ALDWYTH ASKS A QUESTION
Less than thirty miles from the monster city, now festering and
malodorous under the September sun, high in a breeze-swept garden,
Aldwyth Westwood, with a book upon her knees, sat gazing at the fleecy
clouds. Slowly they sailed across the sky, casting deep shadows on the
fields and woods. Anon the darkened tracts of country again were bathed
in brilliant sunshine, and, far as the eye could reach, the face of
Nature smiled.
“Sunshine and shadow--in Nature and in life,” she thought. A sigh
succeeded--a sigh that sprang like tears “from the depth of some divine
despair,” a girl’s tribute to the burden and the mystery
“Of all this unintelligible world.”
Here, if anywhere, near the summit of Leith Hill, was a refuge from the
outward stress of life, a place of peace and quiet breathing. Sir John
had benefited greatly from the pure air and calm of the retreat. The
high gardens were a glory, and the house--bought ready furnished from a
wealthy man’s executors--contained a well-stocked library, in which the
jaded refugee from Parliament and Law Courts renewed with some zest the
varied reading of his earlier years.
Westwood was fifty-four--an age when, if a man allows himself to think
at all, the length of life’s journey and its destination are thoughts
that recur to him with deepening gravity. Behind him--the years that
the locust had eaten; before him--what? Great numbers of men still feel
young and vigorous at fifty-four, and much later, but the fact remains
that it is the wrong side of the fifty. To some, but to few, celebrity,
success, promotion, may come later; but if so, it lacks the heart-flush
of early triumph; in some indefinable way the prize, so long fought for
and looked forward to, proves something less than solid gold. Rewards
tardily won savour of a short lease--an annuity bought late in life, an
eleemosynary provision.
At fifty-four the artist’s finest picture has been hung; the author’s
best book has been published; the great surgeon has performed his
greatest operation; the great advocate has scored the most brilliant
of his forensic victories; the engineer has built his biggest bridge;
the parliamentarian, sick and savage with hope deferred, then sees
the biggest prize of all eluding him, or, if it comes at last, it is
bestowed hesitatingly, not because of what he is and can accomplish,
but of what he was, and tried to do, when at the zenith of his powers.
Westwood had been wonderfully successful, as success is reckoned by
the man in the street; but success is only relative. You have got
something, but it sharpens the appetite for the “little more,” and so
the chase continues.
The prospect of a judgeship offered him few attractions; _that_ meant
finality on five thousand a year. His aims were higher, but politically
and professionally his position was complex. The parliamentary
situation, and the state of parties and sub-parties, made further
progress, even if his health permitted it, quite impossible for the
time being. He was alive to that, and conscious oftentimes that
probably he had already secured the best that life was likely to offer
him.
What were his spoils? Abundance of this world’s goods, the envy of
hosts of less successful men, and the affection----? He paused at that;
affection of whom? It was not a pleasant thought that there were only
two beings in the whole world genuinely attached to him; an old and
faithful servant, a woman whose fidelity withstood the outbursts of
his petulance, and his daughter. Aldwyth was fond of him--yes, he was
sure of that. But there was a lurking feeling that she would have been
fonder still if he had only given her a chance. His cold reserve had
kept her at a needless distance. He had denied her nothing that she
asked for, but he had volunteered little for which she had not asked.
He had shown no real concern in her interests or pursuits. Yet he had
reason to know hers was a warm, impulsive nature like her mother’s,
quick to believe and love, swift to be rebuffed and chilled. The
possibilities of closer intimacy were now remote. Young Herrick, as
was natural, would have the first place in her thoughts. Presently she
would marry, and he, the envied and successful man, would be--alone.
Of that strange interview with Marcus White, Aldwyth had told her
father nothing. The condition of his health forbade it at the time; but
now that the mysterious nervous attack which had caused her so much
alarm seemed to have been wholly shaken off; now that his step was firm
and his colour healthier, her mind was exercised as to her duty.
Westwood, at his table, looked up as his daughter, with reflective
face, walked past the open window of the library.
“Deep in thought?” he said, inquiringly.
She stopped, and returned a pace or two.
“I was wondering where we should go when we leave here,” she answered.
“Back to town,” her father replied, with raised eyebrows; “but of
course it won’t be until the third week of October.”
“The House won’t be sitting then, will it?”
“No, but the judges will.”
“Father,” she said impulsively, “need you go back to the Bar?”
“I need not, but I shall,” he answered rather coldly. “Why do you ask?”
“Is it--is it wise?” she stammered.
“Wise!” he exclaimed, amazed.
“Why need you do it?”
“In the first place, I shall have to prosecute those scoundrelly
incendiaries, who have already gone for trial.”
“But, surely, that will be dangerous?”
“For whom?”
“For you, father; you know that you were threatened.”
“Threatened men live long,” he answered, with a lightness that perhaps
was a little strained. “You surely would not have me neglect an obvious
duty because some unknown blackguard sends me an empty threat?”
“The threat may not be empty. At Folkestone you told us others had been
threatened, that there was a real conspiracy, and if so----”
“If so, one must do one’s duty all the same. My health was broken down
at Folkestone. I was not myself. Why, my dear girl, if I kept out of
this case they would end by calling me a coward. I should be virtually
driven into private life.” There was a pause.
“Perhaps there is something I ought to tell you,” she said slowly.
“Well, what is it?”
“When we were at Folkestone, and you were ill, some one came to see
you.”
“Go on, go on”--impatiently.
“His name was Marcus White.”
Westwood made no comment, but his face grew paler.
“What he said was a sort of warning. I was to tell you when I
pleased--that you had better give up everything--Parliament, the
Bar,--father, what does it mean?” She advanced swiftly to the broad
table on the other side of which he sat, his eyes bent upon the
blotting pad and balancing a paper knife between his fingers. “Won’t
you tell me what it means?” she repeated, entreatingly.
“It only means that this man is an old enemy of mine, and, it seems,
one who does not forgive or forget.”
“But is there any reason--any ground? If you never wronged him in any
way--father, say you never did!”
“No, I never did”--the words were somewhat laboured. “But I married
your mother, Aldwyth. That was the cause of quarrel.”
“Ah!” she exclaimed; “he spoke of her. Were they to have been married,
if you----”
“Something of the kind,” he answered, rising, then turning to the
window. “It was many years ago; we need not talk of it.”
“But he has not forgotten.”
“No, it seems he has not forgotten.”
“What shall you do?”
“I think there is nothing to be done.” He sat again, and drummed on the
table with his fingers.
“Do you believe this man would really harm you if he could?”
“You saw him. You can judge as well as I,” he said, evasively.
“He must be mad.”
“Mad with the long-nourished passion of hate, mad with the
long-cherished desire for revenge--mad in that sense, yes.”
“Then God help you, father,” said Aldwyth solemnly.
“Yes, God help me,” and he buried his face in his hands.