rather mornings and evenings) in an aggressive silence, her lips
provocatively pursed; but now the time had come for her to speak out,
and that she did. If Miss Blanche had no respect for herself, there were
those who had some for her, just as there were others who seemed to have
forgotten the meaning of the word. The euphemistic plural disappeared at
the first syllable from Blanche. It was nothing to Martha that she had
been offered a place in the car (beside that forward young man) more
days than one; well did Mr. Cazalet know her feelings about motors
before he made her the offer. But she was not saying anything about what
was past. _This_ was the limit; an expression which only sullied
Martha's lips because Blanche had just applied it to her interference.
It was not behaving as a gentleman; it was enough to work unpleasant
miracles in her poor parents' graves; and though Martha herself would
die sooner than inform Mr. Charlie or the married sisters, other people
were beginning to talk, and when this came out she knew who would get
the blame.
So Blanche seemed rather flushed and very spirited at the short and
early dinner at Dieudonne's; but it was a fact that the motoring had
affected her skin, besides making her eyes look as though she had been
doing what she simply never did. It had also toned up the lower part of
Cazalet's face to match the rest; otherwise he was more like a
meerschaum pipe than ever, with the white frieze across his forehead
(but now nothing else) to stamp him from the wilds. And soon nobody was
laughing louder at Mr. Payne and Mr. Grossmith; nobody looked better
qualified for his gaiety stall, nobody less like a predestined figure
in impending melodrama.
So also at the Carlton later; more champagne, of course, and the jokes
of the evening to replenish a dwindling store, and the people at the
other tables to give a fresh fillip to the game of gossip. Blanche
looked as well as any of them in a fresher way than most, and Cazalet a
noble creature in all his brand-new glory; and she winced with pride at
the huge tip she saw him give the waiter; for an old friend may be proud
of an old friend, surely! Then they got a good place for watching more
people in the lounge; and the fiddling conductor proved the best worth
watching of the lot, and was pronounced the very best performer that
Cazalet had ever heard in all his life. Many other items were praised in
the same fervent formula, which Blanche confirmed about everything
except his brandy and cigar.
Above all was it delightful to feel that their beloved car was waiting
for them outside, to whirl them out of all this racket just as late as
they liked; for quite early in the week (and this was a glaring
aggravation in Martha's eyes) Cazalet had taken lodgings for himself and
driver in those very Nell Gwynne Cottages where Hilton Toye had stayed
before him.
All the evening nothing had been better of its kind than this music at
the very end; and, of course, it was the kind for Blanche and Cazalet,
who for his part liked anything with a tune, but could never remember
one to save his life. Yet when they played an aged waltz, actually in
its second decade, just upon half past twelve, even Cazalet cocked his
head and frowned, as though he had heard the thing before.
"I seem to know that," he said. "I believe I've danced to it."
"I have," said Blanche. "Often," she added suddenly; and then, "I
suppose you sometimes dance in the bush, Walter?"
"Sometimes."
"That's where it was, then."
"I don't think so. You couldn't get that tremendous long note on a
piano. There it goes again--bars and bars of it! That's what I seem to
remember."
Blanche's face never changed. "Now, that's the end. They're beginning to
put the lights out, Walter. Don't you think we'd better go?"
XII
THE THOUSANDTH MAN
It had been new life to them, but now it was all over. It was the last
evening of their week, and they were spending it rather silently on
Blanche's balcony.
"I make it at least three hundred," said Cazalet, and knocked out a pipe
that might have been a gag. "You see, we were very seldom under fifty!"
"Speak for yourself, please! My longevity's a tender point," said
Blanche, who looked as though she had no business to have her hair up,
as she sat in a pale cross-fire between a lamp-post and her lighted
room.
Cazalet protested that he had only meant their mileage in the car; he
made himself extremely intelligible now, as he often would when she
rallied him in a serious voice. Evidently that was not the way to rouse
him up to-night, and she wanted to cheer him after all that he had done
for her. Better perhaps not to burke the matter that she knew was on his
mind.
"Well, it's been a heavenly time," she assured him just once more. "And
to-morrow it's pretty sure to come all right about Scruton, isn't it?"
"Yes! To-morrow we shall probably have Toye back," he answered with grim
inconsequence.
"What has that to do with it, Walter?"
"Oh, nothing, of course."
