A FAMILY COUNCIL
THE Duke of Trent and Colonsay, after shaking hands with the Prime
Minister, and receiving the congratulations of several colleagues on
his first appearance as a Minister in charge of an important measure,
was walking out of the House, when he felt himself tapped familiarly on
the shoulder from behind.
He turned round in some annoyance, for he was careful of his dignity,
but the look of rebuke was exchanged for one of respectful pleasure
as he perceived that the hand which had touched him was the Duke of
Gloucester’s.
“Are you going back to Colonsay House?” the Prince inquired.
“I _was_ going,” the Minister returned, conveying by the change of
tense that his movements were for the Prince to dispose of.
“That’s right; then I’ll walk round with you, if I shan’t put you out,”
Prince Herbert said, linking his arm in friendly fashion in the Duke’s.
The two companions were old acquaintances; they might almost be called
friends. They had been boys together, in so far as a Prince is allowed
to be a boy. Their houses were in the same part of the country, and the
cordial relations between the Duchess Caroline and her royal mistress
had been renewed by their descendants.
At that time, indeed, Prince Herbert had been more intimate with
Alistair Stuart than with James. The younger boy’s merry, versatile
disposition had made him a favourite, while his brother was rather a
dull companion. But the course of their later lives had tended to keep
up the intercourse between the Prince and the Duke, while Alistair had
gradually drifted away into paths in which it was impossible for his
royal friend to keep him company.
The new Home Secretary expected to receive some compliment as they
passed out under the vast vault of the Victoria Tower and turned
eastward. His speech that night had been a marked success. The Bill
he had just introduced was one to provide the punishment of flogging
for the gangs of street-boys who infested the southern side of the
river. He had denounced the enemies of order with conviction, and the
House had cordially endorsed his righteous anger. No one had been
weak enough to think, or bold enough to suggest, that there was any
better way to deal with the hooligan than to flog him. There had been
a time when England could export her savages to savage lands, but, by
some wonderful political alchemy, no sooner did she cast her convict
colonies on the shores of America and Australia than they rose up
mighty states, and with the zeal of renegades refused to harbour the
next criminal generation. Even the army, so long the last refuge of
the blackguard, was become respectable. Science was already lifting a
confident voice to preach extermination for the unfit, and society,
puzzled between the old creed and the new, found itself too weak to
crucify, but not too weak to scourge.
It was with a sense of disappointment that the young Minister found
that their walk was to be a silent one. The Prince said nothing till
they were in Colonsay House.
“I suppose the Duchess is not up so late as this?” the Prince asked, as
they entered the hall.
“My mother generally goes on about this time, but I will ask. Stokes,
go and see if her Grace is in her room, and if so tell her his Royal
Highness has asked for her.”
The Duke led the way into a Japanese smoking lounge which opened
off the stairs. A large bow-window revealed the panorama of the
night-enchanted river, the reflections of the bridge lamps veining the
tide with molten gold.
Prince Herbert walked to the window and gazed out speechless for
several minutes, during which his host strewed a lacquered table with
cigars of a rare brand, named after the Prince himself.
“The grandest view in Europe, I always think,” the Prince observed,
as he turned reluctantly from the window. “And yet there is something
dreadful in it. It is so utterly removed from Nature. It makes one
think of the underground life which we are told the race will one day
have to take to.”
“We have taken to it already, it seems to me,” Trent answered. “We
travel underground, our light and water come to us underground, our
food is cooked underground, and I am told there are underground stables
in some parts of London.”
Prince Herbert closed his lips as he walked across to choose a cigar.
It was not the first time that he had found James Stuart a heavy person
to talk to. He could not help comparing this commonplace mind, with
its prim grasp of daily life and its impotence to rise to any higher
plane, with the brilliant and sensitive imagination of Alistair, like
a soaring bubble, one moment glowing with the reflected radiance of a
thousand stars, the next moment smashed against the coarse paling of
the roadway.
Yet it was this man who enjoyed honour and favour, while the other was
become an outcast. It was to this man that he himself was about to sue
for some toleration of the other.
He had just struck a light when the door opened to admit Alistair’s
mother. With the quick instinct of sympathy she had divined the object
of the royal visit, and she pressed a warm kiss on the Prince’s
forehead as he came forward to greet her.
“My dear aunt,” he exclaimed, using the title which he had given her in
his boyish days, “I hope you haven’t come downstairs on my account. I
ought to have gone up to you.”
“I would much rather sit here, and see you smoke,” she said, with an
affectionate smile. “That is, if an old woman is not in the way of two
young men.”
