in the month of august lord roxhall, who was at arcachon with his wife, ostensibly for health, in reality to cut short the expenses of a season in town, received amongst his correspondence a letter in a black-edged envelope addressed in a clear firm handwriting which was unknown to him, and bearing the postmark of his own country town, that town which william massarene’s funeral had recently passed through in such pomp and glory.
the letter astonished him, and he read it twice, incredulous of its meaning and wondering vaguely if it were genuine.
it was dated from vale royal and worded thus:
“my dear lord roxhall,
“pardon me that i have not earlier replied to your very kind letter of condolence on the terrible death of my father. under his will i unfortunately become sole owner of all he possessed. he purchased this estate of vale royal of you, and i inherit it with the rest. i do not think we have done any harm here; we have perhaps done some material good, but the people on the estate dislike us and despise us. i quite understand and do not blame their feeling. i like and respect it. they are as faithful to you as highlanders to charles edward. i cannot remain here, for neither my mother nor i care to reside amongst a justly disaffected population. my poor father bought your estate at a fair price no doubt; but it will never be morally or righteously ours. there are some things of which no amount of money can legalize the sale to a sensitive conscience. will you do me a favor? will you buy it back? i should only require half the purchase-money, and should be much obliged to you to let the other half remain on mortgage on the estate. i believe the value of land is decreased since he bought it, and of course you would have a valuation taken. or i should be happy to comply with any other conditions which might be more suitable to you. in any way if you will take it off my hands as soon as the law permits me to dispose of it, i shall be greatly indebted and relieved of a heavy burden; for no one can do any good on a property where all the occupants[415] of the soil are their enemies. so entirely is my mother, as well as myself, convinced of this fact that we shall leave the place, never to return to it, in a few days’ time, and the house will remain closed. i hope that you will before long go back to it.
“i remain, sincerely yours,
“katherine massarene.”
he was breakfasting under the pine trees, his wife was opposite to him at a small round table. the letter astonished him and affected him, he discerned the generosity which was ill-concealed under its effort to make the offer seem to the advantage of the writer. when he had pondered over it for some minutes he passed it over the table to his companion.
“she would give it to us if she dared,” he said as his wife took it. she read it quickly at a glance, as women do read, and looked up, the color rising in her face, her eyes radiant with hope.
“oh, gerald! can you do it?”
“do you care so much?” said roxhall; his own voice was unsteady.
lady roxhall leaned her elbow on the table and covered her eyes with her hand to hide her emotion from the passers-by in the hotel garden.
“i could not tell you all i have suffered; i tried to conceal it; if it were only to have left the grave of lillias to strangers——”
“you good little thing, to have been so silent!” said roxhall, touched and grateful.
“shall we go back, gerald?” his wife murmured, her heart beating with mingled fear and hope.
“i think i could do it,” answered roxhall. “at least, if it is fair to take her offer. one must not come over this young woman because she is generous. yes; i think with great pinching we could do it.”
“i would live on bread and water all my life to go back!” said his wife with a force he had never known in her.
“i ought never to have sold it,” said roxhall, his thoughts reverting to his cousin’s wiles. he took up the letter and read it again.
[416]“she would like to give it to us,” he said a second time. “how very odd that such an unutterable cad as that man massarene was should have such a daughter. i think i had better go to london to-night and see our lawyers. i will get the old place back somehow, if it’s fair to her.”
“yes, one must be fair to her,” said his wife, and added with remorse, “and to think how rude i have always been to her! i turned my back on them all three at the late state concert, just a week before the man was assassinated.”
roxhall laughed and got up to go and look at the railway time-table, and she rose too, and to avoid her many acquaintances went to walk by herself in the woods and commune with her own heart, and her longing to return to vale royal, and her wistful memories of her little dead child, lillias. she was a gentle, brave, tender-hearted woman who had suffered much and concealed her sufferings courageously from both her husband and her world.
at the end of that month katherine massarene had ceased for a time her painful self-imposed task and gone down to bournemouth, where she had taken a house for the autumn and winter; a villa in a pine-wood which looked on to the sea. it was a pretty place but to her mother it seemed a poor nutshell after the spaciousness and splendor of harrenden house and vale royal. the diminished establishment, the comparatively empty stables, the loss of richemont and his satellites, were at once a relief and an offence to her.
“one would think poor william had been sold up and we was livin’ on my savings,” she said in indignation.
“my dear mother, you could not keep up this place under three thousand a year,” said her daughter.
“and what’s that to us as had millions?” asked her mother.
katherine thought of the primary plank hut at kerosene city, but she saw that her mother was in no mood to remember those primitive times.
the bournemouth residence was really pretty and had a simple elegance in it which was due to a great painter whose whim and pleasure it had been; and it was a fitting retreat for two women in deep mourning. but margaret[417] massarene chose to consider it as a mixture of workhouse and prison. her fretfulness and incessant lamentation made her companionship very trying, for it was the kind of obstinate discontent with which no arguments can struggle with any chance of success. one fine dim balmy morning, when the smell of the sea blended strongly with the scent from the pine-woods, katherine was alone in the large room which had been the painter’s studio and was now set aside for her own use, reading the still voluminous correspondence from her agents and solicitors. a young footman, who had not the perfect training which mr. winter had exacted in his underlings, opened the door and ushered in unannounced a tall fair man, who stood in hesitation on the threshold. “lord hurstmanceaux, ma’am,” said the young servant, and shut the door behind the visitor’s back.
katherine looked up from her heavily-laden writing-table, and was vexed to feel that she changed color.
“my mother and i do not receive——” she said with some embarrassment.
hurstmanceaux came across the room and stood on the other side of the table.
“you have not drawn the check which i sent to you on coutts’s,” he said abruptly.
she answered merely “no.”
“and why not?”
“because i do not choose to take that money.”
hurstmanceaux’s face grew red and very stern.
“you insult me, miss massarene.”
“i do not mean to do so,” said katherine gently. “i begged you not to send it to me. my father, i am certain, never expected the duchess to repay it.”
“that is very singular language. do you mean that your father was on terms with my sister which would justify him in making her such gifts?”
she was silent; that was her meaning but she could not say so.
“if you do think it, you must cease to think it,” said ronald. “if there were any man in your family——”
katherine looked him straight in the eyes.
“pray do not let the fact of my sex influence you. i[418] dare say i have many male relatives, but they are, i believe, navvies, and colliers, and laborers, and the like, who would not be foemen worthy of your patrician steel.”
she spoke with a certain cold and careless contempt which brought the blood to his cheeks.
“you have full right to condemn my sister, but not to suppose what you do not know,” he said with some embarrassment. “the debt was a matter of business, as a matter of business i treat it, and refund the money to you, who are the sole living representative of the dead creditor.”
“there are many debts due to him. i have cancelled them all. they are all due from persons of your great world. he thought their suffrages worth buying. i do not. and i think the people who sell oranges and apples in the streets are superior to those who sell their prestige, their patronage, or their company.”
hurstmanceaux winced as he heard her, like a high-mettled horse flicked with the whip.
“i am wholly of your opinion,” he said coldly. “but in this instance the debt is paid so far as a debt ever can be; and you are bound to take the payment of it. you are not bound to preserve silence on the matter, but if you do so you will make me grateful.”
“i have told you that you may be certain of my silence,” she said, with some impatience. “that is elementary honor which even i, low-born as i am, can understand!”
“honor does not require silence of you,” said hurstmanceaux. “but such silence will be a charity to us.”
“call it what you will,” she replied curtly, “you may count on it.”
“if you are a gentlewoman, madam,” he added, in his coldest and most courteous manner, “you must also understand that you render my position insupportable unless you accept that money.”
she did not immediately reply. she had not thought of the matter from his point of view. she reflected a little while, not looking at him, then she said, briefly:
“very well. it shall be as you wish.”
“i thank you,” he said, with embarrassment; and after a pause added, “i thank you exceedingly.” then he[419] bowed distantly, and left her without any additional words.
she sat in the same place for many minutes looking out over the grey sea which gleamed between the stems of the pines. then she rose and went to a dispatch-box, in which she had placed all his sister’s letters to her father, all proof of sums received by her, and all william massarene’s counterfoils of checks passed to her, and also the worthless bills of cocky.
she put all these together in a large envelope, sealed it carefully, and sent it registered to the duchess of otterbourne at the post office of bergen, where she knew that the steam-yacht in which that lady had gone to norway was at anchor.
she thus put it out of her own power for ever, and out of the power of any who might come after her, to prove the shame of hurstmanceaux’s best-beloved sister. “he will never be dishonored through us,” she thought.
the voice of her mother startled her and jarred on her.
“that’s a handsome man as is gone out just now,” said mrs. massarene. “’tis the duchess’s brother, ain’t it?”
katherine assented.
“he’s his sister’s good looks,” said mrs. massarene. “but he never would know poor william. may one ask what he come about, my dear?”
“only some business of his sister’s,” replied her daughter.
“he was always mighty high,” said mrs. massarene. “i hope you’re stand off too. let him feel as you’re your father’s daughter.”
katherine shuddered in the warm, pine-scented, sea-impregnated air.
mrs. massarene, since the tyranny under which she had been repressed so long had been removed from her, was a more self-asserting and self-satisfied person. her deep crape garments lent her in her own eyes majesty and importance, despite the slur which the will had cast upon her. she was william’s widow, a position which seemed to her second to none in distinction. death did for her lost spouse in her eyes what it often does for the dead with tender-hearted survivors; it made his cruelties dim and[420] distant, it made his memory something which his life certainly had never been. that burial by peers and princes had been as a cloud of incense which was for ever rising about his manes. royalty would not have sent even its youngest and smallest officer of the household to represent it at any funeral which had not been the wake of all the virtues. those towering heaps of wreaths had been in her view as a cairn burying out of sight all her husband’s misdeeds and brutalities.
as ill-luck would have it, daddy gwyllian, who was staying at cowes, crossed over to bournemouth that morning to see an invalid friend. he was sauntering along in his light grey clothes, his straw hat, and his yachting shoes, when as he passed the garden gateway of the villa which mrs. massarene had hired, he encountered ronald coming out of it.
“ah! dear boy,” he cried, in his pleasantest manner. “making it up with the heiress, eh? quite right. quite right. pity you’ve been so stiff-necked about it all these years.”
hurstmanceaux was extremely annoyed at this undesirable meeting. but he had nothing that he could say which would not have made matters worse.
“where did you spring from, daddy?” he said impatiently. “you are always appearing like a jack in a box.”
“i make it a rule to be where my richest and laziest fellow-creatures most congregate,” replied daddy. “and that in the month of august is the solent. but come, ronnie, let out a bit; you know i’m a very old friend. what are you doing down here if you’re not paying court to miss massarene?”
“i am certainly not paying court to miss massarene,” replied hurstmanceaux, very distantly. “i was obliged to see her on business.”
“ah! business is a very good antechamber to marriage,” said daddy, with a chuckle.
“it may be. i remain in the antechamber.”
“tut, tut! of course you say so. you are really becoming like other people, ronnie. i see you have sold your pictures!”
[421]“is that anyone’s affair but mine?”
“well, yes, i think so. a sale is everybody’s affair. there’s nothing sacred about it. i always told you they were wasted at faldon. nobody saw ’em but spiders and mice.”
hurstmanceaux was silent.
“what an uncommunicative beggar he is,” thought daddy. “when one thinks that i’ve known him ever since he was in knickerbockers with his hair down to his waist!”
“is it true that roxhall buys back vale royal?” he asked.
“ask roxhall,” said hurstmanceaux, “and i fear i must leave you now and walk on faster to the station.”
but gwyllian held him by the lappet of his coat.
“they do say,” he whispered, “that she’s almost given it to him. you must know. now do be frank, ronnie.”
“frankness does not necessitate the discussion of other people’s affairs. ask roxhall’s wife; she is at cowes; or go in and ask miss massarene; you know her.”
he disengaged himself with some difficulty from the clinging hold of gwyllian’s white wrinkled fingers, and went onward to the station to go to southampton, where his yawl was awaiting him. daddy looked at the gate of the villa. should he ring? no, he thought not. she was an unpleasant woman to tackle, hedgehoggy and impenetrable; she would be capable of saying to him, as hurstmanceaux had done, that roxhall’s affairs were no business of his. she was one of those unnatural and offensive persons who, having no curiosity themselves, regard curiosity in others without sympathy, and even with disapproval. daddy, feeling ill-used and aggrieved, turned down a lane bordered by rhododendrons and eucalyptus, and went to lunch with his sick friend, to whom he imparted sotto voce the fact that he thought ronald would come round and marry miss massarene.
“he’s always been such a crank,” added daddy. “but he’s begun to sell. that looks like coming to his senses—doing like other people.”
“it is certainly doing like many other people,” said his sick friend with a sad smile, for he had seen his own collections[422] go to the hammer. when gwyllian, a few hours later, went comfortably back over the water in a steam-launch to east cowes, he reflected as he glided along on what he had heard. being a sagacious person, he connected the sale of the faldon pictures with the visit to katherine massarene. “he’s either paying some debt of his sister’s or he’s helping roxhall to buy back the place. he’s such a confounded fool, he’d give his head away; and i dare say the young woman is sharp about money; wouldn’t be her father’s daughter if she wasn’t.” so he came very nearly to the truth in his own mind as he sat in the launch, whilst it wound in and out among the craft in the roads.
it was no business of his, but daddy gwyllian had always found that guessing what hands other people held was the most amusing way of playing the rubber of life; at least, when you are old, and only a looker-on at the tables.
“they do say she’s almost given it to him.” the words rang in ronald’s ears as he went on board his old yawl, the dianthus, and crossed to the island. roxhall had not spoken to him of the matter; he only knew what was, by that time, table-talk, that vale royal was to return to its original owner so soon as the law permitted katherine massarene to dispose of any portion of her inheritance. meantime, the house was closed. roxhall had not sought him on the subject, and he felt that if they discussed it, they would probably quarrel, their views would be so different. it was very bitter to him that any member of his family should again be indebted to the massarene fortune. it seemed as if the very stars in their courses fought against his will. why had not roxhall simply replied to her overtures, as he himself would have replied, that the sale of the estates, once having been made, could not be annulled?
as it was, all the world was talking of her generosity. it was intolerable! she had meant well, no doubt, but roxhall should have taught her, as he had taught her, that men who respect themselves cannot receive that kind of favors.
“why did you let him accept the return of the property,[423] elsie?” he said to lady roxhall, whom he saw on the club terrace at cowes as soon as he landed there.
lady roxhall colored a little.
“perhaps we ought not to have done so. but, oh, my dear ronald, i shall be so rejoiced to go back! it was very good of miss massarene to offer its release,” she added, “so rude as we have all of us been to her.”
“you cannot be rude any more,” said hurstmanceaux. “you have sold your freedom of choice for a mess of pottage. you have accepted this lady’s favors. you must embrace her in return if she exacts it.”
“how irritable ronald has grown,” thought lady roxhall. “he used to be so kind and sweet-tempered. i suppose it is his having to sell his pictures that sours him. i wonder why he did sell them?”
hurstmanceaux, before he went on board to sleep that night, wrote a letter at the r. y. s. club, which it cost him a great effort to write.
“but it’s not fair for all the generosity to be on her side,” he thought. “we must look like a set of savages to her. we have not even the common decency to thank her.”
“madam,—
“circumstances, on which it is needless for me to dwell, make it impossible for me to have the honor of any intercourse with you in the future. but do not think that i am, for that reason, insensible to the nobility, generosity, and kindness which you have displayed in your dealings with more than one member of my family, and the forbearance you have shown to one wholly unworthy of it. for the silence you have kept in the past, and have offered to preserve in the future, i pray you to accept my sincere gratitude. i beg to remain, madam,
“your obedient servant,
“hurstmanceaux.”
this letter brought tears to the eyes of the woman to whom it was addressed, although she was but very rarely moved to such emotion. “why should we be strangers,” she thought, “because of the sins or the crimes of others?”
[424]she drew the check which he had sent her on his bankers, but she gave, at the same time, a commission to a famous art agent in paris to buy back the dutch and flemish pictures of the faldon collection from the dealers who had purchased them, and on no account to let her name appear in connection with the purchase.
why should an honest and gallant gentleman lose heirlooms because his sister had been as venal as any courtezan of ancient rome or modern paris? how she would be able ever to restore them to him she did not know; meantime, she saved them from the hammer.
she thought that she would leave them to him by will, in case of her own death, with reversion to the national gallery if he refused to accept them, and to restore them to their places at faldon.