But still his tone was grim and heavy, with a schoolboy irony that he
would not explain but could not keep to himself. So Mr. Toye must be
turned out of the conversation, though it was not Blanche who had
dragged him in. She wished people would stick to their point. She meant
to make people, just for once and for their own good; but it took time
to find so many fresh openings, and he only cutting up another pipeful
of that really rather objectionable bush tobacco.
"There's one thing I've rather wanted to ask you," she began.
"Yes?" said Cazalet.
"You said the other day that it would mean worry for you in any
case--after to-morrow--whether the charge is dismissed or not!"
His wicker chair creaked under him.
"I don't see why it should," she persisted, "if the case falls through."
"Well, that's where I come in," he had to say.
"Surely you mean just the other way about? If they commit the man for
trial, then you do come in, I know. It's like your goodness."
"I wish you wouldn't say that! It hurts me!"
"Then will you explain yourself? It's not fair to tell me so much, and
then to leave out just the bit that's making you miserable!"
The trusty, sisterly, sensible voice, half bantering but altogether
kind, genuinely interested if the least bit inquisitive, too, would have
gone to a harder or more hardened heart than beat on Blanche's balcony
that night. Yet as Cazalet lighted his pipe he looked old enough to be
her father.
"I'll tell you some time," he puffed.
"It's only a case of two heads," said Blanche. "I know you're bothered,
and I should like to help, that's all."
"You couldn't."
"How do you know? I believe you're going to devote yourself to this
poor man--if you can get him off--I mean, when you do."
"Well?" he said.
"Surely I could help you there! Especially if he's ill," cried Blanche,
encouraged by his silence. "I'm not half a bad nurse, really!"
"I'm certain you're not."
"Does he _look_ very ill?"
She had been trying to avoid the direct question as far as possible, but
this one seemed so harmless. Yet it was received in a stony silence
unlike any that had gone before. It was as though Cazalet neither moved
nor breathed, whereas he had been all sighs and fidgets just before. His
pipe was out already--that was the one merit of bush tobacco, it
required constant attention--and he did not look like lighting it again.
Until to-night they had not mentioned Scruton since the motoring began.
That had been a tacit rule of the road, of wayside talk and indoor orgy.
But Blanche had always assumed that Cazalet had been to see him in the
prison; and now he told her that he never had.
"I can't face him," he cried under his breath, "and that's the truth!
Let me get him out of this hole, and I'm his man forever; but until I
do, while there's a chance of failing, I simply can't face the fellow.
It isn't as if he'd asked to see me. Why should I force myself upon
him?"
"He hasn't asked to see you because he doesn't know what you're doing
for him!" Blanche leaned forward as eagerly as she was speaking, all her
repressed feelings coming to their own in her for just a moment. "He
doesn't know because I do believe you wouldn't have him told that you'd
arrived, lest he should suspect! You _are_ a brick, Sweep, you really
are!"
He was too much of one to sit still under the name. He sprang up,
beating his hands. "Why shouldn't I be--to him--to a poor devil who's
been through all he's been through? Ten years! Just think of it; no,
it's unthinkable to you or me. And it all started in our office; we were
to blame for not keeping our eyes open; things couldn't have come to
such a pass if we'd done our part, my poor old father for one--I can't
help saying it--and I myself for another. Talk about contributory
negligence! We were negligent, as well as blind. We didn't know a
villain when we saw one, and we let him make another villain under our
noses; and the second one was the only one we could see in his true
colors, even then. Do you think we owe him nothing now? Don't you think
_I_ owe him something, as the only man left to pay?"
But Blanche made no attempt to answer his passionate questions. He had
let himself go at last; it relieved her also in a way, for it was the
natural man back again on her balcony. But he had set Blanche off
thinking on other lines than he intended.
"I'm thinking of what _he_ must have felt he owed Mr. Craven and--and
Ethel!" she owned.
"I don't bother my head over either of them," returned Cazalet harshly.
"He was never a white man in his lifetime, and she was every inch his
daughter. Scruton's the one I pity--because--because I've suffered so
much from that man myself."
"But you don't think he did it!" Blanche was sharp enough to interrupt.
"No--no--but if he had!"
"You'd still stand by him?"
"I've told you so before. I meant to take him back to Australia with
me--I never told you that--but I meant to take him, and not a soul out
there to know who he was." He sighed aloud over the tragic stopper on
that plan.
"And would you still?" she asked.
"If I could get him off."
"Guilty or not guilty?"
"Rather!"
