The Trespasser, Complete - Gilbert Parker
"I fancy I must keep my promise."
"What is the book you are reading?" she said, changing the subject, for
Sir William was listening.
He opened it, and smiled musingly.
"It is called Affairs of Some Consequence in the Reign of Charles I. In
reading it I seemed to feel that it was incorrect, and my mind kept
wandering away into patches of things--incidents, scenes, bits of
talk--as I fancied they really were, not apocryphal or 'edited' as here."
"I say," said Cluny, "that's rum, isn't it?"
"For instance," Gaston continued, "this tale of King Charles and
Buckingham." He read it. "Now here is the scene as I picture it." In
quick elliptical phrases he gave the tale from a different stand-point.
Sir William stared curiously at Gaston, then felt for some keys in his
pocket. He got up and rang the bell. Gaston was still talking. He gave
the keys to Falby with a whispered word. In a few moments Falby placed a
small leather box beside Sir William, and retired at a nod. Sir William
presently said: "Where did you read those things?"
"I do not know that I ever read them."
"Did your father tell you them?"
"I do not remember so, though he may have."
"Did you ever see this box?"
"Never before."
"You do not know what is in it?"
"Not in the least."
"And you have never seen this key?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"It is very strange." He opened the box. "Now, here are private papers of
Sir Gaston Belward, more than two hundred years old, found almost fifty
years ago by myself in the office of our family solicitor. Listen."
He then began to read from the faded manuscript. A mysterious feeling
pervaded the room. Once or twice Cluny gave a dry nervous kind of laugh.
Much of what Gaston had said was here in stately old-fashioned language.
At a certain point the MS. ran:
"I drew back and said, 'As your grace will have it, then--"'
Here Gaston came to a sitting posture, and interrupted.
"Wait, wait!"
He rose, caught one of two swords that were crossed on the wall, and
stood out.
"This is how it was. 'As your grace will have it, then, to no waste of
time!' We fell to. First he came carefully and made strange feints,
learned at King Louis's Court, to try my temper. But I had had these
tricks of my cousin Secord, and I returned his sport upon him. Then he
came swiftly, and forced me back upon the garden wall. I gave to him foot
by foot, for he was uncommon swift and dexterous. He pinched me sorely
once under the knee, and I returned him one upon the wrist, which sent a
devilish fire into his eyes. At that his play became so delicate and
confusing that I felt I should go dizzy if it stayed; so I tried the one
great trick cousin Secord taught me, making to run him through, as a last
effort. The thing went wrong, but checking off my blunder he blundered
too,--out of sheer wonder, perhaps, at my bungling,--and I disarmed him.
So droll was it that I laughed outright, and he, as quick in humour as in
temper, stood hand on hip, and presently came to a smile. With that my
cousin Secord cried: 'The king! the king!' I got me up quickly--"
Here Gaston, who had in a kind of dream acted the whole scene, swayed
with faintness, and Cluny caught him, saving him from a fall. Cluny's
colour was all gone. Lady Dargan had sat dazed, and Sir William's face
was anxious, puzzled.
A few hours later Sir William was alone with Gaston, who was recovered
and cool.
"Gaston," he said, "I really do not understand this faculty of memory, or
whatever it is. Have you any idea how you come by it?"
"Have we any idea how life comes and goes, sir?"
"I confess not. I confess not, really."
"Well, I'm in the dark about it too; but I sometimes fancy that I'm mixed
up with that other Gaston."
"It sounds fantastic."
"It is fantastic. Now, here is this manuscript, and here is a letter I
wrote this morning. Put them together."
Sir William did so.
"The handwriting is singularly like."
"Well," continued Gaston, smiling whimsically, "suppose that I am Sir
Gaston Belward, Baronet, who is thought to lie in the church yonder, the
title is mine, isn't it?"
Sir William smiled also.
"The evidence is scarce enough to establish succession."
"But there would be no succession. A previous holder of the title isn't
dead: ergo, the present holder, has no right."
Gaston had shaded his eyes with his hand, and he was watching Sir
William's face closely, out of curiosity chiefly. Sir William regarded
the thing with hesitating humour.
