XXII
Boden was just coming to the end of his evidence. The adjournedinquest on Melrose, held in the large parlour of the old Whitebeckinn, was densely crowded, and the tension of a charged moment might befelt. Men sat gaping, their eyes wandering from the jury to the witnessor the gray-haired coroner; to young Lord Tatham sitting beside the talldark man who had been Mr. Melrose's agent, and was now the inheritor ofhis goods; to the alert and clean-shaven face of Undershaw, listeningwith the concentration of the scientific habit to the voice from thewitness-box. And through the strained attention of the room there ran thestimulus of that gruesome new fact--the presence overhead of yet anotherdead man, dragged only some twenty-four hours earlier from the swollenwaters of the river.
The murderer had been found--a comparatively simple proceeding. But, inthe finding him, the ulcer of a hideous suspicion, spread by popularmadness, and inflamed by popular hatred, had also been probed andcleansed. As Boden's evidence progressed, building up the story ofBrand's sleuth-hound pursuit of his victim, and silently verified frompoint to point by the local knowledge of the audience, the change in thecollective mind of this typical gathering of shepherds, farmers, andsmall tradesmen might have been compared to the sudden coming of softweather into the iron tension, the black silence, of a great frost. Galesof compunction blew; of self-interest also; and the common judgmentveered with them.
After the inevitable verdict had been recorded, a fresh jury wasempanelled, and there was a stamping of sturdy Cumbrian feet up the innstairs to view the pitiful remains of another human being, botched byNature in the flesh, no less lamentably than Melrose in the spirit. Thelegal inquiry into Brand's flight and death was short and mostly formal;but the actual evidence--as compared with current gossip--of his lucklessmother, now left sonless and husbandless, and as to the relations of thefamily with Faversham, hastened the melting process in the public mind.It showed a man in bondage indeed to a tyrant; but doing what he could tolighten the hand of the tyrant on others; privately and ineffectivelygenerous; remorseful for the sins of another; and painfully aware of hismixed responsibility.
Yet naturally there were counter currents. Andover, the old Cumbriansquire, whose personal friction with Faversham had been sharpest, leftthe inn with a much puzzled mind, but not prepared as yet to surrenderhis main opinion of a young man, who after all had feathered his nest souncommonly well. "They may say what they d--n please," said the furiousand disappointed Nash, as he departed in company with his shabbyaccomplice, the sallow-faced clerk, "but he's walked off with the dibs,an' I suppose he thinks he'll jolly well keep 'em. The 'cutest youngscoundrel I ever came across!" which, considering the range of thespeaker's experience, was testimony indeed.
Regret, on the one hand, for a monstrous and exposed surmise; on theother, instinctive resentment of the man's huge, unearned luck under thewill that Melrose would have revoked had he lived a few more hours, ascontrasted with the plight of Felicia Melrose; between these poles men'sminds went wavering. Colonel Barton stood at the door of the inn beforeFaversham emerged for a few undecided moments, and finally walked away,like Andover, with the irritable reflection that the grounds on which hehad originally cut the young man still largely stood; and he was notgoing to kow-tow to mere money. He would go and have tea with LadyTatham; she was a sensible woman. Harry's behaviour seemed to himsentimental.
Faversham, Boden, and Harry Tatham left the inn together and were joinedby Undershaw outside. They walked silently through the irregular villagestreet where groups stood at the cottage doors to see them pass. As theyemerged upon the high road the three others perceived that they werealone. Faversham had disappeared.
"Where is he?" said Tatham, standing amazed and looking back. They hadgained the crest of a hill whence, beyond the roofs of Whitebeck in thehollow, a section of the main road could be dimly seen, running west awhite streak piercing the wintry dusk. Along the white streak movedsomething black--the figure of a man. Boden pointed to it.
"Where's he going?" The question fell involuntarily from Undershaw.
Boden did not reply. But as Undershaw spoke there flashed out a distantlight on the rising ground beyond the streak of road. Above it, huddledshapes of mountains, dying fast into the darkness. They all knew it for alight in Green Cottage; the same that Tatham had watched from the Duddonmoorland on the evening of the murder. They turned and walked on silentlytoward the lower gate of Duddon.
"What's he going to do about the money?" said Undershaw abruptly.
Boden turned upon him, almost with rage.
"For heaven's sake, give him time!--it's positively indecent to rush aman who's gone through what that man's gone through!"
Faversham pursued his way toward the swelling upland which looks southover St. John's Vale, and north toward Skiddaw. He went, led by apassionate impulse, sternly restrained till this moment. Led also by thevision of her face as it had been lifted to him beside the grave ofMelrose. Since then he had never seen her. But that Boden had written toher that morning, early, after the recovery of Brand's body, he knew.