There was neither shame, pose, nor hesitation about that. Blanche went
through into the room without a word, but her eyes shone finely in the
lamplight. Then she returned with a book, and stood half in the balcony,
framed as in a panel, looking for a place.
"You remind me of _The Thousandth Man_," she told him as she found it.
"Who was he?"
"He's every man who does a thousandth part of what you're doing!" said
Blanche with confidence. And then she read, rather shyly and not too
well:
"'One man in a thousand, Solomon says,
Will stick more close than a brother.
And it's worth while seeking him half your days
If you find him before the other.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine depend
On what the world sees in you,
But the Thousandth Man will stand your friend
With the whole round world agin you.'"
"I should hope he would," said Cazalet, "if he's a man at all."
"But this is the bit for you," said Blanche:
"'His wrong's your wrong, and his right's your right,
In season or out of season.
Stand up and back it in all men's sight--
With _that_ for your only reason!
Nine hundred and ninety-nine can't bide
The shame or mocking or laughter,
But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side
_To the gallows-foot_--and after!'"
The last italics were in Blanche's voice, and it trembled, but so did
Cazalet's as he cried out in his formula:
"That's the finest thing I ever heard in all my life! But it's true, and
so it should be. _I_ don't take any credit for it."
"Then you're all the more the thousandth man!"
He caught her suddenly by the shoulders. His rough hands trembled; his
jaw worked. "Look here, Blanchie! If _you_ had a friend, wouldn't you do
the same?"
"Yes, if I'd such a friend as all that," she faltered.
"You'd stand by his side 'to the gallows-foot'--if he was swine enough
to let you?"
"I dare say I might."
"However bad a thing it was--murder, if you like--and however much he
was mixed up in it--not like poor Scruton?"
"I'd try to stick to him," she said simply.
"Then you're the thousandth woman," said Cazalet. "God bless you,
Blanchie!"
[Illustration: "God bless you, Blanchie!"]
He turned on his heel in the balcony, and a minute later found the room
behind him empty. He entered, stood thinking, and suddenly began looking
all over for the photograph of himself, with a beard, which he had seen
there a week before.
XIII
QUID PRO QUO
It was his blessing that had done it; up to then she had controlled her
feelings in a fashion worthy of the title just bestowed upon her. If
only he had stopped at that, and kept his blessing to himself! It
sounded so very much more like a knell that Blanche had begun first to
laugh, and then to make such a fool of herself (as she herself
reiterated) that she was obliged to run away in the worst possible
order.
But that was not the end of those four superfluous words of final
benediction; before the night was out they had solved, to Blanche's
satisfaction, the hitherto impenetrable mystery of Cazalet's conduct.
He had done something in Australia, something that fixed a gulf between
him and her. Blanche did not mean something wrong, much less a crime,
least of all any sort of complicity in the great crime which had been
committed while he was on his way home. Obviously he could have had no
connection with that, until days afterward as the accused man's friend.
Yet he had on his conscience some act or other of which he was ashamed
to speak. It might even itself be shameful; that was what his whole
manner had suggested, but what Blanche was least ready and at the same
time least unwilling to believe. She felt she could forgive such an old
friend almost anything. But she believed the worst he had done was to
emulate his friend Mr. Potts, and to get engaged or perhaps actually
married to somebody in the bush.
There was no reason why he should not; there never had been any sort or
kind of understanding between herself and him; it was only as lifelong
friends that they had written to each other, and that only once a year.
Lifelong friendships are traditionally fatal to romance. Blanche could
remember only one occasion on which their friendship had risen to
something more--or fallen to something less! She knew which it had been
to her; especially just afterward, when all his troubles had come and he
had gone away without another word of that kind. He had resolved not to
let her tie herself, and so had tied her all the tighter, if not tighter
still by never stating his resolve. But to go as far as this is to go
two or three steps further than Blanche went in her perfectly rational
retrospect: she simply saw, as indeed she had always seen, that they
had both been free as air; and if he was free no longer, she had
absolutely no cause for complaint, even if she was fool enough to feel
it.
All this she saw quite clearly in her very honest heart. And yet, he
might have told her; he need not have flown to see her, the instant he
landed, or seemed so overjoyed, and such a boy again, or made so much of
her and their common memories! He need not have begun begging her, in a
minute, to go out to Australia, and then never have mentioned it again;
he might just as well have told her if he had or hoped to have a wife to
welcome her! Of course he saw it afterward, himself; that was why the
whole subject of Australia had been dropped so suddenly and for good.
