CHAPTER XXXV
A TOAST TO THE PAST
The middle of June found the Deppinghams leaving London once more, butthis time not on a voyage into the mysterious South Seas. They no longerwere interested in the island of Japat, except as a reminiscence, norwere they concerned in the vagaries of Taswell Skaggs's will.
The estate was settled--closed!
Mr. Saunders was mentioned nowadays only in narrative form, and butrarely in that way. True, they had promised to visit the little place inHammersmith if they happened to be passing by, and they had graciouslyadmitted that it would give them much pleasure to meet his good mother.
Two months have passed since the Deppinghams departed from Japat, "forgood and all." Many events have come to pass since that memorable day,not the least of which was the exchanging of L500,000 sterling, lessattorneys' and executors' fees. To be perfectly explicit and as brief aspossible, Lady Deppingham and Robert Browne divided that amount of moneyand passed into legal history as the "late claimants to the Estate ofTaswell Skaggs."
It was Sir John Brodney's enterprise. He saw the way out of thedifficulty and he acted as pathfinder to the other and less perceivingcounsellors, all of whom had looked forward to an endless controversy.
The business of the Japat Company and all that it entailed wastransferred by agreement to a syndicate of Jews!
Never before was there such a stupendous deal in futures.
Soon after the arrival in England of the two claimants, it became knownthat the syndicate was casting longing eyes upon the far-away garden ofrubies and sapphires. There was no hope of escape from a long, bittercontest in the courts. Sir John perhaps saw that there was a possiblechance to break the will of the testator; he was an old man and he wouldhardly live long enough to fight the case to the end. In theinterregnum, his clients, the industrious islanders, would be slavingthemselves into a hale old age and a subsequently unhallowed grave, nonethe wiser and none the richer than when the contest began, except forthe proportionately insignificant share that was theirs by right oforiginal possession. Sir John took it upon himself to settle the matterwhile his clients were still in a condition to appreciate the results.He proposed a compromise.
It was not so much a question of jurisprudence, he argued, as it was amatter of self-protection for all sides to the controversy--moreparticularly that side which assembled the inhabitants of Japat.
And so it came to pass that the Jews, after modifying some twenty orthirty propositions of their own, ultimately assumed the credit ofevolving the plan that had originated in the resourceful head of SirJohn Brodney, and affairs were soon brought to a close.
The grandchildren of the testators were ready to accept the bestsettlement that could be obtained. Theirs was a rather forlorn hope, tobegin with. When it was proposed that Agnes Deppingham and Robert Browneshould accept L250,000 apiece in lieu of all claims, moral or legal,against the estate, they leaped at the chance.
They had seen but little of each other since landing in England, exceptas they were thrown together at the conferences. There was no pretenceof intimacy on either side; the shadow of the past was still there toremind them that a skeleton lurked behind and grinned spitefully in itsobscurity. Lady Agnes went in for every diversion imaginable; for awonder, she dragged Deppingham with her on all occasions. It was a mostunexpected transformation; their friends were puzzled. The rumour wentabout town that she was in love with her husband.
As for Bobby Browne, he was devotion itself to Drusilla. They sailed forNew York within three days after the settlement was effected, ignoringthe enticements of a London season--which could not have mattered muchto them, however, as Drusilla emphatically refused to wear the sort ofgowns that Englishwomen wear when they sit in the stalls. Besides, shepreferred the Boston dressmakers. The Brownes were rich. He could nowbecome a fashionable specialist. They were worth nearly a million and aquarter in American dollars. Moreover, they, as well as the Deppinghams,were the possessors of rubies and sapphires that had been thrust uponthem by supplicating adversaries in the hour of departure--gems thatmight have bought a dozen wives in the capitals of Persia; perhaps ascore in the mountains where the Kurds are cheaper. The Brownesnaturally were eager to get back to Boston. They now had nothing incommon with Taswell Skaggs; Skaggs is not a pretty name.