The moon shone suddenly behind him, across the waste of Flitterdale, andthe lower meadows of St. John's Vale. It struck upon the low white houseamid its trees.
"Is Miss Penfold at home?"
The maid recognized him at once, and in her agitation almost lost herhead. As she led him in, a little figure in a white cap with streamersfluttered across the hall.
"_Oh_, Mr. Faversham!" said a soft, breathless voice.
But Mrs. Penfold did not stop to speak to him. Gathering up hervoluminous black skirts, and her shawls that were falling off hershoulders, she hurried upstairs. There followed a thin girl with darkhair piled above dark eyes.
"Lydia is in the drawing-room," said Susy, with dramatic depth of voice;and the two disappeared.
When he entered, Lydia was standing by the fire. The light of someblazing wood, and of one small lamp, filled the pretty room with colourand soft shadows. Among them, the slender form in its black dress, thefair head thrown back, the outstretched hands were of a loveliness thatarrested him--almost unmanned him.
She came forward.
"You've been so long coming!"
The intonation of the words expressed the yearning of many days andnights. They were not a reproach; rather, an exquisite revelation.
He took her hands, and slowly, irresistibly he drew her; and she cameto him. He bowed his face upon hers, and the world stood still! Throughthe emotion of that supreme moment, with its mingled cup of joy andremembered bitterness there ran for him a touch of triumph natural tohis temperament. She had asked no promise from him; reminded him of nocondition; made no reservation. There she was upon his breast. The malepride in him was appeased. Self-respect seemed once more possible.
Hand in hand, they sat down together by the fire. He gave her an accountof the double inquest, and the result.
"When we came out," he added, calmly, "there were not quite so many readyto lynch me as before."
Her hand trembled in his. The horror of his experience, the anguishedsympathy of hers, spoke in the slight movement, and the pressure thatanswered it. Some day, but not yet, it would be possible to put it intowords.
"And I might do nothing!" she breathed.
"Nothing!" He smiled upon her, but his tone brought a shudder--theshudder of the traveller who looks back upon the inch which has held himfrom the abyss. But for Cyril Boden's adventure of the night before,would she ever have seen him again?
"I was a long time with my solicitors this morning," he said abruptly.
"Yes?" She turned her face to his; but his morbid sense could detect init no sign of any special interest.
"The will was opened on the day of the funeral. It was a great surprise.I had reason to suppose that it contained a distinct provisioninvalidating all bequests to me should I propose to hand over any of theproperty, or money derived from the property, to Felicia Melrose, orher mother. But it contained nothing of the kind. The first draft of thewi
ll was sent to his solicitors at the end of July. They put it intoform, and it was signed the day after he communicated his intentions tome. There is no doubt whatever that he meant to insert such a clause. Hespoke of it to me and to others. I thought it was done But as a matter offact he never either drafted it himself, or gave final instructions forit. His Carlisle man--Hanson--thought it was because of his horror ofdeath. He had put off making his will as long as possible--got itdone--and then could not bring himself to touch it again! To send for itback--to finger and fuss with it--seemed to bring death nearer and he didnot mean to die."
He paused, shading his eyes with his hand. The visualising sense,stimulated by the nerve strain of the preceding weeks, beheld withghastly clearness the face of Melrose in death, with the blood-stain onthe lips.
"And so," he resumed, "there was no short way out. By merely writing toMiss Melrose, to offer her a fortune, it was not possible to void thewill."
He paused. The intensity of his look held her motionless.
"You remember--how I refused--when you asked me--to take any steps towardvoiding it?"
Her lips made a dumb movement of assent.
"But--at last--I took them. In the final interview I had with Melrose, hethreatened me with the cancelling of his will, unless I consented--Tathamhas told you--to sell him my uncle's gems. I refused. And so far as wordscould, he there and then stripped me of his property. It is by the mereaccident of his murder at that precise moment that it has come to me. Nowthen--what is to be done?"
Her hand slipped further into his. For a few minutes he seemed to beabsorbed in the silent reconstruction of past trains of thought, emergingwith a cry--though it was under his breath:
"If I took his money now--against his will--I should feel his yoke--hishateful yoke--again, on my neck! I should be his slave still."
"You shall not take it!" she said with passion.
He smiled at her suddenly.
"It is nothing to Lydia, to be poor?"
"And free--and happy--and alive!--no, nothing!"
At that he could only draw her to him again. She herself must needs bringhim back to the point.
"You have decided?"
"I could of course refuse the succession. That would throw the wholeproperty into Chancery; the personalty would go to the mother anddaughter, the real estate to whatever legal heirs could be discovered.There are same distant cousins of Lady Tatham, I believe. However--thatdid not attract me at all."
