"Sir Richard is in the Gun-Room. He gave orders that your ladyship should be told that he would be glad to speak to you immediately."

CHAPTER IX

IN WHICH d.i.c.kIE SHAKES HANDS WITH THE DEVIL

"My dear, this is quite unexpected."

Lady Calmady's tone was one of quiet, innate joyousness. A gentle brightness pervaded her whole aspect and manner. She looked wonderfully young, as though the hands of the clock had been put back by some twenty and odd years. Every line had disappeared from her face, and in her eyes was a clear shining very lovely to behold. Richard glanced at her as she came swiftly towards him across the room. Then he looked down again, and answered deliberately:--

"Yes, it is, as you say, quite unexpected. This time last night I as little antic.i.p.ated being back here as you antic.i.p.ated my coming. But one's plans change rapidly and radically at times. Mine have done so."

He sat at the large, library writing-table, a pile of letters, papers, circulars before him, judged unworthy of forwarding, which had acc.u.mulated during his absence. He tore off wrappers, tore open envelopes, quickly yet methodically, as though bending his mind with conscious determination to the performance of a self-inflicted task.

Looking at the contents of each in turn, with an odd mixture of indifference and close attention, he flung the major part into the waste-paper basket set beside his revolving-chair. A tall, green-shaded lamp shed a circle of vivid light upon the silver and maroon leather furnishings of the writing-table, upon the young man's bent head, and upon his restless hands as they grasped, and straightened, and then tore, with measured if impatient precision, the letters and papers lying before him.

Lady Calmady stood resting the tips of her fingers on the corner of the table, looking down at him with those clear shining eyes. His reception of her had not been demonstrative, but of that she was hardly sensible.

The reconciling a.s.surances of faith, the glories of the third heaven, still dazzled her somewhat. Her feet hardly touched earth yet, so that her mother-love and all its sensitive watchfulness was, as yet, somewhat in abeyance. She spoke again with the same quiet joyousness of tone.

"You should have telegraphed to me, dearest, and then all would have been ready to welcome you. As it is, I fear, you must feel yourself a trifle neglected. I have been, or have fancied myself, mightily busy all day--foolishly c.u.mbered about much serving--and had gone out to forget maids, and food, and domesticities generally, into the dear garden."--She paused, smiling. "Ah! it is a gracious night," she said, "full of inspiration. You must have enjoyed the drive home. The household refuses to take this marriage of yours philosophically, d.i.c.kie. It demands great magnificence, quite as much, be sure, for its own glorification as for yours. It also multiplies small difficulties, after the manner of well-conducted households, as I imagine, since the world began."

Richard tore the prospectus of a mining company, offering wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, right across with a certain violence.

"Oh, well, the household may forego its magnificence and cease from the multiplication of small difficulties alike, as far as any marriage of mine is concerned. You can tell the household so to-morrow, mother, or I can. Perhaps the irony of the position would be more nicely pointed by the announcement coming directly from myself. That would heighten the drama."

"But, d.i.c.kie, my dearest?" Katherine said, greatly perplexed.

"The whole affair is at an end. Lady Constance Quayle is not going to marry me, and I am not going to marry Lady Constance Quayle. On that point at least she and I are entirely at one. All London will know this to-morrow. Perhaps Brockhurst, in the interest of its endangered philosophy, had better know it to-night."

Richard leaned forward, opening, tearing, sorting the papers again. A rasping quality was in his voice and speech, hitherto unknown to his mother, a cold, imperious quality in his manner, also, new to her. And these brought her down to earth, setting her feet thereon uncompromisingly. And the earth on which they were thus set was, it must be owned, rather ugly. A woman made of weaker stuff would have cried out against such sudden and painful declension. But Katherine, happily both for herself and for those about her, waking even from dreams of n.o.ble and far-reaching attainment, waked with not only her wits, but her heart, in steady action. Yet she in nowise went back on the revelation that had been vouchsafed to her. It was in nowise disqualified or rendered suspect, because the gamut of human emotion proved to have more extended range and more jarring discords than she had yet reckoned with. Her mind was large enough to make room for novel experience in sorrow, as well as in joy, retaining the while its poise and sanity. Therefore she, recognising a new phase in the development of her child, without hesitation or regret of self-love for the disturbance of her own gladness braced herself to meet it. His pride had been wounded--somehow, she knew not how--to the very quick. And the smart of that wound was too shrewd, as yet, for any precious balms of articulate tenderness to soothe it. She must give it time to heal a little, meanwhile setting herself scrupulously to respect his dark humour, meet his pride with pride, his calm with at least equal calmness.