Mr. Britt afterward spent three weeks of incessant travel on thecontinent and an additional seven days at sea. In Baden-Baden hehappened upon Lord and Lady Deppingham. It will be recalled that inJapat they had always professed an unholy aversion for Mr. Britt. Is itcause for wonder then that they declined his invitation to dine inBaden-Baden? He even proposed to invite their entire party, whichincluded a few dukes and duchesses who were leisurely on their way toattend the long-talked-of nuptials in Thorberg at the end of June.
The Syndicate, after buying off the hereditary forces, assumed a halfinterest in the Japat Company's business; the islanders controlled theremaining half. The mines were to be operated under the management ofthe Jews and eight hours were to constitute a day's work. The personalestate passed into the hands of the islanders, from whom Skaggs hadappropriated it in conjunction with John Wyckholme. All in all, itseemed a fair settlement of the difficulty. The Jews paid something likeL2,000,000 sterling to the islanders in consideration of a twenty years'grant. Their experts had examined the property before the death of Mr.Skaggs; they were not investing blindly in the great undertaking.
Mr. Levistein, the president of the combine, after a long talk with LordDeppingham, expressed the belief that the chateau could be turned into amoney-making hotel if properly advertised--outside of the island.Deppingham admitted, that if he kept the prices up, there was no reasonin the world why the better class of Jews should not flock there for thewinter.
Before the end of June, representatives of the combine, attended byofficers of the court, a small army of clerks, a half dozen lawyers andtwo capable men from the office of Sir John Brodney, set sail for Japat,provided with the power and the means to effect the transfer agreed uponin the compromise.
In Vienna the Deppinghams were joined by the Duchess of N------, theMarchioness of B------ and other fashionables. In a week all of themwould be in the Castle at Thorberg, for the ceremony that now occupiedthe attention of social and royal Europe.
"And to think," said the Duchess, "she might have died happily on thatmiserable island. I am sure we did all we could to bring it about bysteaming away from the place with the plague chasing after us. Dear me,how diabolically those wretches lied to the Marquess. They said thatevery one in the chateau was dead, Lady Deppingham--and buried, if I amnot mistaken."
The party was dining with one of the Prince Lichtensteins in the HotelBristol after a drive in the Haupt-Allee.
"My dog, I think, was the only one of us who died, Duchess," said LadyAgnes airily. "And he was buried. They were that near to the truth."
"It would be much better for poor Genevra if she were to be buriedinstead of married next week," lamented the Duchess.
"My dear, how ridiculous. She isn't dead yet, by any manner of means.Why bury her? She's got plenty of life left in her, as Karl Brabetz willlearn before long." Thus spoke the far-sighted Marchioness, aunt of thebride-to-be. "It's terribly gruesome to speak of burying people beforethey are actually dead."
"Other women have married princes and got on very well," said PrinceLichtenstein.
"Oh, come now, Prince," put in Lord Deppingham, "you know the sort ofchap Brabetz is. There are princes and princes, by Jove."
"He's positively vile!" exclaimed the Duchess, who would not mincewords.
"She's entering upon a hell of a--I mean a life of hell," exploded theDuke, banging the table with his fist. "That fellow Brabetz is therottenest thing in Europe. He's gone from bad to worse so swiftly thatpublic opinion is still months behind him."
"Nice way to talk of the groom," said the host genially. "I quite agreewith you, however. I cannot understand the Grand Duke permitting it togo on--unless, of cours
e, it's too late to interfere."
"Poor dear, she'll never know what it is to be loved and cherished,"said the Marchioness dolefully.
Lord and Lady Deppingham glanced at each other. They were thinking ofthe man who stood on the dock at Aratat when the _King's Own_ sailedaway.
"The Grand Duke is probably saying the very thing to himself thatBrabetz's associates are saying in public," ventured a young Austriancount.
"What is that, pray?"