He rose from his seat beside her, and stood looking down upon her.
"You'll realize?--you'll understand?--that it seems to me just--anddesirable--that I should have some voice in the distribution of thismoney, this and land, rather than leave it all to the action of a court.Everything--as things are--is legally mine. The personalty is immense;there are about thirty thousand acres of land, here and elsewhere; andthe collections can't be worth much less than half a million. I declineto own them; but I intend to settle what becomes of them! Nash and otherssay they will dispute the will. They won't. There is no case. As to thepersonalty and the land--well, well, you'll see! As to the collections--Imean to make them, if I can, of some use to the community. And in thateffort"--he spoke slowly--"I want you to help me!"
Their eyes met; hers full of tears. She tried to speak, and could not. Hecame to kneel down by her and took her in his arms.
"Did you think I had sold myself to the devil last time I was here?"
"I was so harsh!--forgive ..." she said brokenly.
"No. You called things by their right names."
There was silence till he murmured:
"Isn't it strange? I had quite given up prayer--till these last weeks. Topray for any definite physical or material thing would seem to me now--asit always has done--absurd. But to reach out--to the Power beyond ourweakness!"
He paused a moment and resumed:
"Boden did that for me. He came to me--at the worst. He never preached tome. He has his black times--like the rest of us. But something upholdshim--and--oh! so strangely--I don't think he knew--through him--I toolaid hold. But for that--I might have put an end to myself--more thanonce--these last weeks."
She clung to him--whispering:
"Neither of us--can ever suffer--again--without the other--to help."
They kissed once more, love and youth welling up in them, and drowningout of sight, for the moment at least, the shapes and images of pain.Then recovering his composure, hand fast in hand, Faversham began to talkmore calmly, drawing out for her as best he could, so that it need not bedone again--and up to the very evening of the murder--the history of thenine months which had, so to speak, thrown his whole being into themelting-pot, and through the fusing and bruising of an extraordinaryexperience, had remade a man. She listened in a happy bewilderment. Itstruck her newly--astonishingly. Her love for him had always included atenderly maternal, pitying element. She had felt herself the maturercharacter. Sympathy for his task, flattered pleasure in her Egeria role,deepening into something warmer and intenser with every letter from himand every meeting, even when she disputed with and condemned him; love inspite of herself; love with which conscience, taste, aspiration, allquarrelled; but love nevertheless, the love which good women feel for theman that is both weaker and stronger than themselves--it was so she mighthave read her own past, if the high passion of this ultimate moment hadnot blurred it.
But "Life at her grindstone" had been busy with Faversham, and in thesifted and sharpened soul laid bare to her, the woman recognized hermate indeed. Face to face with cruelty and falsehood, in others, and withthe potentialities of them in his own nature; dazzled by money and power;and at last, delivered from the tyranny of the as though by some fiercegaol-delivering angel, Faversham had found himself; and such a self ascould never have been reasonably prophesied for the discontented idlerwho in the May meadows had first set eyes on Lydia Penfold.
He sketched for her his dream of what might be done with the treasures ofthe Tower.
Through all his ugly wrestle with Melrose, with its disappointments andhumiliations, his excavator's joy in the rescue and the setting in orderof Melrose's amazing possessions had steadily grown of late, the onlypleasure of his day had come from handling, cleaning and cataloguing thelovely forgotten things of which the house was full. These surfaces ofivory and silver, of stucco or marble, of wood or canvas, pottery orporcelain, on which the human mind, in love with some fraction of thebeauty interwoven with the world, had stamped an impress of itself,sometimes exquisite, sometimes whimsical, sometimes riotous--above all,_living_, life reaching to life, through the centuries: these, from arefuge or an amusement, had become an abiding delight, something,moreover, that seemed to point to a definite lifework--paid honourably bycash as well as pleasure.
What would she think, he asked her, of a great Museum for the north--acentre for students--none of your brick and iron monstrosities, risingamid slums, but a beautiful house showing its beautiful possessions toall who came; and set amid the streams and hills? And in one wing of it,perhaps, curator's rooms--where Lydia, the dear lover of nature and art,might reign and work--fitly housed?...
But his brow contracted before she could smile.
"Some time perhaps--some time--not now! Let's forget--for a little.Lydia--come away with me--let's be alone. Oh, my dear!--let's be alone!"
She was in his arms again, calming the anguish that would recur--of thosenights in the Tower after the murder, when it had seemed to him that notBrand, but himself, was the prey that a whole world was hunting, withHate for the huntsman.
