The Trespasser, Complete - Gilbert Parker
He was so engrossed that he did not hear the door open. He again repeated
the lines with the affectionate modulation of a musician. He knew that
they were right. They were hot with life--a life that was no more a part
of this peaceful landscape than a palm-tree would be. He felt that he
ought to read the poem in a desert, out by the Polar Sea, down on the
Amazon, yonder at Nukualofa; that it would fit in with bearding the
Spaniards two hundred years ago. Bearding the Spaniards--what did he mean
by that? He shut his eyes and saw a picture: A Moorish castle, men firing
from the battlements under a blazing sun, a multitude of troops before a
tall splendid-looking man, in armour chased with gold and silver, and
fine ribbons flying. A woman was lifted upon the battlements. He saw the
gold of her necklace shake on her flesh like sunlight on little waves. He
heard a cry:
At that moment some one said behind him: "You have your father's romantic
manner."
He quietly put down the book, and met the other's eyes with a steady
directness.
"Your memory is good, sir."
"Less than thirty years--h'm, not so very long!"
"Looking back--no. You are my father's brother, Ian Belward?"
"Your uncle Ian."
There was a kind of quizzical loftiness in Ian Belward's manner.
"Well, Uncle Ian, my father asked me to say that he hoped you would get
as much out of life as he had, and that you would leave it as honest."
"Thank you. That is very like Robert. He loved making little speeches. It
is a pity we did not pull together; but I was hasty, and he was rash. He
had a foolish career, and you are the result. My mother has told me the
story--his and yours."
He sat down, ran his fingers through his grey-brown hair, and looking
into a mirror, adjusted the bow of his tie, and flipped the flying ends.
The kind of man was new to Gaston: self-indulgent, intelligent, heavily
nourished, nonchalant, with a coarse kind of handsomeness. He felt that
here was a man of the world, equipped mentally cap-a-pie, as keen as
cruel. Reading that in the light of the past, he was ready.
"And yet his rashness will hurt you longer than your haste hurt him."
The artist took the hint bravely.
"That you will have the estate, and I the title, eh? Well, that looks
likely just now; but I doubt it all the same. You'll mess the thing one
way or another."
He turned from the contemplation of himself, and eyed Gaston lazily.
Suddenly he started.
"Begad," he said, "where did you get it?" He rose.
Gaston understood that he saw the resemblance to Sir Gaston Belward.
"Before you were, I am. I am nearer the real stuff."
The other measured his words insolently:
"But the Pocahontas soils the stream--that's plain."
A moment after Gaston was beside the prostrate body of his uncle, feeling
his heart.
"Good God," he said, "I didn't think I hit so hard!" He felt the pulse,
looked at the livid face, then caught open the waistcoat and put his ear
to the chest. He did it all coolly, though swiftly--he was' born for
action and incident. And during that moment of suspense he thought of a
hundred things, chiefly that, for the sake of the family--the family!--he
must not go to trial. There were easier ways.
But presently he found that the heart beat.
"Good! good!" he said, undid the collar, got some water, and rang a bell.
Falby came. Gaston ordered some brandy, and asked for Sir William. After
the brandy had been given, consciousness returned. Gaston lifted him up.
He presently swallowed more brandy, and while yet his head was at
Gaston's shoulder, said:
"You are a hard hitter. But you've certainly lost the game now."
Here he made an effort, and with Gaston's assistance got to his feet. At
that moment Falby entered to say that Sir William was not in the house.
With a wave of the hand Gaston dismissed him. Deathly pale, his uncle
lifted his eyebrows at the graceful gesture.
"You do it fairly, nephew," he said ironically yet faintly,--"fairly in
such little things; but a gentleman, your uncle, your elder, with
fists--that smacks of low company!"
Gaston made a frank reply as he smothered his pride
"I am sorry for the blow, sir; but was the fault all mine?"
"The fault? Is that the question? Faults and manners are not the same. At
bottom you lack in manners; and that will ruin you at last."
"You slighted my mother!"
"Oh, no! and if I had, you should not have seen it."
"I am not used to swallow insults. It is your way, sir. I know your
dealings with my father."
"A little more brandy, please. But your father had manners, after all.
You are as rash as he; and in essential matters clownish--which he was
not."
Gaston was well in hand now, cooler even than his uncle.
"Perhaps you will sum up your criticism now, sir, to save future
explanation; and then accept my apology."