"Well, well, suppose so. The property was in the hands of a younger
branch of the family then. There was no entail, as now."
"Wasn't there?" said Gaston enigmatically.
He was thinking of some phrases in a manuscript which he had found in
this box.
"Perhaps where these papers came from there are others," he added.
Sir William lifted his eyebrows ironically. "I hardly think so."
Gaston laughed, not wishing him to take the thing at all seriously. He
continued airily:
"It would be amusing if the property went with the title after all,
wouldn't it, sir?"
Sir William got to his feet and said testily: "That should never be while
I lived!"
"Of course not, sir."
Sir William saw the bull, and laughed, heartily for him.
They bade each other good-night.
"I'll have a look in the solicitor's office all the same," said Gaston to
himself.
CHAPTER X
HE COMES TO "THE WAKING OF THE FIRE"
A few days afterwards Gaston joined a small party at Peppingham. Without
any accent life was made easy for him. He was alone much, and yet, to
himself, he seemed to have enough of company.
The situation did not impose itself conspicuously. Delia gave him no
especial reason to be vain. She had not an exceeding wit, but she had
charm, and her talk was interesting to Gaston, who had come, for the
first time, into somewhat intimate relations with an English girl. He was
struck with her conventional delicacy and honour on one side, and the
limitation of her ideas on the other. But with it all she had some slight
touch of temperament which lifted her from the usual level. And just now
her sprightliness was more marked than it had ever been.
Her great hour seemed come to her. She knew that there had been talk
among the elders, and what was meant by Gaston's visit. Still, they were
not much alone together. Gaston saw her mostly with others. Even a woman
with a tender strain for a man knows what will serve for her ascendancy:
the graciousness of her disposition, the occasional flash of her mother's
temper, and her sense of being superior to a situation--the gift of every
well-bred English girl.
Cluny Vosse was also at the house, and his devotion was divided between
Delia and Gaston. Cluny was a great favourite, and Agatha Gasgoyne, who
had a wild sense of humour, egged him on with her sister, which gave
Delia enough to do. At last Cluny, in a burst of confidence, declared
that he meant to propose to Delia. Agatha then became serious, and said
that Delia was at least four years older than himself, that he was just
her--Agatha's--age, and that the other match would be very unsuitable.
This put Cluny on Delia's defence, and he praised her youth, and hinted
at his own elderliness. He had lived, he had seen It (Cluny called the
world and all therein "It"), he was aged; he was in the large eye of
experience; he had outlived the vices and the virtues of his time, which,
told in his own naive staccato phrases, made Agatha hug herself. She
advised him to go and ask Mr. Belward's advice; begged him not to act
until he had done so. And Cluny, who was blind as a bat when a woman
mocked him, went to Gaston and said:
"See, old chap,--I know you don't mind my calling you that--I've come for
advice. Agatha said I'd better. A fellow comes to a time when he says,
'Here, I want a shop of my own,' doesn't he? He's seen It, he's had It
all colours, he's ready for family duties, and the rest. That's so, isn't
it?"
Gaston choked back a laugh, and, purposely putting himself on the wrong
scent, said:
"And does Agatha agree?"
"Agatha? Come, Belward, that youngster! Agatha's only in on a
sisterly-brotherly basis. Now, see I've got a little load of L s. d., and
I'm to get more, especially if Uncle Dick keeps on thinking I am artless.
Well, why shouldn't I marry?"
"No reason against it, if husband and father in you yearn for bibs and
petticoats."
"I say, Belward, don't laugh!"
"I never was more serious. Who is the girl?"
"She looks up to you as I do-of course that's natural; and if it comes
off, no one'll have a jollier corner chez nous. It's Delia."
"Delia? Delia who?"
"Why, Delia Gasgoyne. I haven't done the thing quite regular, I know. I
ought to have gone to her people first; but they know all about me, and
so does Delia, and I'm on the spot, and it wouldn't look well to be
taking advantage of that with her father and mother-they'd feel bound to
be hospitable. So I've just gone on my own tack, and I've come to Agatha
and you. Agatha said to ask you if I'd better speak to Delia now."