Most likely he had married beneath him; if so, she was very sorry, but
he might have said that he was married. Had Blanche been analyzing
herself, and not just the general position of things, she would have had
hereabouts to account to her conscience for a not unpleasing spasm at
the sudden thought of his being unhappily married all the time.
One proof was that he had utterly forgotten all about the waltz of
_Eldorado_--even its name! No; it had some vague associations for him,
and that was worse than none at all. Blanche had its long note (not
"bars and bars," though, Sweep) wailing in her head all night. And so
for him their friendship had only fallen to something lower, to that
hateful haunting tune that he could not even decently forget!
Curiously enough, it was over Martha that she felt least able to forgive
him. Martha would say nothing, but her unspoken denunciations of Cazalet
would be only less intolerable than her unspoken sympathy with Blanche.
Martha had been perfectly awful about the whole thing. And Martha had
committed the final outrage of being perfectly right, from her idiotic
point of view.
Now among all these meditations of a long night, and of a still longer
day, in which nobody even troubled to send her word of the case at
Kingston, it would be too much to say that no thought of Hilton Toye
ever entered the mind of Blanche. She could not help liking him; he
amused her immensely; and he had proposed to her twice, and warned her
he would again. She felt the force of his warning, because she felt his
force of character and will. She literally felt these forces, as actual
emanations from the strongest personality that had ever impinged upon
her own. Not only was he strong, but capable and cultivated; and he
knew the whole world as most people only knew some hole or corner of it;
and could be most interesting without ever talking about himself or
other people.
In the day of reaction, such considerations were bound to steal in as
single spies, each with a certain consolation, not altogether innocent
of comparisons. But the battalion of Toye's virtues only marched on
Blanche when Martha came to her, on the little green rug of a lawn
behind the house, to say that Mr. Toye himself had called and was in the
drawing-room.
Blanche stole up past the door, and quickly made herself smarter than
she had ever done by day for Walter Cazalet; at least she put on a
"dressy" blouse, her calling skirt (which always looked new), and did
what she could to her hair. All this was only because Mr. Toye always
came down as if it were Mayfair, and it was rotten to make people feel
awkward if you could help it. So in sailed Blanche, in her very best for
the light of day, to be followed as soon as possible by the silver
teapot, though she had just had tea herself. And there stood Hilton
Toye, chin blue and collar black, his trousers all knees and no creases,
exactly as he had jumped out of the boat-train.
"I guess I'm not fit to speak to you," he said, "but that's just what
I've come to do--for the third time!"
"Oh, Mr. Toye!" cried Blanche, really frightened by the face that made
his meaning clear. It relaxed a little as she shrank involuntarily, but
the compassion in his eyes and mouth did not lessen their steady
determination.
"I didn't have time to make myself presentable," he explained. "I
thought you wouldn't have me waste a moment if you understood the
situation. I want your promise to marry me right now!"
Blanche began to breathe again. Evidently he was on the eve of yet
another of his journeys, probably back to America, and he wanted to go
over engaged; at first she had thought he had bad news to break to her,
but this was no worse than she had heard before. Only it was more
difficult to cope with him; everything was different, and he so much
more pressing and precipitate. She had never met this Hilton Toye
before. Yes; she was distinctly frightened by him. But in a minute she
had ceased to be frightened of herself; she knew her own mind once more,
and spoke it much as he had spoken his, quite compassionately, but just
as tersely to the point.
"One moment," he interrupted. "I said nothing about my feelings,
because they're a kind of stale proposition by this time; but for form's
sake I may state there's no change there, except in the only direction I
guess a person's feelings are liable to change toward you, Miss Blanche!
I'm a worse case than ever, if that makes any difference."
Blanche shook her yellow head. "Nothing can," she said. "There must be
no possible mistake about it this time, because I want you to be very
good and never ask me again. And I'm glad you didn't make all the proper
speeches, because I needn't either, Mr. Toye! But--I know my own mind
better than I ever did until this very minute--and I could simply never
marry you!"
Toye accepted his fate with a ready resignation, little short of
alacrity. There was a gleam in his somber eyes, and his blue chin came
up with a jerk. "That's talking!" said he. "Now will you promise me
never to marry Cazalet?"
"Mr. Toye!"