"To apologise for what no gentleman pardons or does, or acknowledges
openly when done--H'm! Were it not well to pause in time, and go back to
your wild North? Why so difficult a saddle--Tartarin after Napoleon?
Think--Tartarin's end!"
Gaston deprecated with a gesture: "Can I do anything for you, sir?"
His uncle now stood up, but swayed a little, and winced from sudden pain.
A wave of malice crossed his face.
"It's a pity we are relatives, with France so near," he said, "for I see
you love fighting." After an instant he added, with a carelessness as
much assumed as natural: "You may ring the bell, and tell Falby to come
to my room. And because I am to appear at the flare-up to-night--all in
honour of the prodigal's son--this matter is between us, and we meet as
loving relatives. You understand my motives, Gaston Robert Belward?"
"Thoroughly."
Gaston rang the bell, and went to open the door for his uncle to pass
out. Ian Belward buttoned his close-fitting coat, cast a glance in the
mirror, and then eyed Gaston's fine figure and well-cut clothes. In the
presence of his nephew, there grew the envy of a man who knew that youth
was passing while every hot instinct and passion remained. For his age he
was impossibly young. Well past fifty he looked thirty-five, no more. His
luxurious soul loathed the approach of age. Unlike many men of indulgent
natures, he loved youth for the sake of his art, and he had sacrificed
upon that altar more than most men-sacrificed others. His cruelty was not
as that of the roughs of Seven Dials or Belleville, but it was pitiless.
He admitted to those who asked him why and wherefore when his selfishness
became brutality, that everything had to give way for his work. His
painting of Ariadne represented the misery of two women's lives. And of
such was his kingdom of Art.
As he now looked at Gaston he was again struck with the resemblance to
the portrait in the dining-room, with his foreign out-of-the-way air:
something that should be seen beneath the flowing wigs of the Stuart
period. He had long wanted to do a statue of the ill-fated Monmouth, and
another greater than that. Here was the very man: with a proud, daring,
homeless look, a splendid body, and a kind of cavalier conceit. It was
significant of him, of his attitude towards himself where his work was
concerned, that he suddenly turned and shut the door again, telling
Falby, who appeared, to go to his room; and then said:
"You are my debtor, Cadet--I shall call you that: you shall have a chance
of paying."
"How?"
In a few concise words he explained, scanning the other's face eagerly.
Gaston showed nothing. He had passed the apogee of irritation.
"A model?" he questioned drily.
"Well, if you put it that way. 'Portrait' sounds better. It shall be
Gaston Belward, gentleman; but we will call it in public, 'Monmouth the
Trespasser.'"
Gaston did not wince. He had taken all the revenge he needed. The idea
rather pleased him than other wise. He had instincts about art, and he
liked pictures; statuary, poetry, romance; but he had no standards. He
was keen also to see the life of the artist, to touch that aristocracy
more distinguished by mind than manners.
"If that gives 'clearance,' yes. And your debt to me?"
"I owe you nothing. You find your own meaning in my words. I was railing,
you were serious. Do not be serious. Assume it sometimes, if you will; be
amusing mostly. So, you will let me paint you--on your own horse, eh?"
"That is asking much. Where?"
"Well, a sketch here this afternoon, while the thing is hot--if this
damned headache stops! Then at my studio in London in the spring,
or"--here he laughed--"in Paris. I am modest, you see."
"As you will."
Gaston had had a desire for Paris, and this seemed to give a cue for
going. He had tested London nearly all round. He had yet to be presented
at St. James's, and elected a member of the Trafalgar Club. Certainly he
had not visited the Tower, Windsor Castle, and the Zoo; but that would
only disqualify him in the eyes of a colonial.
His uncle's face flushed slightly. He had not expected such good fortune.
He felt that he could do anything with this romantic figure. He would do
two pictures: Monmouth, and an ancient subject--that legend of the
ancient city of Ys, on the coast of Brittany. He had had it in his mind
for years. He came back and sat down, keen, eager.
"I've a big subject brewing," he said; "better than the Monmouth, though
it is good enough as I shall handle it. It shall be royal, melancholy,
devilish: a splendid bastard with creation against him; the best, most
fascinating subject in English history. The son dead on against the
father--and the uncle!"
He ceased for a minute, fashioning the picture in his mind; his face
pale, but alive with interest, which his enthusiasm made into dignity.