"My dear Cluny, are you very much in love?"
"That sounds religious, doesn't it--a kind of Nonconformist business? I
think she's the very finest. A fellow'd hold himself up, 'd be a deuce of
a swell--and, hang it all, I hate breakfasting alone!"
"Yes, yes, Cluny; but what about a pew in church, with regular
attendance, and a justice of the peace, and little Cluny Vosses on the
carpet?"
Cluny's face went crimson.
"I say, Belward, I've seen It all, of course; I know It backwards, and
I'm not squeamish, but that sounds--flippant-that, with her."
Gaston reached out and caught the boy's shoulder. "Don't do it, Cluny.
Spare yourself. It couldn't come off. Agatha knows that, I fancy. She is
a little sportsman. I might let you go and speak; but I think my chances
are better than yours, Cluny. Hadn't you better let me try first? Then,
if I fail, your chances are still the same, eh?"
Cluny gasped. His warm face went pale, then shot to purple, and finally
settled into a grey ruddiness. "Belward," he said at last, "I didn't
know; upon my soul, I didn't know, or I'd have cut off my head first."
"My dear Cluny, you shall have your chance; but let me go first, I'm
older."
"Belward, don't take me for a fool. Why, my trying what you go to do is
like--is like--"
Cluny's similes failed to come.
"Like a fox and a deer on the same trail?"
"I don't understand that. Like a yeomanry steeplechase to Sandown--is
that it? Belward, I'm sorry. Playing it so low on a chap you like!"
"Don't say a word, Cluny; and, believe me, you haven't yet seen all of
It. There's plenty of time. When you really have had It, you will learn
to say of a woman, not that she's the very finest, and that you hate
breakfasting alone, but something that'll turn your hair white, or keep
you looking forty when you're sixty."
That evening Gaston dressed with unusual care. When he entered the
drawing-room, he looked as handsome as a man need in this world. His
illness had refined his features and form, and touched off his
cheerfulness with a fine melancholy. Delia glowed as she saw the admiring
glances sent his way, but burned with anger when she also saw that he was
to take in Lady Gravesend to dinner; for Lady Gravesend had spoken
slightingly of Gaston--had, indeed, referred to his "nigger blood!" And
now her mother had sent her in to dinner on his arm, she affable, too
affable by a great deal. Had she heard the dry and subtle suggestion of
Gaston's talk, she would, however, have justified her mother.
About half past nine Delia was in the doorway, talking to one of the
guests, who, at the call of some one else, suddenly left her. She heard a
voice behind her. "Will you not sing?"
She thrilled, and turned to say: "What shall I sing, Mr. Belward?"
"The song I taught you the other day--'The Waking of the Fire.'"
"But I've never sung it before anybody."
"Do I not count?--But, there, that's unfair! Believe me, you sing it very
well."
She lifted her eyes to his:
"You do not pay compliments, and I believe you. Your 'very well' means
much. If you say so, I will do my best."
"I say so. You are amenable. Is that your mood to-night?" He smiled
brightly.
Her eyes flashed with a sweet malice.
"I am not at all sure. It depends on how your command to sing is
justified."
"You cannot help but sing well."
"Why?"
"Because I will help you--make you."
This startled her ever so little. Was there some fibre of cruelty in him,
some evil in this influence he had over her? She shrank, and yet again
she said that she would rather have his cruelty than another man's
tenderness, so long as she knew that she had his--She paused, and did not
say the word. She met his eyes steadily--their concentration dazed
her--then she said almost coldly, her voice sounding far away:
"How, make me?"
"How fine, how proud!" he said to himself, then added:
"I meant 'make' in the helpful sense. I know the song: I've heard it
sung, I've sung it; I've taught you; my mind will act on yours, and you
will sing it well."
"Won't you sing it yourself? Do, please."
"No; to-night I wish to hear you."
"Why?"
"I will tell you later. Can you play the accompaniment? If not, I--"
"Oh, will you? I could sing it then, I think. You played it so
beautifully the other day--with all those strange chords."
