"I have heard it said that he is worth from two to three millions,"
Philip Smerdon said to his friend the next morning, when Penlyn had,
for the sixth or seventh time, repeated the whole of the conversation
between him and Cundall. "A man of that wealth would scarcely try to
steal another man's title. Yet he must either be mistaken or mad."
"He may be mistaken--I must hope he is--but he is certainly not mad.
His calmness last night was something extraordinary, and I am
convinced that, provided this story is true, he has told it against
his will."
"You mean that he only told it to prevent Miss Raughton from being
illegally married, or rather, for the marriage would be perfectly
legal since no deception was meant, to prevent her from assuming a
title to which she had no claim?"
"Yes."
"You do not think that he hopes by divulging this secret--always
assuming it to be true--to cause your marriage to be broken off, so
that he might have a chance of obtaining Miss Raughton himself? If his
story is true, he can still make her Lady Penlyn."
His friend hesitated. "I do not know," he said. "He bears the
character of being one of the most honourable men in London. Supposing
his story true, I imagine he was right to tell it."
The young man expressed his opinion and spoke as he thought, but he
also spoke in a voice broken with sorrow. If what Cundall had told him
was the actual case, not only was he not Lord Penlyn, but he was a
beggar. And then Ida Raughton could never be his wife. Even though she
might be willing to take him, stripped as he would be of his title and
his possessions, it was certain that Sir Paul would not allow her to
do so. He began to feel a bitter hatred rising up in his heart against
this man, who had only let him enjoy his false position till he
happened to cross his path, and had then swooped down upon him, and,
in one moment, torn from him everything he possessed in the world. His
heart had been full of pity for that unknown and unnamed brother, whom
he had imagined to be in existence somewhere in the world; for this
man, who was now to come forward armed with all lawful rights to
deprive him of what he had so long been allowed blindly to enjoy, he
experienced nothing but the blackest hate. For he never doubted for
one moment but that the story was true!
At twelve o'clock he and Smerdon were ready to receive the new
claimant to all he had imagined his, and at twelve o'clock he arrived.
He bowed to Smerdon and held out, with almost a beseeching glance, his
hand to Gervase Occleve, but the latter refused to take it.
"Whether your story is true or not," he said, "I have nothing but
contempt to give you. If it is false, you are an impostor who shall
be punished, socially if not legally; if it is true, you are a
bad-hearted man to have left me so long in my ignorance."
"I should have left you so for ever," Cundall answered in a voice that
sounded sadly broken, "had it not been for Miss Raughton's sake; I
could not see her deceived."
"Had he not come between you and her," Philip. Smerdon asked, "but had
wished to marry some other lady, would your scruples still have been
the same?"
"No! for she would not have been everything in the world to me, as
this one is. And I should never have undeceived him as to the position
he stood in. He might have had the title and what it brings with it, I
could have given Ida something as good."
"Your ethics are extraordinary!" Philip said, with a sneer.
"You, sir, at least, are not my judge."
"Suppose, sir," Gervase Occleve said, "that you give us the full
particulars of your remarkable statement of last night."
"It is hard to do so," Cundall answered. "But it must be done!"
He was seated in a deep chair facing them, they being on a roomy
lounge, side by side, and, consequently able to fix their eyes fully
upon him. The task he had to go through might have unnerved any man,
but he had set himself to do it.
"Before I make any statement," he said, "look at these," and he
produced two letters worn with time and with the ink faded. The other
took them, and noted that they were addressed to, 'My own dear wife,'
and signed, 'Your loving husband, Gervase Occleve.' And one of them
was headed 'Le Vocq, Auberge Belle-Vue.'
"Are they in your father's handwriting?" he asked, and Gervase
answered "Yes."
"It was in 1852," Cundall said, "that he met my mother. She was
staying in Paris with a distant relative of hers, and they were in the
habit of constantly meeting. I bear his memory in no respect--he was a
cold-hearted, selfish man--and I may say that, although he loved her,
he never originally intended to marry her. She told me this herself,
in a letter she left behind to be opened by me alone, when I came of
age. He won her love, and, as I say, he never intended to marry her.