Then he went on:
"But the other: when the king takes up the woman--his mistress--and rides
into the sea with her on his horse, to save the town! By Heaven, with you
to sit, it's my chance! You've got it all there in you--the immense
manner. You, a nineteenth century gentleman, to do this game of Ridley
Court, and paddle round the Row? Not you! You're clever, and you're
crafty, and you've a way with you. But you'll come a cropper at this as
sure as I shall paint two big pictures--if you'll stand to your word."
"We need not discuss my position here. I am in my proper place--in my
father's home. But for the paintings and Paris, as you please."
"That is sensible--Paris is sensible; for you ought to see it right, and
I'll show you what half the world never see, and wouldn't appreciate if
they did. You've got that old, barbaric taste, romance, and you'll find
your metier in Paris."
Gaston now knew the most interesting side of his uncle's character--which
few people ever saw, and they mostly women who came to wish they had
never felt the force of that occasional enthusiasm. He had been in the
National Gallery several times, and over and over again he had visited
the picture places in Bond Street as he passed; but he wanted to get
behind art life, to dig out the heart of it.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
He was strong enough to admit ignorance
Not to show surprise at anything
Truth waits long, but whips hard
THE TRESPASSER
By Gilbert Parker
Volume 2.
VI. WHICH TELLS OF STRANGE ENCOUNTERS VII. WHEREIN THE SEAL OF HIS
HERITAGE IS SET VIII. HE ANSWERS AN AWKWARD QUESTION IX. HE FINDS NEW
SPONSORS X. HE COMES TO "THE WAKING OF THE FIRE" XI. HE MAKES A
GALLANT CONQUEST
CHAPTER VI
WHICH TELLS OF STRANGE ENCOUNTERS
A few hours afterwards Gaston sat on his horse, in a quiet corner of the
grounds, while his uncle sketched him. After a time he said that Saracen
would remain quiet no longer. His uncle held up the sketch. Gaston could
scarcely believe that so strong and life-like a thing were possible in
the time. It had force and imagination. He left his uncle with a nod,
rode quietly through the park, into the village, and on to the moor. At
the top he turned and looked down. The perfectness of the landscape
struck him; it was as if the picture had all grown there--not a suburban
villa, not a modern cottage, not one tall chimney of a manufactory, but
just the sweet common life. The noises of the village were soothing, the
soft smell of the woodland came over. He watched a cart go by idly,
heavily clacking.
As he looked, it came to him: was his uncle right after all? Was he out
of place here? He was not a part of this, though he had adapted himself
and had learned many fine social ways. He knew that he lived not exactly
as though born here and grown up with it all. But it was also true that
he had a native sense of courtesy which people called distinguished.
There was ever a kind of mannered deliberation in his bearing--a part of
his dramatic temper, and because his father had taught him dignity where
there were no social functions for its use. His manner had, therefore, a
carefulness which in him was elegant artifice.
It could not be complained that he did not act after the fashion of
gentle people when with them. But it was equally true that he did many
things which the friends of his family could not and would not have done.
For instance, none would have pitched a tent in the grounds, slept in it,
read in it, and lived in it--when it did not rain. Probably no one of
them would have, at individual expense, sent the wife of the village
policeman to a hospital in London, to be cured--or to die--of cancer.
None would have troubled to insist that a certain stagnant pool in the
village be filled up. Nor would one have suddenly risen in court and have
acted as counsel for a gipsy! At the same time, all were too well-bred to
think that Gaston did this because the gipsy had a daughter with him, a
girl of strong, wild beauty, with a look of superiority over her
position.
He thought of all the circumstances now.
It was very many months ago. The man had been accused of stealing and
assault, but the evidence was unconvincing to Gaston. The feeling in
court was against the gipsy. Fearing a verdict against him, Gaston rose
and cross-examined the witnesses, and so adroitly bewildered both them
and the justices who sat with his grandfather on the case, that, at last,
he secured the man's freedom. The girl was French, and knew English
imperfectly. Gaston had her sworn, and made the most of her evidence.
Then, learning that an assault had been made on the gipsy's van by some
lads who worked at mills in a neighbouring town, he pushed for their
arrest, and himself made up the loss to the gipsy.
It is possible that there was in the mind of the girl what some common
people thought: that the thing was done for her favour; for she viewed it
half-gratefully, half-frowningly, till, on the village green, Gaston
asked her father what he wished to do--push on or remain to act against
the lads.
The gipsy, angry as he was, wished to move on. Gaston lifted his hat to
the girl and bade her good-bye. Then she saw that his motives had been
wholly unselfish--even quixotic, as it appeared to her--silly, she would
have called it, if silliness had not seemed unlikely in him. She had
never met a man like him before. She ran her fingers through her
golden-brown hair nervously, caught at a flying bit of old ribbon at her
waist, and said in French:
"He is honest altogether, sir. He did not steal, and he was not there
when it happened."