He smiled.
"It is one of the few things that I can play. I always had a taste for
music; and up in one of the forts there was an old melodeon, so I
hammered away for years. I had to learn difficult things at the start, or
none at all, or else those I improvised; and that's how I can play one or
two of Beethoven's symphonies pretty well, and this song, and a few
others, and go a cropper with a waltz. Will you come?"
They moved to the piano. No one at first noticed them. When he sat down,
he said:
"You remember the words?"
"Yes, I learned them by heart."
"Good!"
He gently struck the chords. His gentleness had, however, a firmness, a
deep persuasiveness, which drew every face like a call. A few chords
waving, as it were, over the piano, and then he whispered:
"Now."
"Please go on for a minute longer," she begged.
"My throat feels dry all at once."
"Face away from the rest, towards me," he said gently.
She did so. His voice took a note softly, and held it. Presently her
voice as softly joined it, his stopped, and hers went on:
"In the lodge of the Mother of Men,
In the land of Desire,
Are the embers of fire,
Are the ashes of those who return,
Who return to the world:
Who flame at the breath
Of the Mockers of Death.
O Sweet, we will voyage again
To the camp of Love's fire,
Nevermore to return!"
"How am I doing?" she said at the end of this verse. She really did not
know--her voice seemed an endless distance away. But she felt the
stillness in the drawing-room.
"Well," he said. "Now for the other. Don't be afraid; let your voice, let
yourself, go."
"I can't let myself go."
"Yes, you can: just swim with the music."
She did swim with it. Never before had Peppingham drawing-room heard a
song like this; never before, never after, did any of Delia Gasgoyne's
friends hear her sing as she did that night. And Lady Gravesend whispered
for a week afterwards that Delia Gasgoyne sang a wild love song in the
most abandoned way with that colonial Belward. Really a song of the most
violent sentiment!
There had been witchery in it all. For Gaston lifted the girl on the
waves of his music, and did what he pleased with her, as she sang:
"O love, by the light of thine eye
We will fare oversea,
We will be
As the silver-winged herons that rest
By the shallows,
The shallows of sapphire stone;
No more shall we wander alone.
As the foam to the shore
Is my spirit to thine;
And God's serfs as they fly,--
The Mockers of Death
They will breathe on the embers of fire:
We shall live by that breath,--
Sweet, thy heart to my heart,
As we journey afar,
No more, nevermore, to return!"
When the song was ended there was silence, then an eager murmur, and
requests for more; but Gaston, still lengthening the close of the
accompaniment, said quietly:
"No more. I wanted to hear you sing that song only."
He rose.
"I am so very hot," she said.
"Come into the hall."
They passed into the long corridor, and walked up and down, for a time in
silence.
"You felt that music?" he asked at last.
"As I never felt music before," she replied.
"Do you know why I asked you to sing it?"
"How should I know?"
"To see how far you could go with it."
"How far did I go?"
"As far as I expected."
"It was satisfactory?"
"Perfectly."
"But why--experiment--on me?"
"That I might see if you were not, after all, as much a barbarian as I."
"Am I?"
"No. That was myself singing as well as you. You did not enjoy it
altogether, did you?"
"In a way, yes. But--shall I be honest? I felt, too, as if, somehow, it
wasn't quite right; so much--what shall I call it?"
"So much of old Adam and the Garden? Sit down here for a moment, will
you?"
She trembled a little, and sat.
"I want to speak plainly and honestly to you," he said, looking earnestly
at her. "You know my history--about my wife who died in Labrador, and all
the rest?"
"Yes, they have told me."
"Well, I have nothing to hide, I think; nothing more that you ought to
know: though I've been a scamp one way and another."
"'That I ought to know'?" she repeated.
"Yes: for when a man asks a woman to be his wife, he should be prepared
to open the cupboard of skeletons." She was silent; her heart was beating
so hard that it hurt her.
"I am going to ask you to be my wife, Delia."
She was silent, and sat motionless, her hands clasped in her lap.