Only, when at last he proposed to her that she should go away with him
and be his wife in everything but actual fact, she shrank from him
with such horror that he knew he had made a mistake. Then he assumed
another method, and told her that he would never have proposed such a
thing, but that his uncle, whose heir he was, wished him to make a
brilliant match. However, he said he was willing to forego this, and,
in the eyes of the world at least, to remain single. For her sake he
was willing to forego it, if she also was willing to make some
sacrifice. She asked what sacrifice he meant, and, he said the
sacrifice of a private marriage, of living entirely out of the world,
of never being presented to any of his friends. Poor creature! She
loved him well at that time--is it necessary for me to say what her
answer was?"
He paused a moment, and he saw that the eyes of Gervase were fixed
upon him, but he saw no sympathy for his dead mother in them. Perhaps
he did not expect to see any!
"How she explained matters to the relation she lived with, I do not
know," he went on; "but they were married in that year in London."
"At what church?" Gervase asked.
"At 'St. Jude's, Marylebone.' Here is the certificate." Gervase took
it, glanced at it, and returned it to him.
"Go on," he said, and his voice too had changed.
"They lived a wandering kind of life, but, in those days, a not
altogether unhappy one. But at last he wearied of it--wearied of
living in continental towns to which no one of their own country ever
came, or in gay ones where they passed under an assumed name, that
which had been her maiden name--Cundall. At my birth he became more
genial for a year or so, and then again he relapsed into his moody and
morose state--a state that had become almost natural to him. He began
to see that the secret could not be kept for ever, now that he had a
son; that some day, if I lived, I must become Lord Penlyn. And he did
not disguise his forebodings from her, nor attempt to throw off his
gloom. She bore with him patiently for a long while--bore his
repinings and taunts; but at last she told him that, after all, there
was no such great necessity for secrecy, that she was a lady by birth,
a wife of whom he need not be ashamed. Then--then he cursed her; and
on the next occasion of their dispute he told her that they had better
live apart.
"She took him at his word, and when he woke the next morning she was
gone, taking me with her. He never saw her nor me again, and when he
heard that she was dead he believed that I was dead also."
"Then he was the deceived and not the deceiver!" Gervase exclaimed.
"He thought that I was really his son and heir."
"Yes, he thought so. My mother's only other relative in the world was
her brother, a merchant in Honduras, who was fast amassing a
stupendous fortune--the one I now possess. She wrote to him telling
him that she had married, that her husband had treated her badly, and
that she had left him and resumed her maiden name. _His_ name she
never would reveal. My uncle wrote to say that in such circumstances,
and being an unmarried man, he would adopt me as his own child, and
that I should eventually be his heir. Then he sent money over for my
schooling and bringing up."
He paused again, and again he went on; and it seemed as if he was
mustering himself for a final effort.
"When I was little over four years old she died. On her death-bed her
heart relented, and she thought that she would do for him what
appeared to be the greatest service in her power. She wrote to tell
him she was dying, and that he would, in a few days, receive
confirmation of her death from a sure hand. _And she told him that I
had died two months before_. Poor thing! she meant well, but she was a
simple, unworldly woman, and she had no idea of what she was doing.
Perhaps it never occurred to her that he would marry again; perhaps
she even thought that her leaving him would free him and his from all
obligations to me. At any rate, she died in ignorance of the harm she
had done, and I am glad she never realised her error."
He paused; and Gervase said:
"Is that all?"
"With the exception of this. When I was twenty-one this letter of my
mother's, which no other eyes but mine have ever seen before, was put
into my hand. I was then in Honduras, and it had been left in my
uncle's care. At first the news staggered me, and I could not believe
it. I had always thought my uncle was on my father's side, and not on
my mother's, and I now questioned him on the subject. I found that he,
himself, was only partly in her secret, and that he knew nothing of my
father's real position. Then, as to the names of Occleve and Penlyn, I
was ignorant of them; although I had at that age seen something of
European society. I came to England shortly afterwards, and there was
in my mind some idea of putting in a claim to my birthright. But, on
my arrival, I found that another--you--had taken possession of it. You
were pointed out to me one night at a ball; and, as I saw you young
and happy, and heard you well-spoken of, I put away from me, for ever,
all thoughts of ever taking away from you what you--through no fault
of your own--had wrongfully become possessed of."
"Yet now you will do so, because I have gained Ida's love."