"That the Prince won't live more than six months. He's a physical wreckto-day--and a nervous one, too. Take my word for it, he will be acreeping, imbecile thing inside of half a year. Locomotor ataxia and allthat. It's coming, positively, with a sharp crash."
"I've heard he has tried to kill that woman in Paris half a dozentimes," remarked one of the women, taking it as a matter of course thatevery one knew who she meant by "that woman." As no one even so much aslooked askance, it is to be presumed that every one knew.
"She was really responsible for the postponement of the wedding inDecember, I'm told. Of course, I don't know that it is true," said theMarchioness, wisely qualifying her gossip. "My brother, the Grand Duke,does not confide in me."
"Oh, I think that story was an exaggeration," said her husband. "Genevrasays that he was very ill--nervous something or other."
"Probably true, too. He's a wreck. She will be the prettiest widow inEurope before Christmas," said the young count. "Unless, of course, anyone of the excellent husbands surrounding me should die," he addedgallantly.
"Well, my heart bleeds for her," said Deppingham.
"She's going into it with her eyes open," said the Prince. "It isn't asif she hadn't been told. She could see for herself. She knows there'sthe other woman in Paris and--Oh, well, why should we make a funeral ofit? Let's do our best to be revellers, not mourners. She'll live to fallin love with some other man. They always do. Every woman has to love atleast once in her life--if she lives long enough. Come, come! Is myentertainment to develop into a premature wake? Let us forget the futureof the Princess Genevra and drink to her present!"
"And to her past, if you don't mind, Prince!" amended Lord Deppingham,looking into his wife's sombre eyes.
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE TITLE CLEAR
Two men and a woman stood in the evening glow, looking out over thetranquil sea that crept up and licked the foot of the cliff. At theirback rose the thick, tropical forest; at its edge and on the nape of thecliff stood a bungalow, fresh from the hands of a hundred willingtoilsmen. Below, on their right, lay the gaudy village, lolling in theheat of the summer's day. Far off to the north, across the lowlands andbeyond the sweep of undulating and ever-lengthening hills, could be seena great, reddish structure, its gables and towers fusing with the sombreshades of the mountain against which they seemed to lean.
It was September. Five months had passed since the _King's Own_ steamedaway from the harbour of Aratat. The new dispensation was in fulleffect. During the long, sickening weeks that preceded the coming of theSyndicate, Hollingsworth Chase toiled faithfully, resolutely for therestoration of order and system among the demoralised people of Japat.
The first few weeks of rehabilitation were hard ones: the islanders wereready to accede to everything he proposed, but their submissiveness wasdue in no small measure to the respect they entertained for his almostsupernatural powers. In course of time this feeling was more or lessdissipated and a condition of true confidence took its place. Thelawless element--including the misguided husbands whose jealousy hadbeen so skilfully worked upon by Rasula and Jacob von Blitz--thiselement, greatly in the minority, subsided into a lackadaisical,law-abiding activity, with little prospect of again attempting toexercise themselves in another direction. Murder had gone out of theirhearts.
Eager hands set to work to construct a suitable home for the tallarbiter. He chose a position on the point that ran out into the seabeyond the town. It was this point which the yacht was rounding on thatmemorable day when he and one other had watched it from the gallery,stirred by emotions they were never to forget. Besides, the cliff onwhich the new bungalow stood represented the extreme western extremityof the island and therefore was nearest of all Japat to civilisationand--Genevra.
Conditions in Aratat were not much changed from what they had been priorto the event of the legatory invaders. The mines were in full operation;the bank was being conducted as of yore; the people were happy andconfident; the town was fattening on its own flesh; the sun was asmerciless and the moon as gentle as in the days of old.