"I know that, my girl. That is why I did it."
She looked at him keenly. Her eyes ran up and down his figure, then met
his curiously. Their looks swam for a moment. Something thrilled in them
both. The girl took a step nearer.
"You are as much a Romany here as I am," she said, touching her bosom
with a quick gesture. "You do not belong; you are too good for it. How do
I know? I do not know; I feel. I will tell your fortune," she suddenly
added, reaching for his hand. "I have only known three that I could do it
with honestly and truly, and you are one. It is no lie. There is
something in it. My mother had it; but it's all sham mostly." Then, under
a tree on the green, he indifferent to village gossip, she took his hand
and told him--not of his fortune alone. In half-coherent fashion she told
him of the past--of his life in the North. She then spoke of his future.
She told him of a woman, of another, and another still; of an accident at
sea, and of a quarrel; then, with a low, wild laugh, she stopped, let go
his hand, and would say no more. But her face was all flushed, and her
eyes like burning beads. Her father stood near, listening. Now he took
her by the arm.
"Here, Andree, that's enough," he said, with rough kindness; "it's no
good for you or him."
He turned to Gaston, and said in English:
"She's sing'lar, like her mother afore her. But she's straight."
Gaston lit a cigar.
"Of course." He looked kindly at the girl. "You are a weird sort, Andree,
and perhaps you are right that I'm a Romany too; but I don't know where
it begins and where it ends. You are not English gipsies?" he added, to
the father.
"I lived in England when I was young. Her mother was a Breton--not a
Romany. We're on the way to France now. She wants to see where her mother
was born. She's got the Breton lingo, and she knows some English; but she
speaks French mostly."
"Well, well," rejoined Gaston, "take care of yourself, and good luck to
you. Good-bye--good-bye, Andree." He put his hand in his pocket to give
her some money, but changed his mind. Her eye stopped him. He shook hands
with the man, then turned to her again. Her eyes were on him--hot,
shining. He felt his blood throb, but he returned the look with
good-natured nonchalance, shook her hand, raised his hat, and walked
away, thinking what a fine, handsome creature she was. Presently he said:
"Poor girl, she'll look at some fellow like that one day, with tragedy
the end thereof!"
He then fell to wondering about her almost uncanny divination. He knew
that all his life he himself had had strange memories, as well as certain
peculiar powers which had put the honest phenomena and the trickery of
the Medicine Men in the shade. He had influenced people by the sheer
force of presence. As he walked on, he came to a group of trees in the
middle of the common. He paused for a moment, and looked back. The
gipsy's van was moving away, and in the doorway stood the girl, her hand
over her eyes, looking towards him. He could see the raw colour of her
scarf. "She'll make wild trouble," he said to himself.
As Gaston thought of this event, he moved his horse slowly towards a
combe, and looked out over a noble expanse--valley, field, stream, and
church-spire. As he gazed, he saw seated at some distance a girl reading.
Not far from her were two boys climbing up and down the combe. He watched
them. Presently he saw one boy creep along a shelf of rock where the
combe broke into a quarry, let himself drop upon another shelf below, and
then perch upon an overhanging ledge. He presently saw that the lad was
now afraid to return. He heard the other lad cry out, saw the girl start
up, and run forward, look over the edge of the combe, and then make as if
to go down. He set his horse to the gallop, and called out. The girl saw
him, and paused. In two minutes he was off his horse and beside her.
It was Alice Wingfield. She had brought out three boys, who had come with
her from London, where she had spent most of the year nursing their sick
mother, her relative.
"I'll have him up in a minute," he said, as he led Saracen to a sapling
near. "Don't go near the horse."
He swung himself down from ledge to ledge, and soon was beside the boy.
In another moment he had the youngster on his back, came slowly up, and
the adventurer was safe.
"Silly Walter," the girl said, "to frighten yourself and give Mr. Belward
trouble."
"I didn't think I'd be afraid," protested the lad; "but when I looked
over the ledge my head went round, and I felt sick--like with the
channel."