She drew a chair up to the end of the table, and settled herself to listen quite composedly.

"It will be well, dearest," she said, "that you should explain to me clearly what has happened. To do so may avert possible complications."

Richard's hands paused among the papers. He regarded Lady Calmady reflectively, not without a grudging admiration. But an evil spirit possessed him, a necessity of mastery--inevitable reaction from recently endured humiliation--which provoked him to measure his strength against hers. He needed a sacrifice to propitiate his anger.

That sacrifice must be in some sort a human one. So he deliberately pulled the tall lamp nearer, and swung his chair round sideways, leaning his elbow on the table, with the result that the light rested on his face. It did more. It rested upon his body, upon his legs and feet, disclosing the extent of their deformity.

Involuntarily Katherine shrank back. It was as though he had struck her. Morally, indeed, he had struck her, for there was a cynical callousness in this disclosure, in this departure from his practice of careful and self-respecting concealment. Meanwhile Richard watched her, as, shrinking, her eyelids drooped and quivered.

"Mother," he said, quietly and imperatively.--And when, not without perceptible effort, she again raised her eyes to his, he went on:--"I quite agree with you that it will be well for me to explain with a view to averting possible complications. It has become necessary that we should clearly understand one another--at least that you, my dear mother, should understand my position fully and finally. We have been too nice, you and I, heretofore, and, the truth being very far from nice, have expended much trouble and ingenuity in our efforts to ignore it. We went up to London in the fond hope that the world at large would support us in our self-deception. So it did, for a time. But, being in the main composed of very fairly honest and sensible persons, it has grown tired of sentimental lying, of helping us to bury our heads ostrich-like in the sand. It has gone over to the side of truth--that very far from flattering or pretty truth to which I have just alluded--with this result, among others, that my engagement has come to an abrupt and really rather melodramatic conclusion."

He paused.

"Go on, Richard," Lady Calmady said, "I am listening."

He drew himself up, sitting very erect, keeping his eyes steadily fixed on her, speaking steadily and coldly, though his lips twitched a little.

"Lady Constance did me the honour to call on me last night, rather later than this, absenting herself in the very thick of Lady Louisa Barking's ball for that purpose."

Katherine moved slightly, her dress rustled.

"Yes--considering her character and her training it was a rather surprising _demarche_ on her part, and bore convincing testimony to her agitation of mind."

"Did she come alone?"

Richard lapsed into an easier position.

"Oh, dear no!" he said. "Allowing for the desperation which dictated her proceedings, they were carried out in a very regular manner, with a praiseworthy regard for appearances. Lady Constance is, in my opinion, a very sweet person. She is perfectly modest and has an unusual regard--as women go--for honour and duty--as women understand them."--Again his voice took on that rasping quality. "She brought a friend, a young lady, with her. Fortunately there was no occasion for me to speak to her--she had the good taste to efface herself during our interview. But I saw her in the hall afterwards. I shall always remember that very distinctly. So, I imagine, will she. Then Lord Shotover waited outside with the carriage. Oh! believe me, admitting its inherent originality, the affair was conducted with an admirable regard for appearances."

Again the regular flow of Richard's speech was broken. His throat had gone very dry.

"Lady Constance appealed to me in extremely moving terms, articulate and otherwise, to set her free."

"To set her free--and upon what grounds?"

"Upon the rather crude, but preeminently sensible grounds, my dear mother, that after full consideration, she found the bid was not high enough."

