THE TRUTH TOO LATE.
By four o'clock the next afternoon the Club had gathered ample materials
for fresh gossip. The formalities attendant on the change of government,
the composition of the new Cabinet, the prospects of the election--these
alone would have supplied many hours, and besides them, indeed
supplanting them temporarily by virtue of an intenser interest, there
was the account of the inquest on Benyon's body. Medland had gone to it,
almost direct from his final interview with the Governor, and Kilshaw
had been there, fresh from a conference with Perry. The inquiry had
ended, as was foreseen directly Ned Evans' evidence was forthcoming, in
a verdict of murder against Gaspard; but the interest lay in the course
of the investigation, not in its issue. Mr. Duncombe, a famous comedian,
who was then on tour in New Lindsey and had been made an honorary member
of the Club, smacked his lips over the dramatic moment when the
ex-Premier, calmly and in a clear voice, had identified the person in
the photograph, declared the deceased man to have been Benyon, and very
briefly stated how he had been connected with him in old days.
"The lady," he said, "is Mrs. Benyon. The other figure is that of
myself. I had not seen the deceased for many years."
"You were not on terms with him?" asked the coroner, who, in common with
half the listeners, had known the lady as Mrs. Medland.
"No," said Mr. Medland; "I lost sight of him."
"You did not hear from--from any one about him?"
"No."
He gave the dates when he had last seen Benyon in old days. Asked
whether he had communicated with him between that date and the dead
man's reappearance, he answered,
"Once, about four years ago. I wrote to tell him of that lady's death,"
and he pointed again to the picture, and went on to tell the details of
Benyon's subsequent application to him for a post under Government.
"You refused it?" he was asked.
"Yes, I refused it. I spoke to him once again, when we met on a social
occasion. We had a sort of dispute then. I never saw him again to speak
to."
"It was all done," said Mr. Duncombe, describing the scene, "in a
repressed way that was very effective--to a house that knew the
circumstances most effective. And the other fellow--Kilshaw--he gave
some sport too. The coroner (they told me he was one of Medland's men,
and I noticed he spared Medland all he could) was inclined to be a bit
down on Kilshaw. Kilshaw was cool and handy in his answers, but, Lord
love you! his game came out pretty plain. A monkey! You don't give a man
a monkey unless there's value received! So people saw, and Mr. Kilshaw
looked a bit uncomfortable when he caught Medland's eye. He looked at
him like that," and Mr. Duncombe assumed the finest wronged-hero glance
in his repertory.
"Oh, come, old chap, I bet he didn't," observed Captain Heseltine.
"We've seen him, you know."
Duncombe laughed good-humouredly.
"At any rate he made Kilshaw look a little green, and some of the people
behind called out 'Shame!' and got themselves sat upon. Then they had
Medland up again and twisted him a bit about his acquaintance with
Gaspard; but the coroner didn't seem to think there was anything in it,
and they found murder against Gaspard, and rang down the curtain. And
when we got outside there was a bit of a rumpus. They hooted Kilshaw and
cheered Medland, and yelled like mad when a dashed pretty girl drove up
in a pony-cart and carried him off. Altogether it wasn't half bad."
"Glad you enjoyed yourself," observed Captain Heseltine. "If it amuses
strangers to see our leading celebrities mixed up in a murder and other
distressing affairs, it's the least we can do to see that they get it."
The Captain's facetiousness fell on unappreciative ears. Most of Mr.
Duncombe's audience were too alive to the serious side of the matter to
enjoy it. To them it was another and a very striking scene in the fight
which had long gone on between Medland and Kilshaw, and had taken a
fresh and fiercer impetus from the well-remembered day when Medland had
spoken his words about Kilshaw and his race-horses. Nobody doubted that
Kilshaw had kept this man Benyon, or Benham, as a secret weapon, and
that the murder had only made the disclosure come earlier. Kilshaw's
reputation suffered somewhat in the minds of the scrupulous, but his
partisans would hear of no condemnation. They said, as he had said, that
in dealing with a man like Medland it would have been folly not to use
the weapons fate, or the foe himself by his own misdeeds, offered. As
for the disapprobation of the Kirton mob, they held that in high scorn.