But presently, as they clung to each other in the firelight, he rousedhimself to say:
"Now, let me see your mother; and then I must go. There is much to do.You will get a note from Lady Tatham to-night."
She looked up startled. And then it came over her, that he had neverreally told her what he meant to do with Melrose's money. She had noprecise idea. Their minds jumped together, and she saw the first laugh inhis dark eyes.
"
I shan't tell you! Beloved--be good and wait! But you guess already. Wemeet to-morrow--at Duddon."
She asked no question. The thin mystery--for her thoughts did indeeddrive through it--pleased her; especially because it seemed to pleasehim.
Then Mrs. Penfold and Susy were brought down, and Mrs. Penfold sat amidexplanations and embraces, more feather-headed and inconsequent even thanusual, but happy, because Lydia caressed her, and this handsome thoughpale young man on the hearthrug kissed her hand and even, at command, herstill pink cheek; and it seemed there was to be a marriage--only not themarriage there should have been--a substitution, clearly, of Threlfallfor Duddon? Lydia would live at Threlfall; would be immensely rich; andthere would be no more bloodhounds in the park.
But when Faversham was gone, and realities began to sink into the littlelady's mind, as Lydia sitting at her feet, and holding her hand, tried toinfuse them, dejection followed. No coronet!--and now, no fortune! Shedid not understand these high-stepping morals, and she went sadly to bed;though never had Lydia been so sweet to her, so ready to brush her hairby the fire as long as ever she chose, so full of daughterly promises.
Susy kissed her sister when they were alone, tenderly but absently.
"You're a rare case, Lydia--unique, I think. The Greeks would call yousomething--I forget! I should really like to understand the psychology ofit. It might be useful."
Lydia bantered her a little--rather sorely. But the emotions of herfamily would always be so much "copy" to Susy; and the fact did not inthe least prevent her being a warm-hearted, and, in her own way,admirable little person.
Finally, Lydia turned the tables on her, by throwing an arm round herneck, and inquiring whether Mr. Weston had not paid her a very longcall the day before. Susy quietly admitted it, and added: "But I toldhim not to call again. I'm afraid--I'm bored with him. There are nomysteries in his character--no lights and shades at all. He is toovirtuous--monotonously so. It would be of no technical advantage to mewhatever, to fall in love with him."
That evening came a note from Lady Tatham:
"MY DEAR LYDIA:
"We expect you to-morrow at 11:30. Mr. Faversham has asked that we--andyou--Cyril Boden, Doctor Undershaw, old Dixon, and Felicia (her poormother is _very_ ill, and we hear news to-day of the sudden death of theold grandfather)--should meet him at that hour in Harry's library. Andafterward, you will stay to lunch? My dear, you have in this house twowarm friends who love you and long to see you. Each hour that passesgrows more thrilling than the last....
"I have been spending some time with old Mrs. Brand--and I told her Iknew you would go to her to-morrow. They have given her her dead son--andshe sits with his feet against her breast. She loved him best of all. Onethinks of Rizpah gathering the bones."
* * * * *
Next morning Tatham was in his library before eleven, making a pretenceof attending to some County Council business, but in truth restless withexpectation, and thinking of nothing but the events immediately ahead.
What was going to happen?
Faversham no doubt was going to propose some division of the Melroseinheritance with Felicia, and some adequate provision for the mother.Only a few weeks before this date Tatham had been in a mood to loathe thenotion that Felicia should owe a fortune, small or great, to the charityof a greedy intruder. To-day he awaited Faversham's visit as a friend,prepared to welcome his proposals in the spirit of a friend, to put, thatis, the best and not the worst interpretation upon them. After all, thefortune was legally his; and if Melrose had died intestate, Felicia andher mother would only have shared with some remote heirs with far lessclaim than Faversham.
He owed this change of temper--he knew--simply to the story whichUndershaw had brought him of the last scene between Faversham andMelrose. That final though tardy revolt had fired the young man'sfeelings and drowned his wraths. In his secret mind, he left Brand's shotuncondemned; and the knowledge that before that final _coup_ was given,the man whom Melrose had alternately bribed and bullied had at last foundstrength to turn upon him in defiance, flinging his money in his face,had given infinite satisfaction to Harry's own hatred of a tyrant.Faversham, even more than Brand, had avenged them all. The generous,pugnacious youth was ready to take Faversham to his heart.
And yet, not without uneasiness, some dread of reaction in himself,if--by chance--they were all mistaken in their man! Neither Boden, norUndershaw, nor he had any definite idea of the conclusions to whichFaversham had come. He had not had a word to say to them on that head;although, during these ghastly weeks, when they had acted as buffersbetween him and an enraged populace, relations of intimacy had clearlygrown up between him and Boden, and both Undershaw and Tatham had beenincreasingly conscious of liking, even respect, for a much-abused man.