"No, no, no!" he answered. Then he said, with a sadness that should
have gone to their hearts: "I have been Esau to your Jacob all my
life. It is natural you should supplant me now in a woman's love."
"What then do you mean to do, _Lord Penlyn?_" Gervase asked bitterly.
The other started, and said:
"Never call me by that name again. I have given it to you."
"Perhaps," Smerdon said, with a bitter sneer, "because you are not
quite sure yet of your own right to it. You would have to prove that
there was a male child of this marriage, and then that you were he.
That would not be so easy, I imagine."
"There is nothing would be more easy. I have every proof of my birth
and my identity."
"And you intend to use them to break off my marriage with Ida
Raughton," Gervase Occleve said.
"For God's sake do not misunderstand me!" Cundall answered. "I simply
want you to tell her and her father all this, and be married as
Gervase Occleve. I cannot be her husband--I have told you I shall
never see her face again--all I wish is that she shall be under no
delusion. As for the title, that would have no charms for me, and you
cannot suppose that I, who have been given so much, should want to
take your property away from you."
"You would have me live a beggar on your charity!--and that a charity
which you may see fit to withdraw at any moment, as you have seen fit
to suddenly disclose yourself at the most important crisis of my
life." He spoke bitterly, almost brutally to the other, but he could
rouse him to no anger. The elder brother simply said:
"God forgive you for your thoughts of me!"
"And now," Gervase said, "perhaps you will tell me what you wish done.
I shall of course inform Sir Paul Raughton that, in my altered
circumstances, my marriage with his daughter must be abandoned."
"No, no!"
"Yes! I say. It will not take twenty-four hours to prove whether you
are right in your claim, for if I see the certificate of your birth it
will be enough----"
"It is here," Cundall said, producing it. "You can keep it, or take a
copy of it."
"Very well. That, and the marriage proved, I will formally resign
everything to you, even the hand of Miss Raughton. That is what you
mean to obtain by this declaration, in spite of your philanthropical
utterances."
"It is false!" Cundall said, roused at last to defend himself, "and
you know it. She loves you. You do not imagine I should want to marry
her since I have learnt that."
"I do imagine it, for had you been possessed of the sentiments you
express, you would have held your tongue. Had you kept silence, no
harm could have been done!"
"The worst possible harm would have been done."
"No one on earth but you knew this story until yesterday, and it was
in your power to have let it remain in oblivion. But, though you have
chosen to bring it forward, there is one consolation still left to me.
In spite of your stepping into my shoes, in spite of your wealth--got
Heaven knows how!--you will never have Ida Raughton's love. No trick
can ever deprive me of that, though she may never be my wife."
"Your utterances of this morning at least prove you to be unworthy of
it," Cundall answered, stung at last to anger. "You have insulted me
grossly, not only in your sneers about my wealth and the manner it has
been obtained, but also by your behaviour. And I have lost all
compassion for you! I had intended to let you tell this story in your
own way to Sir Paul Raughton and his daughter, but I have now changed
my mind. When they return to town, after Ascot next week, I shall call
upon Sir Paul and tell him everything. Even though you, yourself,
shall have spoken first."
"So be it! I want nothing from you, not even your compassion. To-night
I shall leave this house, so that I shall not even be indebted to you
for a roof."
"I am sorry you have taken it in this light," Cundall said, again
calming himself as he went to the door. "I would have given you the
love of a brother had you willed it."
"If you give me the feeling that I have for you, it is one of utter
hatred and contempt! Even though you be my brother, I will never
recognise you in this world, either by word or action, as anything but
my bitterest foe!"
Cundall looked fixedly at him for one moment, then he opened the door
and went out.
Philip Smerdon had watched his friend carefully through the interview,
and, although there was cause for his excitement, he was surprised at
the transformation that had taken place in him. He had always been
gentle and kind to every one with whom he was brought into contact;
now he seemed to have become a fury. Even the loss of name, and lands,
and love seemed hardly sufficient to have brought about this violence
of rage.
"It would almost have been better to have remained on friendly terms
with him, I think," he said. "Perhaps he thought he was only doing his
duty in disclosing himself."
"Perhaps so!" the other said. "But, as for being friendly with him,
damn him! I wish he were dead!"