that Lady Dor has a motor-car and a few furs and diamonds. Well,
she has also a rich and generous brother. No: I will stake Miss Adgate's
face and Harry Pontycroft's honour against all the ugly tales that
Gath and Ashkelon between them can produce. I don't believe it, I don't
believe it, and I can only wonder that you do.”
Mrs. Wilberton was gathering herself together, evidently with a view to
departure. Now she rose, and held out her hand.
“Well, Prince,” she said, laughing, “I must congratulate you upon your
faith in human nature. In a man who has seen so much of the world,
such an absence of cynicism is beautiful. I feel quite as if I had
been playing the part of--what do you call him?--the Devil's Advocate.
But”--she nodded gravely, though perhaps there was a tinge of amusement
in her gravity--“in this case I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid that
your charity is mistaken.”