Oh, it was--it would be--all right! Lydia would see to it!
Lydia! What a letter that was the post had brought him--what a letter,and what a woman! He sighed, thinking with a rueful though satiric spiritof all those protestations of hers in the summer, as to independence,a maiden life, and the rest. And now she confessed that, from thebeginning, it had been Faversham. Why? What had she seen in him? Theyoung man's vanity no less than his love had been sore smitten. But thepain was passing. And she was, and would always be, a dear woman, to whomhe was devoted.
He had pushed aside his letters, and was pacing his library. Presently heturned and went into a small inner room, his own particular den, where hekept his college photographs, some stuffed and now decaying beasts,victims of his earliest sport, and many boxes of superb toy soldiers, thepassion of his childhood. There on the wall, screened from vulgar eyes,hung five water-colour drawings. He went to look at them--sentimentally.Had the buying of anything in the world ever given him so much pleasure?
As he stood there, he was suddenly aware of a voice--girl's voiceoverhead, singing. He turned and saw that the window was open to the mildDecember air. No doubt the window on the story above was open too. Itwas Felicia--and the sound ceased as suddenly as it had risen. Just aphrase, a stormy phrase, from an Italian folk-song which he had heardher sing to his mother. He caught the usual words--"_morte"_--"_amore."_They were the staple of all her songs; to tell the truth he was oftenbored by them. But the harsh, penetrating note--as though it were a noteof anger--in the sudden sound, arrested him; and when it became silent,he still thought of it. It was a strange, big voice for so small acreature.
He was glad to hear that she could sing again. Nobody imagined that shecould regret her father; but certainly the murder had sharply affectedher nerves and imagination. She had got hold of the local paper beforethey could keep it from her; and for nights afterward, according to hismother she had not been able to sleep. He himself had tried of late todistract her. He had asked her to ride with him; he had brought her booksand flowers. To no avail. She was very short and shy with him; onlyhappy, apparently, with his mother, to whom her devotion wasextraordinary. To her own mother, so Lady Tatham reported, she was asgood--as gentle even--as her temperament allowed. But there was a deepdiscrepancy between them.
As to Mrs. Melrose, whose life, according to the doctor, was only amatter of weeks, possibly months, Victoria believed that the shock of herold father's death had affected her much more acutely than the murder ofher husband. She fretted perpetually that she had left her father tostrangers, and that she could not help to lay him in his grave. Feliciatoo had cried a little, but had soon consoled herself with the sensiblereflection--so it seemed to Tatham--that at least her poor old Babbo wasnow out of his troubles.
His thoughts strayed on to the coming hour and Felicia's future. Itamused the young man's mere love of "eventful living" to imagine hersurprise, if what he shrewdly supposed was going to happen, did happen.But no one could say--little incalculable thing!--how she would take it.
The handle of the door was turned, and some one entered. He looked round,and saw Felicia. Her black dress emphasized the fairylike delicacy of herface and hands; and somethin
g in her look--some sign of smothered miseryor revolt--touched Tatham sharply. He hurried to her, biding her goodmorning, for she had not appeared at breakfast.
"And I wanted to see you before they all come. How is your mother?"
"Just the same." She allowed him but the slightest touch of her smallfingers before she turned abruptly to the row of water-colours. "Whopainted those?"
"Miss Penfold. Don't you know what a charming artist she is?"
"They are not at all well done!" said Felicia. "Amateurs have no businessto paint."
"She is not an amateur!" cried Tatham. "She--"
Then again he noticed that she was hollowed-eyed, and her lipwas twitching. Poor little girl!--in her black dress--soon to bemotherless--and with this critical moment in front of her!
He came nearer to her in the shy, courteous way that made a dissonance soattractive with his great height and strength.
"Dear Felicia! I may, mayn't I? We're cousins. Don't be nervous--orafraid. I think it's all coming right."
She looked at him angrily.
"I'm not nervous--not the least bit! I don't care what happens."
And holding her curly head absurdly high, she went back into the library,which Victoria, Undershaw, and Cyril Boden had just entered. Tathamregretted that he had not made more time to talk with her; to prepare hermind for alternatives. It might have been wiser. But Faversham's summonshad been sudden; and his own expectations were so vague!
However, there was no time now. Lydia arrived, and she and Tathamwithdrew into the inner room for a few minutes, deep in consultation.Felicia watched them with furious eyes. And when they came out again, asoft flush on Lydia's cheeks, it was all that Felicia could do to preventherself from rushing upstairs again, leaving them to have their horridmeeting to themselves.
