CHAPTER II
The group in the room sat in silence with an air of stiff expectation. Themembers of the family knew they were not assembled to pay respect to thememory of the woman who had just been buried. Her husband had regarded heras a drag upon him, and did not consider her removal an occasion for thedisplay of hypocritical grief. Rather was it to be regarded as an act oftimely intervention on the part of Death, who for once had not acted asmarplot in human affairs.
They were there to listen to the story of the triumph of the head of thefamily, Robert Turold. Most families have some common source of interestand pride. It may be a famous son, a renowned ancestor, a faded heirloom,even a musical daughter. The pride of the Turold family rested on thebelief that they were of noble blood--the lineal inheritors of a greatEnglish title which had fallen into abeyance hundreds of years before.
Robert Turold had not been content to boast of his nobility and die acommoner like his father and grandfather before him. His intense pridedemanded more than that. As a boy he had pored over the crabbed parchmentsin the family deed-box which indicated but did not record the familydescent, and he had vowed to devote his life to prove the descent andrestore the ancient title of Turrald of Missenden to the Turolds of whichhe was the head.
There was not much to go upon when he commenced the labour of thirtyyears--merely a few old documents, a family tradition, and the similarityof name. And the Turolds were poor. Money, and a great deal of it, wasneeded for the search, in the first instance, of the unbroken line ofdescent, and for the maintenance of the title afterwards if the claim wascompletely established. But Robert Turold was not to be deterred byobstacles, however great. He was a man with a single idea, and such menare hard to baulk in the long run.
He left England in early manhood and remained away for some years. Hisfamily understood that he had gone to seek a fortune in the wilds of theearth. He reappeared--a saturnine silent man--as suddenly as he had goneaway. In his wanderings he had gained a fortune but partly lost the use ofone eye. The partial loss of an eye did not matter much in a country likeEngland, where most people have two eyes and very little money, andtherefore pay more respect to wealth than vision.
Robert Turold invested his money, and then set to work upon his greatambition with the fierce restlessness which characterized all hisproceedings in life. He married shortly after his return. He soon came tothe conclusion that his marriage was a great mistake--the greatest mistakeof his life. His wife had borne him two girls. The first died in infancy,and some years later Sisily was born. His regrets increased with the birthof a second daughter. He wanted a son to succeed him in the title--when hegained it. Time passed, and he became enraged. His anger crushed the timidwoman who shared his strange lot. His dominating temperament and moodypride were too much for her gentle soul. She became desperately afraid ofhim and his stern ways, of that monomania which kept them wanderingthrough the country searching for links in a [pedigree] which had to betraced back for hundreds of years before Robert Turold could grasp hisheart's desire.
When She died in the house on the cliffs where they had come six monthsbefore, Robert Turold had accomplished the task to which his life had beendevoted. Some weeks before he had summoned his brother from London todisclose his future plans. The brothers had not met for many years, butAustin was quick to obey when he learnt that a fortune and a title were atstake. The sister and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Pendleton, had reachedCornwall two days before the funeral. They were to take Sisily back toLondon with them. It was Robert Turold's intention to part with hisdaughter and place her in his sister's charge. For a reason he had not yetdivulged, Sisily was to have no place in his brilliant future. He dislikedhis daughter. Her sex was a fatal bar to his regard. He had heaped so manyreproaches on her mother for bringing another girl into the world that thepoor woman had descended to the grave with a confused idea that she was toblame.
Sisily had a strange nature, reticent, yet tender. She had loved hermother passionately, and feared and hated her father because he hadtreated his wife so harshly. She had been the witness of it all--from herearliest childhood to the moment when the unhappy woman had died with hereyes fixed on her husband's implacable face, but holding fast to herdaughter's hand, as though she wanted to carry the pressure of thoseloving fingers into the grave.
A clock on the mantel-piece ticked loudly. But it was the only sound whichdisturbed the quietness of the room. The representatives of the familyeyed one another with guarded indifference. Circumstances had kept themapart for many years, and they now met almost as strangers.
Mrs. Pendleton sat on a sofa with her husband. She was a notable outlineof a woman, large and massive, with a shrewd capable face and amiddle-class mind. She lived, when at home, in the rarefied atmosphere ofGolders Green, in a red house with a red-tiled roof, one of a streetfulsimilarly afflicted, where she kept two maids and had a weekly receptionday. She was childless, but she disdained to carry a pet dog ascompensation for barrenness. Her husband was a meagre shrimp of astockbroker under his wife's control, who golfed on Sundays and playedauction bridge at his club twice a week with cyclic regularity. He and hiswife had little in common except the habit of living together, which hadmade them acquainted with each other's ways.