The American bar changed hands with the arrival of the new forces fromthe Occident; the Jews and the English clerks, the surveyors and theengineers, the solicitors and the agents, were now domiciled in"headquarters." Chase turned over the "bar" when he retired from activeservice under Sir John Brodney. With the transfer of the company'sbusiness his work was finished. Two young men from Sir John's were nowsettled in Aratat as legal advisers to the islanders, Chase havingdeclined to serve longer in that capacity.
He was now waiting for the steamer which was to take him to Cape Town onhis way to England--and home.
The chateau was closed and in the hands of a small army of caretakers.The three widows of Jacob von Blitz were now married to separate anddistinct husbands, all of whom retained their places as heads ofdepartments at the chateau, proving that courtship had not been confinedto the white people during the closing days of the siege.
The head of the bank was Oscar Arnheimer, Mr. Bowles having been deposedbecause his methods were even more obsolete than his coat of armour.Selim disposed of his lawful interest in the corporation to Ben Ali, thenew Cadi, and was waiting to accompany his master to America. It may bewell to add that the deal did not include the transfer of Neenah. Shewas not for sale, said Selim to Ben Ali.
It was of Mr. Bowles that the three persons were talking as they stoodin the evening glow.
"Yes, Selim," said the tall man in flannels, "he's a sort of old dogTray--ever faithful but not the right kind. You don't happen to knowanything of old dog Tray, do you? No? I thought not. Nor you, Neenah?Well, he was----"
"Was he the one who was poisoned at the chateau, excellency?" askedNeenah timidly.
"No, my dear," he replied soberly. "If I remember my history, he died inthe seventeenth century or thereabouts. It's really of no consequence,however. Any good, faithful dog will serve my purpose. What I want toimpress upon you is this: it is most difficult for a faithful old dog tosurvive a change of masters. It isn't human nature--or dog nature,either. I'm glad that you are convinced, Neenah--but please don't tellSahib Bowles that he is a dog."
"Oh, no, excellency!" she cried earnestly.
"She is very close-mouthed, sahib," added Selim, with conviction.
"We'll take Bowles to England with us next week," went on Chasedreamily. "We'll leave Japat to take care of itself. I don't know whichit is in most danger of, seismic or Semitic disturbances."
He lighted a fresh cigarette, tenderly fingering it before applying thematch.
"I'll smoke one of hers to-night, Selim. See! I keep them apart from theothers, in this little gold case. I smoke them only when I am thinking.Now, run in and tell Mr. Bowles that I said he was a Tray. I want to bealone."
They left him and he threw himself upon the green sod, his back to atree, his face toward the distant chateau. Hours afterward the faithfulSelim came out to tell him that it was bedtime. He found his masterstill sitting there, looking across the moonlit flat in the direction ofa place in the hills where once he had dwelt in marble halls.
"Selim," he said, arising and laying his hand upon his servant'sshoulder, his voice unsteady with finality, "I have decided, after all,to go to Paris! We will live there, Selim. Do you understand?" withstrange fierceness, a great exultation mastering him. "We are to live inParis!"
To himself, all that night, he was saying: "I _must_ see her again--I_shall_ see her!"
A thousand times he had read and re-read the letter that Lady Deppingh
amhad written to him just before the ceremony in the cathedral atThorberg. He knew every word that it contained; he could read it in thedark. She had said that Genevra was going into a hell that no hereaftercould surpass in horrors! And that was ages ago, it seemed to him.Genevra had been a wife for nearly three months--the wife of a man sheloathed; she was calling in her heart for him to come to her; she wassuffering in that unspeakable hell. All this he had come to feel andshudder over in his unspeakable loneliness. He would go to her! Therecould be no wrong in loving her, in being near her, in standing by herin those hours of desperation.
A copy of a London newspaper, stuffed away in the recesses of his trunk,dated June 29th, had come to him by post. It contained the telegraphicdetails of the brilliant wedding in Thorberg. He had read the names ofthe guests over and over again with a bitterness that knew no bounds.Those very names proved to him that her world was not his, nor evercould be. Every royal family in Europe was represented; the list ofnoble names seemed endless to him--the flower of the world'saristocracy. How he hated them!