"Indeed," Katherine said.

"Yes, indeed, my dear mother," Richard repeated. "Does that surprise you? It quite ceased to surprise me, when she pointed out the facts of the case. For she was touchingly sincere. I respected her for that. The position was an ungracious one for her. She has a charming nature, and really wanted to spare me just as much as was possible along with the gaining of her cause. Her gift of speech is limited, you know, but then no degree of eloquence or diplomacy could have rendered that which she had to say agreeable to my self-esteem. Oh! on the whole she did it very well, very conclusively."

Richard raised his head, pausing a moment. Again that dryness of the throat checked his utterance. And then, recalling the scene of the past night, a great wave of unhappiness, pure and simple, of immense disappointment, immense self-disgust broke over him. His anger, his outraged pride, came near being swamped by it. He came near losing his bitter self-control and crying aloud for help. But he mastered the inclination, perhaps unfortunately, and continued speaking.

"Yes, decidedly, with the exception of Ludovic, that family do not possess ready tongues, yet they contrive to make their meaning pretty plain in the end. I have just driven over from Whitney, and am fresh from a fine example of eventual plain speaking from that excellent father of the family, Lord Fallowfeild. It was instructive. For the main thing, after all, as we must both agree, mother, is to understand oneself clearly and to make oneself clearly understood. And in this respect you and I, I'm afraid, have failed a good deal. Blinded by our own fine egoism we have even failed altogether to understand others.

Lady Constance, for instance, possesses very much more character than it suited us to credit her with."

"You are harsh, dearest," Katherine murmured, and her lips trembled.

"Not at all," he answered. "I have only said good-bye to lying. Can you honestly deny, my dear mother, that the whole affair was just one of convenience? I told you--it strikes me now as a rather brutally primitive announcement--that I wanted a wife because I wanted a son--a son to prove to me the entirety of my own manhood, a son to give me at second hand certain obvious pleasures and satisfactions which I am debarred, as you know, from obtaining at first hand. You engaged to find me a bride. Poor, little Lady Constance Quayle, unfortunately for her, appeared to meet our requirements, being pretty and healthy, and too innocent and undeveloped to suspect the rather mean advantage we proposed to take of her.--What? I know it sounds rather gross stated thus plainly. But, the day of lies being over, dare you deny it?--Well then, we proceeded to traffic for this desirable bit of young womanhood, of prospective maternity,--to buy her from such of her relations as were perverted enough to countenance the transaction, just as shamelessly as though we had gone into the common bazar, after the manner of the cynical East, and bargained for her, poor child, in fat-tailed sheep or cowries. Doesn't it appear to you almost incredible, almost infamous that we--you and I, mother--should have done this thing? The price we offered seemed sufficient to some of her people--not to all, I have learned that past forgetting to-day, thanks to Lord Fallowfeild's thick-headed, blundering veracity. But, thank heaven, she had more heart, more sensibility, more self-respect, more decency, than we allowed for. She plucked up spirit enough to refuse to be bought and sold like a pedigree filly or heifer. I think that was rather heroic, considering her traditions and the pressure which had been brought to bear to keep her silent. I can only honour and reverence her for coming to tell me frankly, though at the eleventh hour, that she preferred a man of no particular position or fortune, but with the ordinary complement of limbs, to Brockhurst, and the house in London, and my forty to forty-five thousand a year, plus----"

Richard laughed savagely, leaning forward, spreading out his arms.

"Well, my dear mother,--since as I say the day of lies is over,--plus the remnant of a human being you may see here, at this moment, if you will only have the kindness to look!"

At first Katherine had listened in mute surprise, bringing her mind, not without difficulty, into relation to the immediate and the present.