But flight was barred. Faversham entered, accompanied by the seniorsolicitor to the Threlfall estate and by old Dixon, shaking withnervousness, in a black Sunday suit. Chairs had been provided. They tooktheir seats. Tatham cleared his own table.
"No need!" said the solicitor, a gentleman with a broad, benevolent faceslightly girdled by whiskers. "It's very short!"
And smiling, he took out of his pocket a document consisting apparentlyof two sheets of square letter paper, and amid the sudden silence, hebegan to read.
The first and longer sheet was done. Felicia, sitting on the edge of astiff chair, her small feet dangling, was staring at the lawyer. Victoriawas looking at her son bewildered. Boden wore an odd sort of smile.Undershaw, impassive, was playing with his watch-chain. Lydia radiant anderect, in a dress of gray-blue tweed, a veil of the same tint fallingback from the harmonious fairness of her face, had her eyes on Felicia.There was a melting kindness in the eyes--as though the maternity deep inthe girl's nature spoke.
A deed of gift, _inter vivos_, conveying the whole personality and realestate, recently bequeathed to Claude Faversham by Edmund Melrose,consisting of so-and-so, and so-and-so,--a long catalogue of shares andland which had taken some time to read--to Felicia Melrose, daughter ofthe late Edmund Melrose, subject only to an annuity to her mother,Antonetta Melrose, of L2,000 a year, to a pension for Thomas Dixon andhis wife, and various other pensions and small annuities; Henry, EarlTatham, and Victoria, Countess Tatham, appointed trustees, and to act asguardians, till the said Felicia Melrose should attain the age oftwenty-four; no mention of any other person at all; the whole vastproperty, precisely as it had passed from Melrose to Faversham, justtaken up and dropped in the lap of this little creature with the danglingfeet without reservation, or deduction--now that it was done, and notmerely guessed at, it showed plain for what in truth it was--one of thoseacts wherein the energies of the human spirit, working behind thematerial veil, swing for a moment into view, arresting and stunning thespectator.
"But the collections!" said Tatham, remembering them almost with relief,speaking in his mother's ear; "what about the collections?"
"We come now to the second part of the deed of gift," said the silveryvoice of the lawyer. And again the astounded circle set itself to listen.
"The collections of works of art now contained in Threlfall Tower, Ialso convey in full property and immediate possession to the said FeliciaMelrose, but on the following conditions:
"Threlfall Tower, or such portions of it as may be necessary, to bemaintained permanently as a museum in which to house the said collection:a proper museum staff to be appointed; a sum of money, to be agreed uponbetween Claude Faversham and Felicia Melrose, to be set aside for themaintenance of the building, the expenses of installation, and theendowment of the staff; and a set of rooms in the west wing to beappropriated to the private residence of a curator, who is to beappointed, after the first curatorship, by--"
Certain public officials were named, and a few other stipulations made.Then with a couple of legal phrases and a witnessed signature, the secondsheet came to an end.
There was a silence that could be heard. In the midst of it Favershamrose. He was agitated and a little incoherent.
"The rest of what has to be said is not a formal matter. If MissMelrose, or her guardians, choose to make me the first Curator of theThrelfall Tower Museum, I am willing to accept that office at theirhands, and--after, perhaps, a year--I should like to occupy the roomsI have mentioned in the west wing--with the lady who has now promised tobe my wife. I know perhaps better than any one else what the housecontains; and I could spend, if not my life, at any rate a term of years,in making the Tower a palace of art, a centre of design, of training, ofsuggestion--a House Beautiful, indeed, for the whole north of England.And my promised wife says she will help me."
He looked at Lydia. She put her hand in his. The sight of most people inthe room had grown dim.
But Felicia had jumped up.
"I don't want it all! I won't have it all!" she said in a passionateexcitement. "My father hated me. I told him I would never take his money.Why didn't you tell me--why didn't you warn me?" She turned to Tatham,her little body shaking, and her face threatening tears.
"Why should Mr. Faversham do such a thing? Don't let him!--don't let him!And I ought--I ought--to have been told!"
Faversham and Lydia approached her. But suddenly; putting her hands toher face, she ran to the French window of the library, opened it, andrushed into the garden.
Tatham and his mother looked at each other aghast.
"Run after her!" said Victoria in his ear. "Take this shawl!" She handedhim a wrap she had brought in upon her arm.
"Yes--it's December," said Boden, smiling, to Lady Tatham; "butperhaps"--the accent was ironical--"when she comes back the seasonswill have changed!"
The session broke up in excited conversation, of which Faversham was thecentre.
"This is final?" said Undershaw, eying him keenly. "You intend to standby it?"