"That's talking, too, and I guess I mean it to be. It's not all
dog-in-the-manger, either. I want that promise a lot more than I want
the other. You needn't marry me, Miss Blanche, but you mustn't marry
Cazalet."
Blanche was blazing. "But this is simply outrageous--"
"I claim there's an outrageous cause for it. Are you prepared to swear
what I ask, and trust me as I'll trust you, or am I to tell you the
whole thing right now?"
"You won't force me to listen to another word from you, if you're a
gentleman, Mr. Toye!"
"It's not what I am that counts. Swear that to me, and I swear, on my
side, that I won't give him away to you or any one else. But it must be
the most solemn contract man and woman ever made."
The silver teapot arrived at this juncture, and not inopportunely. She
had to give him his tea, with her young maid's help, and to play a tiny
part in which he supported her really beautifully. She had time to
think, almost coolly; and one thought brought a thrill. If it was a
question of her marrying or not marrying Walter Cazalet, then he must be
free, and only the doer of some dreadful deed!
"What _has_ he done?" she begged, with a pathetic abandonment of her
previous attitude, the moment they were by themselves.
"Must I tell you?" His reluctance rang genuine.
"I insist upon it!" she flashed again.
"Well, it's a long story."
"Never mind. I can listen."
"You know, I had to go back to Italy--"
"Had you?"
"Well, I did go." He had slurred the first statement; this one was
characteristically deliberate. "I did go, and before I went I asked
Cazalet for an introduction to some friends of his down in Rome."
"I didn't know he had any," said Blanche. She was not listening so very
well; she was, in fact, instinctively prepared to challenge every
statement, on Cazalet's behalf; and here her instinct defeated itself.
"No more he has," said Toye, "but he claimed to have some. He left the
_Kaiser Fritz_ the other day at Naples--just when I came aboard. I guess
he told you?"
"No. I understood he came round to Southampton. Surely you shared a
cabin?"
"Only from Genoa; that's where Cazalet rejoined the steamer."
"Well?"
"He claimed to have spent the interval mostly with friends in Rome.
Those friends don't exist, Miss Blanche," said Toye.
"Is that any business of mine?" she asked him squarely.
"Why, yes, I'm afraid it's going to be. That is, unless you'll still
trust me--"
"Go on, please."
"Why, he never stayed in Rome at all, nor yet in Italy any longer than
it takes to come through on the train. Your attention for one moment!"
He took out a neat pocketbook. Blanche had opened her lips, but she did
not interrupt; she just grasped the arms of her chair, as though about
to bear physical pain. "The _Kaiser Fritz_"--Toye was speaking from his
book--"got to Naples late Monday afternoon, September eighth. She was
overdue, and I was mad about it, and madder still when I went aboard and
she never sailed till morning. I guess I'd wasted--"
"Do tell me about Walter Cazalet!" cried Blanche. It was like small talk
from a dentist at the last moment.
"I want you to understand about the steamer first," said Toye. "She
waited Monday night in the Bay of Naples, only sailed Tuesday morning,
only reached Genoa Wednesday morning, and lay there forty-eight hours,
as the German boats do, anyhow. That brings us to Friday morning before
the _Kaiser Fritz_ gets quit of Italy, doesn't it?"
"Yes--do tell me about Walter!"
"He was gone ashore Monday evening before I came aboard at Naples. I
never saw him till he scrambled aboard again Friday, about the
fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour."
"At Genoa?"
"Sure."
"And you pretend to know where he'd been?"
"I guess I do know"--and Toye sighed as he raised his little book.
"Cazalet stepped on the train that left Naples six fifty Monday evening,
and off the one timed to reach Charing Cross three twenty-five
Wednesday."
"The day of the m--"
"Yes. I never called it by the hardest name, myself; but it was seven
thirty Wednesday evening that Henry Craven got his death-blow somehow.
Well, Walter Cazalet left Charing Cross again by the nine o'clock that
night, and was back aboard the _Kaiser Fritz_ on Friday morning--full of
his friends in Rome who didn't exist!"
The note-book was put away with every symptom of relief.
"I suppose you can prove what you say?" said Blanche in a voice as dull
as her unseeing eyes.
"I have men to swear to him--ticket-collectors, conductors, waiters on
the restaurant-car--all up and down the line. I went over the same
ground on the same trains, so that was simple. I can also produce the
barber who claims to have taken off his beard in Paris, where he put in
hours Thursday morning."