Prince Herbert hastened to draw forward a chair, but the Duchess
refused to sit down till the visitor had lit his cigar. As soon as some
servants who had brought in a tray of spirits had left the room, the
Prince opened his appeal.
“I am very sorry about Alistair,” he said.
A frown passed quickly over the Duke’s face at this allusion to the
family trouble, but his mother looked up gratefully.
“I was sure you would be,” she responded. “Poor foolish boy! If only I
could find a way to save him!”
“Couldn’t this have been prevented?” inquired Prince Herbert, glancing
at the elder brother.
James shook his head decisively.
“It was impossible. My mother will tell you I did everything I could.
Twice I have got him to give me an account of his debts, and settled
them, as I thought. But I don’t believe now that he ever let me know
one half of what he really owed. It is like pouring water into a sieve
to try and help Alistair.”
“Do you know what the amount is now?”
“Fifty or sixty thousand, I understand. I don’t suppose he knows within
ten thousand or so himself. It is two years’ revenue of the property.
Everything is entailed; I can only mortgage my life interest, and that
means paying a heavy premium for life insurance. Ever since he came of
age I have given him a thousand a year, and of course he could have his
rooms here if he chose to lead a decent life. My mother knows that that
is the very utmost I can do for him if I mean to keep up the estates as
they ought to be kept up. I have to think of a jointure for my wife, if
I should ever marry, and some provision for my own children.”
The Duke delivered his defence in an injured tone, as though he felt
that the sympathy of his audience was against him. Prince Herbert, in
his quiet way, returned to the attack.
“I have really no right to ask you, but I should have thought your
properties brought you in a great deal more.”
“They are still heavily encumbered,” was the answer. “There are
mortgages on nearly everything except the Scotch land, and that brings
in nothing. I might let the moors, I suppose, but in my opinion that
would be another disgrace. I am very strongly opposed to giving these
Americans and stockbrokers the pick of all the historic places in Great
Britain. I blame Cantire for letting Mull.”
This time the Duke spoke with undisguised warmth. It was a relief to
him to silence the misgivings from which his own mind was not entirely
free on the subject of Alistair.
“After all, I owe a duty to my people, as well as to Alistair,” he
continued. “I am the head of the clan as well as the landlord. I regard
myself as a constitutional monarch on my own estate, and I have no
right to sacrifice my tenants in order to enrich Molly Finucane.”
Prince Herbert felt himself rebuked. He doubted no more than others
that the house in Chelsea had been Alistair’s undoing.
“Is there no hope of rescuing him?” He looked hesitatingly at the
Duchess.
“I have just seen Alistair,” she confessed, not without some fear of
her elder son’s resentment. “He came here to see me to-night.”
“To ask for money, I suppose,” said the Duke.
The Duchess was wounded by the taunt.
“He did not ask for any, and I did not give him any,” she said with
dignity. “I told him I was sure that you would help him if he would
only leave that woman.”
“And what did he say?”
“I don’t think he meant what he said; I can’t think so. But he talked
about her in such a way that for a moment I thought he wanted to marry
her.”
A fierce exclamation broke from the Minister, a milder one from Prince
Herbert.
“If he does that, he shall never have another farthing from me; I will
never acknowledge him again!”
“His infatuation for her is terrible,” the mother went on. “He even
defended her to me. He told me that she had made sacrifices for
him--that she was paying for the house.”
The two men exchanged glances. This was a deeper depth than either of
them had suspected. Perhaps the Duchess would have suppressed this part
of her information if she had understood how it would strike a man.
“Is there no chance that the woman herself may give him up now?”
The Duchess shook her head doubtfully.
“I should think not, from what he says. I hardly know what it is best
to do. I think perhaps he might be induced to give an undertaking not
to marry her, in return for some assistance.”
The Home Secretary made a face of disgust.
“So I am to be blackmailed, am I? I have to bribe my brother not to
make a street-girl the next Duchess of Colonsay.”
Prince Herbert looked distressed.
“Are you sure that is the right way to go to work with Alistair?” he
asked gently. “I have always believed that there was good in him, you
know. Perhaps if you tried to appeal to his generosity you might do
more than you suppose.”
Alistair’s mother gave the speaker a grateful look.
“Thank you, Bertie. It is very good of you to plead for my poor
boy. I think, James dear, you may have been a little harsh with him
sometimes.”
“If you were to go to him now,” the Prince pursued, “not to scold him
at all, but just to say, ‘Well, old fellow, you’re in a mess; let’s see
if I can get you out,’ I think you would find him very different to
deal with.”