"'Fierce work it were to do again!'" said Faversham, in a quotationrecognized by Undershaw, who generally went to bed with a scientific bookon one side of him, and a volume of modern poets on the other. Favershamwas now radiant. He stood with his arm round Lydia. Victoria had herhand.
* * * * *
Meanwhile in the Italian garden and through the yew hedges, Daphne fled,and Apollo pursued. At last he caught her, and she sank upon a gardenseat. He put the shawl round her, and stood with his hands in his pocketssurveying her.
"What was the matter, Felicia?" he asked her, gently.
"It is ridiculous!" she said, sobbing. "Why wasn't I asked? I don't wanta guardian! I won't have you for a guardian!" And she beat her footangrily on the paved path.
Tatham laughed.
"You'll have to go back and behave nicely, Felicia. Haven't you anythanks for Faversham?"
"I never asked him to do it! How can I look after all that! It'll killme. I want to sing! I want to go on the stage!"
He sat down beside her. Her dark head covered with its silky curls, hervery black eyes and arched brows in her small pink face, the pointedchin, and tiny mou
th, made a very winning figure of her, as she satthere, under a garden vase, and an overhanging yew. And that, althoughthe shawl was huddled round her shoulders, and the eyes were red withtears.
"You will be able to do anything you like, Felicia. You will be terriblyrich."
She gazed at him, the storm in her breast subsiding a little.
"How rich?" she asked him, pouting.
He tried to give her some idea. She sighed. "It's dreadful! What shall Ido with it all!"
Then as her eyes still searched him, he saw them change--first tosoft--then wild. Her colour flamed. She moved farther from him, and triedto put on a businesslike air.
"I want to ask a question."
"Ask it."
"Am I--am I as rich as any girl you would be likely to marry?"
"What an odd question! Do you think I want money?"
"I know you don't!" she said, with a wail. "That's what's so horrid! Whycan't you all leave me alone?"
Then recovering herself fiercely, she began again:
"In my country--in Italy--when two people are about equally rich--a manand a girl--their relations go and talk to each other. They say, 'Will itsuit you?'--the man has so much--the girl has so much--they like eachother--and--wouldn't it do very well!"
She sprang up. Tatham had flushed. He looked at her in speechlessamazement. She stood opposite him, making herself as tall as she could,her hands behind her.
"Lord Tatham--my mother is ill--my father is dead. You're not my guardianyet--and I don't think I'll ever let you be! So there's nobody but me todo it. I'm sorry--I know it's not quite right, quite--quite English.Well, any way! Lord Tatham, you say I have a _dot_! So that's all right.There's my hand. Will you marry me?"
She held it out. All her excitement had gone, and her colour. She wasvery pale, and quite calm.
"My dear Felicia!" cried Tatham, in agitation, taking the hand, "what aposition to put your guardian in! You are a great heiress. I can't runoff with you like this--before you've had any other chances--beforeyou've seen anybody else."
"If you don't, I won't take a farthing! What good would it be to me!"
She came closer, and put her little hands on his shoulders as he sat--thecentre of one of those sudden tumults of sense and spirit that sweep astrong man from his feet.
"Oh, won't you take care of me? I love you so!"
It was a cry of Nature. Tatham gave a great gulp, put out his arms, andcaught her. There she was on the bench beside him, laughing and sobbing,gathered against his heart.
The cheerful December day shone upon them: a robin sang in the yew treeoverhead....
Meanwhile the library was still full. Nobody had yet left it; andinstinctively everybody was watching the French window.
Two figures appeared there, Felicia in front. She came in, her eyes castdown, a bright spot on either cheek. And while every one in the room heldtheir breath she crossed the floor and paused in front of Faversham.
"Mr. Faversham, I ask your pardon, that I was so rude. I--" A sob rosein her throat, and she stopped a moment to control it. "Till the otherday--I was just a poor girl--who never had a _lira_ to spend. All that weate--my mother and I--we had to work for. And now--you have made me rich.It's--it's very wonderful. I only wish"--the sob rose again--"just thatlast time--my father had been kind to me. I thank you with all my heart.But I can't take it all, you know--I _can't!_"
She looked at him appealing--almost threatening. Faversham smiled at her.
"That doesn't lie with you! One of your trustees has already signed thedeed--here comes the other." He pointed to Tatham.
"But he isn't my trustee!" insisted Felicia, the tears brimming over;"he's--"
Tatham came up to her, and gravely took her hand.
Felicia looked at him, then at Victoria, then at the circle of amazedfaces. With a low cry of "Mother" she turned and fled from the room,drawing Lady Tatham with her.