Gaston had seen Alice Wingfield several times at church and in the
village, and once when, with Lady Belward, he had returned the
archdeacon's call; but she had been away most of the time since his
arrival. She had impressed him as a gentle, wise, elderly little
creature, who appeared to live for others, and chiefly for her
grandfather. She was not unusually pretty, nor yet young,--quite as old
as himself,--and yet he wondered what it was that made her so
interesting. He decided that it was the honesty of her nature, her
beautiful thoroughness; and then he thought little more about her. But
now he dropped into quiet, natural talk with her, as if they had known
each other for years. But most women found that they dropped quickly into
easy talk with him. That was because he had not learned the small gossip
which varies little with a thousand people in the same circumstances. But
he had a naive fresh sense, everything interested him, and he said what
he thought with taste and tact, sometimes with wit, and always in that
cheerful contemplative mood which influences women. Some of his sayings
were so startling and heretical that they had gone the rounds, and
certain crisp words out of the argot of the North were used by women who
wished to be chic and amusing.
Not quite certain why he stayed, but talking on reflectively, Gaston at
last said:
"You will be coming to us to-night, of course? We are having a barbecue
of some kind."
"Yes, I hope so; though my grandfather does not much care to have me go."
"I suppose it is dull for him."
"I am not sure it is that."
"No? What then?"
She shook her head.
"The affair is in your honour, Mr. Belward, isn't it?
"Does that answer my question?" he asked genially.
She blushed.
"No, no, no! That is not what I meant."
"I was unfair. Yes, I believe the matter does take that colour; though
why, I don't know."
She looked at him with simple earnestness.
"You ought to be proud of it; and you ought to be glad of such a high
position where you can do so much good, if you will."
He smiled, and ran his hand down his horse's leg musingly before he
replied:
"I've not thought much of doing good, I tell you frankly. I wasn't
brought up to think about it; I don't know that I ever did any good in my
life. I supposed it was only missionaries and women who did that sort of
thing."
"But you wrong yourself. You have done good in this village. Why, we all
have talked of it; and though it wasn't done in the usual way--rather
irregularly--still it was doing good."
He looked down at her astonished.
"Well, here's a pretty libel! Doing good 'irregularly'? Why, where have I
done good at all?"
She ran over the names of several sick people in the village whose bills
he had paid, the personal help and interest he had given to many, and,
last of all, she mentioned the case of the village postmaster.
Since Gaston had come, postmasters had been changed. The little
pale-faced man who had first held the position disappeared one night, and
in another twenty-four hours a new one was in his place. Many stories had
gone about. It was rumoured that the little man was short in his
accounts, and had been got out of the way by Gaston Belward. Archdeacon
Varcoe knew the truth, and had said that Gaston's sin was not
unpardonable, in spite of a few squires and their dames who declared it
was shocking that a man should have such loose ideas, that no good could
come to the county from it, and that he would put nonsense into the heads
of the common people. Alice Wingfield was now to hear Gaston's view of
the matter.
"So that's it, eh? Live and let live is doing good? In that case it is
easy to be a saint. What else could a man do? You say that I am
generous--How? What have I spent out of my income on these little things?
My income--how did I get it? I didn't earn it; neither did my father. Not
a stroke have I done for it. I sit high and dry there in the Court, they
sit low there in the village; and you know how they live. Well, I give
away a little money which these people and their fathers earned for my
father and me; and for that you say I am doing good, and some other
people say I am doing harm--'dangerous charity,' and all that! I say that
the little I have done is what is always done where man is most
primitive, by people who never heard 'doing good' preached."
"We must have names for things, you know," she said.
"I suppose so, where morality and humanity have to be taught as Christian
duty, and not as common manhood."
"Tell me," she presently said, "about Sproule, the postmaster."
"Oh, that? Well, I will. The first time I entered the post-office I saw
there was something on the man's mind. A youth of twenty-three oughtn't
to look as he did--married only a year or two also, with a pretty wife
and child. I used to talk to them a good deal, and one day I said to him:
'You look seedy; what's the matter?' He flushed, and got nervous. I made
up my mind it was money. If I had been here longer, I should have taken
him aside and talked to him like a father. As it was, things slid along.
I was up in town, and here and there. One evening as I came back from
town I saw a nasty-looking Jew arrive. The little postmaster met him, and
they went away together. He was in the scoundrel's hands; had been
betting, and had borrowed first from the Jew, then from the Government.
The next evening I was just starting down to have a talk with him, when
an official came to my grandfather to swear out a warrant. I lost no
time; got my horse and trap, went down to the office, gave the boy three
minutes to tell me the truth, and then I sent him away. I fixed it up
with the authorities, and the wife and child follow the youth to America
next week. That's all."