The elder brother still frowned.
“You don’t know Alistair as well as I do. He would most likely insult
me. The last time I wrote to him, nearly a year ago, enclosing his
allowance, and pointing out to him how the life he was leading was
bound to end, he wrote back to me--my mother saw the note: ‘Dear Jim,
your cheques are better than your sermons. Affectionately, Alistair.’”
Prince Herbert by a severe effort checked the smile which rose to his
lips.
“After all, he is your brother,” he reminded the aggrieved senior.
“I’m sure I don’t know why he should be,” the Duke muttered, but he let
his voice drop at the sight of his mother’s sorrowful face.
“I would see him myself,” the Prince added, “only I have to leave for
Birmingham to-morrow to lay the foundation stone of a cathedral, and
I am under engagements which will keep me in the district for several
days.”
The Duchess rose and walked across the room to where her son was
seated, tapping a fretful foot upon the floor. She laid her hand on his
arm, and looked him beseechingly in the face.
“My son, my eldest son!” she murmured softly. “You need not be jealous
of the poor prodigal. Say that you will go?”
And James said that he would go.
* * * * *
That night Alistair’s mother did not sleep.
The bankrupt himself slept heavily after emptying a bottle of
champagne, at whose expense he no longer hesitated. The new Minister
tossed to and fro till the excitement of debate had evaporated, and
then sank into a calm, health-giving slumber. Prince Herbert slept too;
if he had passed a troubled night the wires would have flashed the news
next day from Auckland to Vancouver.
But the Duchess of Trent could not sleep. She spent a night of fear and
sorrow, her mind haunted by the terrible word that spelt the wreck of
her darling--the word _wife_.
Rather than see her son married to Molly Finucane she could have prayed
that he might be taken from the world. To her apprehension such a
marriage meant ruin final and irretrievable, ruin social, moral and
religious, ruin in this life and the next.
As the first streak of dawn slanted through the window the poor lady
crept from her bed, and throwing a dressing-gown round her shoulders,
sat down at a small writing-table to write a letter.
She began by addressing the envelope, with fingers that shook partly
from cold and partly from anguish: _Miss Finucane, Elm Side, Chelsea_.
She had made up her mind to take the desperate step of writing to
Molly Finucane to implore her not to marry Alistair.
She had first entertained the idea of going to Molly to make the appeal
in person, but she had found herself unable to face the reception which
she feared was possible. Molly Finucane’s reputation daunted her.
The courage of this gentle, pious, pure-minded woman was not great
enough to brave the scoffs of a girl whom common fame reported as more
foul-mouthed than a bargeman.
The letter took a long time to write. The words came slowly, and more
than once the writer felt inclined to drop the pen in despair. But at
last it was finished.
The letter ran like this:
“DEAR MADAM:
“Will you pardon the liberty I take in addressing you? I write on
behalf of my son Alistair. I hardly know how to express myself
without seeming unkind, but you will understand what a shock it has
been to his mother to see him in the Bankruptcy Court. He was here
last night, and from what he has said to me I feel sure that you do
not wish him ill. His only chance of salvation is an entire change
of life, and that can only be brought about by your influence. The
tremendous hold you have over him is my only excuse for appealing to
you like this. I have no doubt you see as clearly as I do how his
present life is likely to end--in misery and distress. Nothing I
could do would be too much to show my gratitude if you would consent
to let his friends extricate him from his present way of life, and
give him a fresh start. He is still a young man, and unmarried, and
therefore we hope it is not too late to save him. If you are really
his friend you will yourself be anxious to do nothing that would
drag him deeper down into the abyss. In his present state of mind
I fear for him; he is hardly master of his actions, and might be
led in a thoughtless moment to take some step which he could never
recall. It is even possible that he might contemplate marrying you,
which--forgive my saying so--would entail certain misery on you both.
He would lose all his friends, and as soon as the awakening came he
would regard you as his bitterest enemy, and the cause of his ruin.
I hope you will not resent my speaking thus plainly; I need not say
I do so solely out of the natural anxiety of a mother for her boy,
and not out of any desire to say anything harsh or unkind toward you
personally. Most earnestly I implore you, I appeal to you in the name
of your own mother, to let me save my boy! With many apologies for
thus addressing you, believe me,
“Yours very sincerely,
“CAROLINE TRENT AND COLONSAY.”
The letter finished, the Duchess betook herself to her praying-closet,
where she remained till her maid appeared.