A little while later, Lydia, the lawyers and Faversham having departed,found herself alone a moment in the library. In the tumult of happyexcitement which possessed her, she could not sit still. Without anyclear notion of where she was going, she wandered through the open doorinto the farther room. There, with a start, and a flush, she recognizedher own drawings--five of them--in a row. So here, all the time, was herunknown friend; and she had never guessed!
At a sound in the room behind, she turned, hoping it was Lady Tatham whohad come back to her. But she saw that it was Tatham himself. He cameinto the little room, and stood silently beside her, as though wantingher to speak first. With deep emotion she held out her hand, and wishedhim joy; her gesture, her eyes, all tenderness.
"She is so lovely--so touching! She will win everybody's heart!"
He looked down upon her oddly, like some one oppressed by feelings andthoughts beyond his own unravelling.
"She has been very unhappy," he said simply. "I think I can take care ofher."
Lydia looked at him anxiously. A sudden slight darkening seemed tocome into the day; and for one terrified moment she seemed to seeTatham--dear, generous youth!--as the truly tragic figure in theirhigh mingled comedy.
Not Melrose--but Tatham! Then, swiftly, the cloud passed, and she laughedat herself.
"Take care of her! You will be the happiest people in the world--savetwo!"
He let her talk to him, the inner agitation whatever it was,disappearing. She soothed, she steadied him. Now, at last, they were tobe true friends--comrades in the tasks and difficulties of life. Withoutwords, her heart promised it--to him and Felicia.
As they left the room, she pointed, smiling, to the drawings.
"So you were the elderly solicitor, with a taste for art, I used to seein my dreams!"
His eyes lit up boyishly.
"I had to keep them here, for fear you'd find out. Now, we'll hang themproperly."
It was Victoria who broke the news to Netta Melrose. She, a little wastedghost among her pillows, received it calmly; yet with a certainbitterness mingled in the calm. What did the money matter to her? Andwhat had she to do with this English world, and this young lord Feliciawas to marry? Far within, she hungered, on the threshold of death, as shehad hungered twenty years before, for the Italian sun, and the oldItalian streets, with the deep eaves and the sculptured doorways, and thesmells of leather and macaroni. Her father had loved them, and she hadloved her father; all the more passionately the more the world disownedhim. She sat in spirit beside his crushed and miserable old age, findingher only comfort in the memory of how his feeble hands had clung to her,how she had worked and starved for him.
Yet, when Felicia came to her, she cried and blessed her. And Felicia,softened by happiness, knelt down beside her, and begged and prayed herto get well. To please them all, Netta made her nurse do her hair, andput on a white jacket which Victoria had embroidered for her. And whenTatham came in to see her, she would have timidly kissed his hand had henot been so quick to see and prevent her.
Meanwhile Victoria, still conscious of the clinging of Felicia's armsabout her, was comparing--secretly and inevitably--the daughter-in-lawthat might have been, with the daughter-in-law that was to be. Nowthat Fate's throw was irrevocably made, she found herself appreciatingLydia as she had never done while the chances were still open. Lydiahad refused her Harry; Felicia had captured him. Perhaps she resentedboth actions; and would always--secretly--resent them. But yet, inLydia--Lydia with her early maturity, her sweet poise and strength ofnature, she foresaw the companion; in Felicia, the child and darling ofher old age. And looking round on this crooked world, she acknowledged,now as always, that she had got more than she deserved, more--muchmore--than her share.
A conviction that Cyril Boden did his best to sharpen in her. With theinvincible optimism of his kind, he scoffed at the misgivings which sheconfided to him, and to him only, on the score of Felicia's lack oftraining, her touchy and passionate temper, and the little unscrupulousways that offended a fastidious observer.
"What does it matter?" he sai
d to her--"she is in love--head over ears.You and he can make of her what you like. She will beat him if he looksat anybody else; but she will have ten children, and never have a thoughtor an interest that isn't his. And as to the money--"
"Yes--the money!" said Victoria, dejectedly. "What on earth will they dowith it all? Harry is so rich already."
"Do with it!" Boden turned upon her. "Grow a few ideas in your landlordgarden! Turn the ground of it--enrich it--change it--try experiments!How long will this England leave the land to you landowners, unless youbring some mind to it--aye, and the best of your _souls_! you--thenation's servants! Here is a great tract left desolate by one man'swickedness. Restore the waste places--build--people--teach! Heavens,what a chance!" His eyes kindled. "And when Faversham and Lydia comeback--yoke them in too. Curator!--stuff! If he won't own that estate,make him govern it, and play the man. Disinterested power!--with such awife--and such a friend! Could a man ask better of the gods! Now is yourmoment. Rural England turns to you, its natural leaders, to shape itafresh. Shirk--refuse--at your peril!"
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends