CHAPTER XVIII

Mrs. Nunn, although she had talked with much heat, was still collected enough to console herself with the reflection that Anne would be terrified into sailing with her on the morrow; it was incomprehensible to her well-regulated mind that any young lady in her niece's position in life would consent to a scandal.

To do her justice, she had no wish to precipitate Anne into an act which she believed must be fatal to her happiness, and she trusted to further argument to persuade her to return to London if only for the trousseau. With her niece and the poet on different sides of the equator she would answer for the result.

Nevertheless, she called in Lady Hunsdon and Lady Constance Mortlake, and fairly enjoyed the consternation visible upon the bright satisfied countenance of her Maria. Lady Hunsdon, indeed, thought it a great pity that Anne had not spared her son by selecting one of the beaux of Bath House instead of the dissolute poet.

"It is quite a tragedy!" she said with energy, "and I for one cannot permit it. I feel as if it were my fault----"

"It is," said Lady Constance.

"But is it? I am inclined to blame my son, as he brought me here to reform Mr. Warner--and that part of the work I take credit for----"

"Devil a bit. He never would have come to Bath House without Anne Percy as a bait. I have learned that he was several times seen staring through the windows of the saloon before he accepted your invitation."

"In that case he would have managed to meet her even had I not taken him in hand."

"Logical but doubtful. He had long since lost the entree to Bath House and to all the Great Houses. Only you, worse luck, had the power to bring him into a circle where he was able to meet the girl."

"Then you must admit that I have done some good. Had he not been able to meet her, he no doubt would have gone from bad to worse. I at least have been the medium in his reform, the necessary medium."

"I don't believe in reform."

"You were brought up at the court of George IV."

"So were you, and therefore should have more sense. Warner is temporarily set up. No doubt of that. He feels a new man and looks like one. No doubt he has sworn never to drink again and means it.

But wait till the honeymoon has turned to green cheese. Wait till he begets another poem. Poets to my mind have neither more nor less than a rotten spot in the brain that breaks out periodically, as hidden diseases break out in the body. Look at poor Byron."

It was Lady Hunsdon's turn to be satiric. "Poor dear Byron must have had a row of rotten spots one of which was always in eruption. One may judge not so much by his achievements as by his performances."

"Never mind!" cried Lady Constance, the colour deepening in her pendulous cheeks streaked with purple. "He was the most beautiful mortal that ever breathed and I was in love with him and am proud of it."

"I feel much more original that I was not----"

"Oh, dear friends," cried Mrs. Nunn, pathetically. "We have to do with a living poet--unhappily. Byron has been in Hucknall-Torkard church these twenty years. Do advise me."

"Stay and see it through," said Lady Constance. "I know love when I see it. It is so rare nowadays that it fairly wears a halo. By and by it will be extinct on earth and then we shall be kneeling to St. Eros and St. Venus and forget all the naughty stories about them, just as we have forgotten the local gossip about the present saints. You cannot prevent this match. You cannot even postpone it. I regret it as much as you do, but I cannot help sympathising with them! So young and so full of high and beautiful ideals! They will be happy for a time.

Who knows? He really may be a new man. Maria can convince herself of anything she chooses; I feel disposed to take a leaf out of her book."

Mrs. Nunn set her lips, thrust her bust up and her chin out. She looked obstinate and felt implacable. "I go to-morrow. Upon that I am resolved. I should be criminal to encourage her----"

There was a tap at the door. A servant entered with a note.

"From Anne!" announced Mrs. Nunn. She dismissed the servant and read it aloud:

DEAR AUNT EMILY:

Miss Ogilvy has sent the coach for me, feeling sure that I have incurred your displeasure, and asking me to go at once to the Grange. I have no wish to leave you if you remain at Bath House, but if you are resolved upon going to-morrow, I shall accept her invitation. Will you not let me come in and say good bye, dear aunt? Be sure that I am deeply grateful for all you have done for me and only wish that I might spare you so much pain.

ANNE.

Mrs. Nunn called in her maid and sent a verbal refusal to see her niece.

"I would have saved her if I could." She was now quite composed, in the full sense of duty done. "But it is imperative that I go to-morrow and announce aloud my disapproval of this unfortunate marriage. I shall renounce my guardianship of her property the day I return to London. I cannot save her, so I wash my hands."

"I shall stay for the wedding," said Lady Constance, "and all London can know it."

"It is my duty also to remain," said Lady Hunsdon, "and my son must be best man. But Emily is quite right to go."

CHAPTER XIX

Anne, during the ensuing month, had her first experience since childhood of home life. Mrs. Ogilvy lay on a sofa in one of her great cool rooms all day, but she made no complaint and diffused an atmosphere of peace and gentleness throughout the house. The younger children were pretty creatures, well trained by their English governess, and Mr. Ogilvy, richly coloured by sun and port, spent much of his time on horseback; amiable at home when his will was not crossed. The large stone house, painted a dazzling white, and surrounded by a grove of tropical trees, stood so high on the mountain that the garden terraces behind it finished at the entrance to the evergreen forest. It was fitted up with every Antillian luxury: fine mahogany furniture--the only wood that defied the boring of the West Indian worm--light cane chairs, polished floors of pitch pine, innumerable cabinets filled with bibelots collected during many English visits, tables covered with newspapers and magazines, the least possible drapery, and a good library. In the garden was a pavilion enclosing a marble swimming tank. Plates of luscious fruits and cooling drinks were constantly pa.s.sed about by the coloured servants, who looked as if they had even less to do than their masters. Anne was given a large room at the top of the house from which she could see the water, the white road where the negro women, with great baskets on their heads and followed by their brood, pa.s.sed the fine carriages from Bath House; and, on all sides, save above, the rich cane fields. Byam Warner came to breakfast and remained to dinner.

Miss Ogilvy was in her element. To use her own expression, Nevis and Bath House were in an uproar. The unforeseen engagement following on the heels of the famous poet's transformation, the haughty departure of Mrs. Nunn, and the manifest approval of Lady Hunsdon and Lady Constance, who called a.s.siduously at The Grange, the distinguished ancestry and appearance of Miss Percy, and the fact that the wedding was to take place on the island instead of in London, combined to make a sensation such as Nevis had not known since the marriage of Nelson and Mrs. Nisbet in 1787. Strange memories of Byam Warner were dismissed. He was a great poet and Nevis's very own. Never had Nevis so loved Medora. The Grange overflowed with visitors every afternoon, the piano tinkled out dance music half the night.

It was quite a week before Lord Hunsdon called at the Grange, nor did Anne and Medora meet him, even when lunching at Bath House. But one morning he rode out, and after a few moments of constrained politeness in the drawing-room, deliberately asked Anne to walk with him in the garden. She followed him with some apprehension. He was pale, his lips were more closely pressed, his eyes more round and burning, than ever.

When they were beyond the range of Miss Medora's attentive eye, he began abruptly:

"I have not come here before, dear Miss Percy, because I had to conquer my selfish disappointment. You cannot fail to know what my own hopes were. But I have conquered and we will never allude to the matter again. My friendship for Warner is now uppermost and it is of him I wish to speak."

"Yes? Yes?"

"Last night I sat late with him. He is full of hope, of youth--renewed youth must seem a wonderful possession to a man: we are so p.r.o.ne to let it slip by unheeded! Well, he is changed. I never hoped for half as much. He tells me that the demon has fled. He has never a sting of its tail. That may be because he never really craved drink save when writing--until these last years. It is this I wish to talk to you about. You have the most solemn responsibility that ever descended upon a woman: a beautiful soul, a beautiful mind in your keeping. If you ever relax your vigilance--ever love him less----"

"I never shall."

"No," he said with a sigh, "I don't fancy you will. But you must never leave him. He is not weak in one sense, but in loneliness he might turn to composition again, and there could be but one result."

"But if he had done without stimulant for a long while--was quite happy--well, do not you think I might be stimulant enough?" She laughed and blushed, but she brought it out.

Lord Hunsdon shook his head. "No, I do not believe that even you could work that miracle. I have known him since we were at Cambridge together, and I am convinced that there is some strange lack in that marvellous brain which renders his creative faculty helpless until fired by alcohol. If the human brain is a mystery how much more so is genius? Much is said and written, but we are none the wiser. But this peculiar fact I do know. The island records and traditions tell us that all his forefathers save one were abstemious, dignified, normal men, mentally active and important. But his grandfather, who spent the greater part of his time in London, was one of the most dissolute men of the Regency. He was a wit at court, a personal friend of the Prince Regent. There was no form of dissipation he did not cultivate, and he died of excess at a comparatively early age. By what would seem to be a special tinkering of the devil with the work of Almighty G.o.d those l.u.s.ts have taken possession of one section of Byam Warner's brain only, diseased it, redistributed its particles in a manner that has resulted in the abnormal faculty we call genius, but deprived it of that final energy which would permit those great powers to find their outlet without artificial stimulant. These may be fanciful ideas, but they have become fixed in my mind, and I have come here to-day to ask you to make me a solemn promise."

"Yes?"

"That you will never permit him to write again. You are not the woman to loosen your hold on a man's strongest feelings when the novelty has pa.s.sed. You can hold, influence him, forever. When you see signs of recurring life in that faculty, divert him and it will subside. He has fame enough. Nor do I think that he was ever untowardly ambitious.

You--_you_ can always persuade him to let the pen alone."

"But you make no allowance for those creative energies. They may still be very strong, demand their rights. That cry may in time be as irresistible as any of his more normal instincts."

"He has written enough," said Lord Hunsdon firmly. "He must rest on his laurels. You must persuade him that he cannot add to his fame.

With feminine arts you will induce him to believe that it is best to let well alone."