Mrs. Pendleton had not seen either of her brothers for a long time. Roberthad been too engrossed in digging into the past for the skeletons of hisancestors to do more than write intermittent letters to the living membersof his family, acquainting them with the progress of his search. AustinTurold, Robert's younger brother, had spent a portion of his life in Indiaand had but recently returned. He had gone there more than twenty yearsbefore to fill a Government post, taking with him his young wife, butleaving his son at school in England for some years. His wife hadlanguished and died beneath an Indian sun, but her husband had becomeacclimatized, and remained until his time was up and he was free to returnto England with a pension. His sister and he met on the previous day forthe first time since he had left England for India, and Mrs. Pendleton hadsome difficulty in identifying the elderly and testy Anglo-Indian with thehandsome young brother who had bade her farewell so many years before.And, she had even more difficulty in recognizing the fair-haired littleboy of that time in the good-looking but rather moody-faced young man whoat the present moment was seated near the window, staring out of it.
The fifth member of the party was Dr. Ravenshaw, who practised in thechurchtown where Mrs. Turold had been buried, and had attended her in herillness.
But he had not been asked to share in the family council on that account.His presence was due to his intimacy with Robert Turold, which hadcommenced soon after the latter's arrival in Cornwall. The claimant for atitle had found in the churchtown doctor an antiquarian after his ownheart, whose wide knowledge of Cornish antiquities had assisted in thediscovery of the last piece of evidence necessary to establish his claim.
Dr. Ravenshaw sat a little apart from the other, a thickset grey figure ofa man, with eyes reddened as though by excessive reading, and usuallyprotected by glasses, which just then he had removed in order to polishthem with his handkerchief. In age he was sixty or more. His thick greybeard was mingled with white, and the heavy moustache which drooped overhis mouth was quite white. He presented a common-place figure in his roughworn tweeds and heavy boots, but he was a man of intelligence in spite ofhis unassuming exterior. He lived alone, cared for by a single servant,and he covered on foot a scattered practice among the fishing populationof that part of the coast. His knowledge of Cornish antiquities andheraldic lore had won him the confidence of Robert Turold, and hiskindness to Mrs. Turold in her illness had gained him the gratitude of herdaughter Sisily.
It was Austin Turold who caused a diversion in this group of lay figuresby walking to the table and helping himself to a whisky-and-soda. Austinbore very little resemblance to his grim and dominant elder brother. Hehad a slight frail figure, very carefully dressed, and one of thosethin-lipped faces which seem to wear a perpetual sneer of
superiorityover commoner humanity. The movements of his white hands, the inflectionof his voice, the double eyeglass which dangled from his vest by a ribbonof black silk, revealed the type of human being which considers itselfsomething rarer and finer than its fellows. The thin face, narrow whiteforehead, and high-bridged nose might have belonged to an Oxford don orfashionable preacher, but, apart from these features, Austin Turold hadnothing in common with such earnest souls. By temperament he was adilettante and cynic, who affected not to take life seriously. His axiomof faith was that a good liver was the one thing in life worth having, anda far more potent factor in human affairs than conscience. He had at onetime regarded his brother Robert as a fool and visionary, but had seen fitto change that opinion latterly.
He paused in the act of raising his glass to his lips, and looked over thesilent company as though seeking a convivial companion. His son was stillstaring out of the window. The little stockbroker, seated on the sofabeside his large wife, made a deprecating movement of his eyebrows, asthough entreating not to be asked. Austin's cold glance roved to Dr.Ravenshaw.
"Doctor," he said, "let me give you a whisky-and-soda."
Doctor Ravenshaw shook his head. "I have a patient to visit before dark,"he said, "a lady. I do not care to carry the smell of spirits into asick-room."
"But this is a special occasion, Ravenshaw," persisted the other. "We donot restore a title every day."
"Austin!" The voice of Mrs. Pendleton sounded from the sofa in shockedprotest.
"What's the matter?" said Austin, pausing in the act of pouring somewhisky into a glass.
"It would be exceedingly improper to drink a toast at such a moment."
"What's the matter with the moment?"
"The day, then. Just when we have buried poor Alice." Mrs. Pendleton hadnot seen her brother's wife for ten years before her death, but she had nodifficulty in bringing tears to her eyes at the recollection of her. Shedried her eyes with her handkerchief, and added in a different tone: "Ifancy Robert is coming."
A heavy step was heard descending the stairs. Austin drained his glass,and Dr. Ravenshaw adjusted his spectacles as Robert Turold entered theroom.