"They'd cheer burglary, if Medland did it," said one.
"Well, he wants to, pretty nearly," added a capitalist.
"But the country will take a very different view. Puttock'll rub it into
all his people: _they_'ll not vote for him. What do you say, Coxon?"
"I think we shall beat him badly," said that gentleman, as he rose and
went out.
Captain Heseltine soon followed, and was surprised to see Coxon's figure
just ahead of him as he entered the gates of Government House.
"Hang the fellow! What does he want here?" asked the Captain.
Mr. Coxon asked for Lady Eynesford. When he entered, she rose with a
newspaper in her hand.
"What a shocking, shameful thing this is!" she said. "What a blessing it
is that the Government was beaten!"
Coxon acquiesced in both these opinions.
"I never thought well of him," continued the lady. "Now everybody sees
him in his true colours. And it's you we have chiefly to thank for our
deliverance."
Coxon murmured a modest depreciation of his services, and said,
"I hope Miss Derosne is well?"
Something in his tones brought to his hostess one of those swift fits of
repentance that were apt to wait for her whenever she allowed herself to
treat this visitor with friendliness. He was so very prompt in
responding!
"She is not very well," she answered, rather coldly.
"I--I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing her?"
Mr. Coxon's wishes were fulfilled to the moment. The door opened and
Alicia came in. On seeing him she stopped.
"Come in, Alicia," said Lady Eynesford. "Here's Mr. Coxon come to be
congratulated."
Coxon stood up with a propitiatory smile.
"How do you do, Mr. Coxon?" said Alicia, giving him a limp hand. "Shall
I ring for tea, Mary?"
"They'll bring it. You haven't wished him joy."
"Oh, are you in the new Ministry?"
"I have that honour, Miss Derosne. I hope you are on our side?"
"I don't quite know which side you are on--now," observed Alicia, in
slow but distinct tones.
Coxon grew red.
"I--I have joined Sir Robert Perry's Ministry," he answered.
"Of course he has, Alicia," interposed Lady Eynesford hastily.
Alicia seated herself on the sofa, remarking as she did so,
"Well, you do change a good deal, don't you?"
"Really, Miss Derosne," he stammered, "I don't understand you."
"Oh, I only mean that you were first with Sir Robert, then with Mr.
Medland, and now with Sir Robert again! And presently with Mr. Medland
again, I suppose?"
"She doesn't appreciate the political reasons," began Lady Eynesford,
with troubled brow and smiling lips; but Coxon, frowning angrily, broke
in,
"Not the last, I promise you, anyhow, Miss Derosne."
"What, you think he's finally beaten then?"
"That's not the question. Beaten or not, he is discredited, and no
respectable man would act with him."
"We needn't discuss--" began Lady Eynesford again, but this time Alicia
was the interrupter. She spoke in a cold, hard way, very unlike her own.
"If he won, you would all be at his feet."
Coxon was justified in being angry at her almost savage scorn of him;
regardless of anything except his wrong, he struck back the sharpest
blow he could.
"I know some people are very ready to be at his feet," he said, with a
sneering smile.
His shaft hit the mark. Alicia flushed and sat speechless. A glance at
Lady Eynesford's face told him the scene had lasted too long: he rose
and took his leave, paying Alicia the homage of a bow, but not seeking
her hand. She took no notice of his salute, and Lady Eynesford only
gasped "Good-bye."
The two sat silent for some moments after he had gone; then Lady
Eynesford remarked,
"Were you mad, Alicia? See what you laid yourself open to! Oh, of course
a gentleman wouldn't have said it, but you yourself didn't treat him as
if he was a gentleman. Really, I can make a great deal of allowance for
him. Your manner was inexcusable."
Alicia did not attempt to defend herself.
"You are out of temper," continued her sister-in-law, "and you choose to
hit the first person within reach; if you can do that you care nothing
for my dignity or your own self-respect. You parade your--your interest
in this man----"
"I shall never speak to him again."
"I'm glad to hear it, and, if you come into my drawing-room, I will
thank you to behave yourself properly and be civil to my guests," and
Lady Eynesford walked out of the room.
Alicia huddled herself in a heap on the sofa, turning her face to the
wall. She felt Lady Eynesford's scornful rebuke like the stroke of a
whip. She had descended to a vulgar wrangle, and had been worsted in it:
the one thing of all which it concerned her to hide had by her own act
been opened to the jeer of a stranger; she had violated every rule of
good breeding and self-respect. No words--not even Lady
Eynesford's--were too strong to describe what she had done. Yet she
could not help it; she could not hear a creature like that abuse or
condemn a man like Medland--though all that he had said she had said,
and more, to Medland himself. She was too miserable to think; she lay
with closed eyes and parted lips, breathing quickly, and restlessly
moving her limbs in that strange physical discomfort which great
unhappiness brings with it.
A footstep roused her; she sat up, hurriedly smoothing her hair and
clutching at a book that lay on the table by her. The intruder was her
brother, and fortunately he was too intent on the tidings he brought to
notice her confusion.
"Great news, Al!" he cried. "They've offered me Ireland. We shall start
home in a month."
"Home in a month?" she echoed.
"Yes. Splendid, isn't it?"
"You're pleased, Willie?"
The Governor was very pleased. He liked the promotion, he liked going
home; and finally, pleasant as his stay in New Lindsey had been on the
whole, there were features in the present position which made him not
sorry to depart.
"I shall just see the elections through, and Perry well started--at
least, I suppose it'll be Perry--and then we'll be off. Shan't you be
glad to see the old home again, Al?"
"It's so sudden," she said. "I shall be sorry to leave here."
"Oh, so shall I--very sorry to leave some of the people too. Still, it's
a good thing. Where's Eleanor? I must tell her. I say, Dick gets here
to-morrow."
"Oh, I'm so glad."
The Governor hurried out again, and Alicia returned to the sofa. The
knot of her troubles had been rudely cut. Perhaps this summary ending
was best. She herself would not, she knew, have had the strength to tear
herself away from that place, but if fate tore her--perhaps well and
good. Nothing but unhappiness waited there for her; it seemed to her
that nothing but unhappiness waited anywhere now; but at least, over at
home, she would not have to fear the discovery of her secret, the secret
she herself kept so badly, nor to endure the torture of gossip, hints,
and clumsy pity. No one, over at home, would think of Medland; they
might just know his name, might perhaps have heard him rumoured for a
dangerous man and a vexatious opponent of good Sir Robert. Certainly
they would never think of him as the cause of bruising of heart to a
young lady in fashionable society. So he would pass out of her life; she
would leave him to his busy, strenuous, happy-unhappy life, so full of
triumphs and defeats, of ups and downs, of the love of many and the hate
of many. Perhaps she, like the rest, would read his name in the _Times_
now and then, unless indeed he were utterly vanquished. No, he was not
finally beaten. Of that she was sure. His name would be read often in
cold print, but the glow of the life he lived would be henceforth
unknown to her. She would go back to the old world and the old circle of
it. What would happen after that she was too listless to think. It was
summed up in negations; and these again melted into one great want, the
absence of the man to whom her imagination and her heart blindly and
obstinately clung.
Lady Eynesford had left her newspaper, and Alicia found her hand upon
it. Taking it up, she read Medland's evidence at the inquest. A sudden
revulsion of feeling seized her. Was this the man she was dreaming
about, a man who calmly, coolly, as though caring nothing, told that
story in the face of all the world? Was she never to get rid of the
spell he had cast on her before she knew what he really was? For a man
like this she had sacrificed her self-respect, bandied insults with a
vulgar upstart, and brought on her head a reproach more fitting for an
ill-mannered child. She threw the paper from her and rose to her feet.
She would think no more of him; he might be what he would; he was no fit
subject for her thoughts, and he and the place where he lived and all
this wretched country deserved nothing better than to be forgotten,
resolutely, utterly, soon.
"I am very sorry, Mary," she was saying, ten minutes later; "I deserved
all you said. I don't know what foolishness possessed me. See, I have
written and apologised to Mr. Coxon."
And Lady Eynesford kissed her and thanked heaven that they would soon
have done with Mr. Coxon and--all the rest.