Then watchful sympathy had been aroused, then anxiety, then tenderness, denying itself expression since the time for it was not yet ripe. But as the minutes lengthened and the flow of Richard's speech not only continued, but gained in volume and in force, sympathy, anxiety, tenderness, were merged in an emotion of ever-deepening anguish, so that she sat as one who contemplates, spellbound, a scene of veritable horror. From regions celestial to regions terrestrial she had been hurried with rather dislocating suddenness. But her sorry journey did not end there. For hardly were her feet planted on solid earth again, than the demand came that she should descend still further--to regions sub-terrestrial, regions frankly infernal. And this descent to h.e.l.l, though rapid to the point of astonishment, was by no means easy. Rather was it violent and remorseless--a driving as by reiterated blows, a rude merciless dragging onward and downward. Yet even so, for all the anguish and shame--as of unseemly exposure--the perversion of her intention and action, the scorn so ruthlessly poured upon her, it was less of herself, the compelled, than of Richard, the compelling, that she thought. For even while his anger thus drove and dragged her, he himself was tortured in the flame far below,--so it seemed, and that const.i.tuted the finest sting of her agony--beyond her power to reach or help. She, after all, but stood on the edge of the crater, watching. He fought, right down in the molten waves of it--fought with himself, too, more fiercely even than he fought with her. So that now, as years ago waiting outside the red drawing-room, hearing the stern, peremptory tones of the surgeons, the moan of unspeakable physical pain, the grating of a saw, picturing the dismemberment of the living body she so loved, Katherine was tempted to run a little mad and beat her beautiful head against the wall. But age, while taking no jot or t.i.ttle from the capacity of suffering, still, in sane and healthy natures, brings a certain steadiness to the brain and coolness to the blood. Therefore Katherine sat very still and silent, her sweet eyes half closed, her spirit bowed in unspoken prayer. Surely the all-loving G.o.d, who, but a brief hour ago, had vouchsafed her the fair vision of the delight of her youth, would ease his torment and spare her son?

And, all the while, outward nature remained reposeful and gracious in aspect as ever. The churring of the night-jars, the occasional bark of the fox in the Warren, the song of the answering nightingales, wandered in at the open cas.e.m.e.nts. And, along with these, came the sweetness of the beds of wild thyme from the gra.s.s slopes, and the rich, languid scent of the blossom of the little, round-headed, orange trees set, in green tubs below the carven guardian griffins, on the flight of steps leading up to the main entrance. That which had been lovely, continued lovely still. And, therefore perhaps,--she could hope it even in the fulness of her anguish,--the gates of h.e.l.l might stand open to ascending as well as descending feet and so that awful road might at last--at last--be retraced by this tormented child of hers, whom, though he railed against her, she still supremely loved.

But Richard, whether actually or intentionally it would be difficult to say, misinterpreted and resented her silence and apparent calm. He waited for a time, his eyes fastened upon her half-averted face. Then he picked up one of the remaining packets from the table, tore off the wrapper, glanced at the contents, stretched out his left arm holding the said contents suspended over the waste-paper basket.

"Yes, it is evident," he declared, "even you do not care to look! Well, then, must you not admit that you and I have been guilty of an extravagance of fatuous folly, and worse, in seriously proposing that a well-born, sensitive girl should not only look at, habitually and closely, but take for all her chance in life a crippled dwarf like me--an anomaly, a human curiosity, a creature so unsightly that it must be carried about like any baby-in-arms, lest its repulsive ungainliness should sicken the bystanders if, leaving the shelter of a railway-rug and an armchair, it tries--unhappy brute--to walk?--Oh! I'm not angry with her. I don't blame her. I'm not surprised. I agree with her down to the ground. I sympathise and comprehend--no man more. I told her so last night--only amazed at the insane egoism that could ever have induced me to view the matter in any other light. Women are generally disposed to be hard on one another. But if you, my dear mother, should be in any degree tempted to be hard on Constance Quayle, I beg you to consider your own engagement, your own marriage, my father's----"

Here Katherine interrupted him, rising in sudden revolt.

"No, no, Richard," she said, "that is more, my dear, than I can either permit or can bear. If you have any sort of mercy left in you, do not bring your father's name, and that which lies between him and me, into this hideous conversation."