The next morning Selim aroused him from his fitful sleep, bringing thenews that a strange vessel had arrived off Aratat. Chase sprang out ofbed, possessed of the wild hope that the opportunity to leave the islandhad come sooner than he had expected. He rushed out upon his veranda,overlooking the little harbour.
A long, white, graceful craft was lying in the harbour. It was in soclose to the pier that he had no choice but to recognise it as a vesselof light draft. He stared long and intently at the trim craft.
"Can I be dreaming?" he muttered, passing his hand over his eyes. "Don'tlie to me, Selim! Is it really there?" Then he uttered a loud cry of joyand started off down the slope with the speed of a race horse, shoutingin the frenzy of an uncontrollable glee.
It was the Marquess of B----'s white and blue yacht!
* * * * *
Three weeks later, Hollingsworth Chase stepped from the deck of theyacht to the pier in Marseilles; the next day he was in Paris, attendedby the bewildered and almost useless Selim. An old and valued friend, acampaigner of the war-time days, met him at the Gare de Lyon in responseto a telegram.
"I'll tell you the whole story of Japat, Arch, but not until to-morrow,"Chase said to him as they drove toward the Ritz. "I arrived yesterday onthe Marquess of B----'s yacht--the _Cricket_. Do you know him? Of courseyou do. Everybody does. The _Cricket_ was cruising down my way andpicked me up--Bowles and me. The captain came a bit out of his way tocall at Aratat, but he had orders of some sort from the Marquess, bycable, I fancy, to stop off for me."
He did not regard it as necessary to tell his correspondent friend thatthe _Cricket_ had sailed from Marseilles with but one port inview--Aratat. He did not tell him that the _Cricket_ had come with amessage to him and that he was answering it in person, as it wasintended that he should--a message written six weeks before his arrivalin France. There were many things that Chase did not explain toArchibald James.
"You're looking fine, Chase, old man. Did you a lot of good out there.You're as brown as that Arab in the taximetre back there. By Jove, oldman, that Persian girl is ripping. You say she's his wife? She's--"Chase broke in upon this far from original estimate of the picturesqueNeenah.
"I say, Arch, there's something I want to know before I go to theMarquess's this evening. I'm due there with my thanks. He lives in theBoulevard St. Germain--I've got the number all right. Is one likely tofind the house full of swells? I'm a bit of a savage just now and I'mcorrespondingly timid."
His friend stared at him for a moment.
"I can save you the trouble of going to the Marquess," he said. "He andthe Marchioness are in London at present. Left Paris a month ago."
"What? The house is closed?" in deep anxiety.
"I think not. Servants are all there, I daresay. Their place adjoins theBrabetz palace. The Princess is his niece, you know."
"You say the Brabetz palace is next door?" demanded Chase, steadying hisvoice with an effort.
"Yes--the old Flaurebert mansion. The Princess was to have been thesocial sensation of Paris this year. She's a wonderful beauty, youknow."
"Was to have been?"
"She married that rotten Brabetz last June--but, of course, you neverheard of it out there in what's-the-name-of-the-place. You may haveheard of his murder, however. His mistress shot him in Brussels----"
"Great God, man!" gasped Chase, clutching his arm in a grip of iron.
"The devil, Chase!" cried the other, amazed. "What's the matter?"
"He's dead? Murdered? How--when? Tell me about it," cried Chase, hisagitation so great that James looked at him in wonder.
"'Gad, you seem to be interested!"
"I _am_! Where is she--I mean the Princess? And the other woman?"
"Cool off, old man. People are staring at you. It's not a long story.Brabetz was shot three weeks ago at a hotel in Brussels. He'd beenliving there for two months, more or less, with the woman. In fact, heleft Paris almost immediately after he was married to the PrincessGenevra. The gossip is that she wouldn't live with him. She'd found outwhat sort of a dog he was. They didn't have a honeymoon and they didn'tattempt a bridal tour. Somehow, they kept the scandal out of the papers.Well, he hiked out of Paris at the end of a week, just before the 14th.The police had asked the woman to leave town. He followed. Dope fiend,they say. The bride went into seclusion at once. She's never to be seenanywhere. The woman shot him through the head and then took a fine doseof poison. They tried to save her life, but couldn't. It was a rippingnews story. The prominence of the----"
"This was a month ago?" demanded Chase, trying to fix something in hismind. "Then it was _after_ the yacht left Marseilles with orders to pickme up at Aratat."
"What are you talking about? Sure it was, if the yacht left Marseillessix weeks ago. What's that got to do with it?"
"Nothing. Don't mind me, Arch. I'm a bit upset."
"There was talk of a divorce almost before the wedding bells ceasedringing. The Grand Duke got his eyes opened when it was too late. Herepented of the marriage. The Princess was obliged to live in Paris fora certain length of time before applying to the courts for freedom.'Gad, I'll stake my head she's happy these days!"
Chase was silent for a long time. He was quite cool and composed when atlast he turned to his friend.
"Arch, do me a great favour. Look out for Selim and Neenah. Take 'em tothe hotel and see that they get settled. I'll join you this evening.Don't ask questions, but put me down here. I'll take another cab.There's a good fellow. I'll explain soon. I'm--I'm going somewhere andI'm in a hurry."
* * * * *
The _voiture_ drew up before the historic old palace in the BoulevardSt. Germain. Chase's heart was beating furiously as he stepped to thecurb. The _cocher_ leaned forward for instructions. His fare hesitatedfor a moment, swayed by a momentary indecision.
"_Attendre_" he said finally. The driver adjusted his register andsettled back to wait. Then Chase mounted the steps and lifted theknocker with trembling fingers. He was dizzy with eagerness, cold withuncertainty.
She had asked him to come to her--but conditions were not the same aswhen she sent the compelling message. There had come into her life avital break, a change that altered everything. What was it to mean tohim?
He stood a moment later in the salon of the old Flaurebert palace,vaguely conscious that the room was darkened by the drawn blinds, andthat it was cool and sweet to his senses. He knew that she was comingdown the broad hallway--he could hear the rustle of her gown.Inconsequently he was wondering whether she would be dressed in black.Then, to his humiliation, he remembered that he was wearing uncouth,travel-soiled garments.
She was dressed in white--a house gown, simple and alluring. There wasno suggestion of the coronet, no shadow of grief in her manner as shecame swiftly toward him, her hands extended, a glad light in her eyes.
The tall man, voiceless with emotion, clasped her hands in hi
s andlooked down into the smiling, rapturous face.
"You came!" she said, almost in a whisper.
"Yes. I could not have stayed away. I have just heard that you--you arefree. You must not expect me to offer condolences. It would be sheerhypocrisy. I am glad--God, I am glad! You sent for me--you sent theyacht, Genevra, before--before you were free. I came, knowing that youbelonged to another. I find you the same as when I knew you first--whenI held you in my arms and heard you say that you loved me. You do notgrieve--you do not mourn. You are the same--my Genevra--the same that Ihave dreamed of and suffered for all these months. Something tells methat you have descended to my plane. I will not kiss you, Genevra, untilyou have promised to become my wife."
She had not taken her eyes from his white, intense face during this longsumming-up.
"Hollingsworth, I cannot, I will not blame you for thinking ill of me,"she said. "Have I fallen in your eyes? I wanted you to be near me. Iwanted you to know that when the courts freed me from that man that Iwould be ready and happy to come to you as _your_ wife. I am not inmourning to-day, you see. I knew you were coming. As God is my witness,I have no husband to mourn for. He was nothing to me. I want you for myhusband, dearest. It was what I meant when I sent out there foryou--that, and nothing else."
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