He went on
"I don't know that you will be wise to accept me, but if you will take
the risk--"
"Oh, Gaston, Gaston!" she said, and her hands fluttered towards his.
An hour later, he said to her, as they parted for the night:
"I hope, with all my heart, that you will never repent of it, Delia."
"You can make me not repent of it. It rests with you, Gaston; indeed,
indeed, all with you."
"Poor girl!" he said, unconsciously, as he entered his room. He could not
have told why he said it. "Why will you always sit up for me, Brillon?"
he asked a moment afterwards.
Jacques saw that something had occurred. "I have nothing else to do,
sir," he replied. "Brillon," Gaston added presently, "we're in a devil of
a scrape now."
"What shall we do, monsieur?"
"Did we ever turn tail?"
"Yes, from a prairie fire."
"Not always. I've ridden through."
"Alors, it's one chance in ten thousand!"
"There's a woman to be thought of--Jacques."
"There was that other time."
"Well, then?"
Presently Jacques said: "Who is she, monsieur?"
Gaston did not answer. He was thinking hard. Jacques said no more. The
next morning early the guests knew who the woman was, and by noon Jacques
also.
CHAPTER XI
HE MAKES A GALLANT CONQUEST
Gaston let himself drift. The game of love and marriage is exciting, the
girl was affectionate and admiring, the world was genial, and all things
came his way. Towards the end of the hunting season Captain Maudsley had
an accident. It would prevent him riding to hounds again, and at his
suggestion, backed by Lord Dunfolly and Lord Dargan, Gaston became Master
of the Hounds. His grandfather and great-grandfather had been Master of
the Hounds before him. Hunting was a keen enjoyment--one outlet for wild
life in him--and at the last meet of the year he rode in Captain
Maudsley's place. They had a good run, and the taste of it remained with
Gaston for many a day; he thought of it sometimes as he rode in the Park
now every morning--with Delia and her mother.
Jacques and his broncho came no more, or if they did it was at
unseasonable hours, and then to be often reprimanded (and twice arrested)
for furious riding. Gaston had a bad moment when he told Jacques that he
need not come with him again. He did it casually, but, cool as he was, a
cold sweat came on his cheek. He had to take a little brandy to steady
himself--yet he had looked into menacing rifle-barrels more than once
without a tremor. It was clear, on the face of it, that Delia and her
mother should be his companions in the Park, and not this grave little
half-breed; but, somehow, it got on his nerves. He hesitated for days
before he could cast the die against Jacques. It had been the one open
bond of the old life; yet the man was but a servant, and to be treated as
such, and was, indeed, except on rarest occasions. If Delia had known
that Gaston balanced the matter between her and Jacques, her indignation
might perhaps have sent matters to a crisis. But Gaston did the only
possible thing; and the weeks drifted on.
Happy? It was inexplicable even to himself that at times, when he left
Delia, he said unconsciously: "Well, it's a pity!"
But she was happy in her way. His dark, mysterious face with its
background of abstraction, his unusual life, distinguished presence, and
the fact that people of great note sought his conversation, all
strengthened the bonds, and deepened her imagination; and imagination is
at the root of much that passes for love. Gaston was approached at Lord
Dargan's house by the Premier himself. It was suggested that he should
stand for a constituency in the Conservative interest. Lord Faramond,
himself picturesque, acute, with a keen knowledge of character and a
taste for originality, saw material for a useful supporter--fearless,
independent, with a gift for saying ironical things, and some primitive
and fundamental principles well digested.
Gaston, smiling, said that he would only be a buffalo fretting on a
chain.
Lord Faramond replied:
"And why the chain?" He followed this up by saying: "It is but a case of
playing lion-tamer down there. Have one little gift all your own, know
when to impose it, and you have the pleasure of feeling that your fingers
move a great machine, the greatest in the world--yes the very greatest.
There is Little Grapnel just vacant: the faithful Glynn is gone. Come: if
you will, I'll send my secretary to-morrow morning-eh?"
"You are not afraid of the buffalo, sir?"
Lord Faramond's fingers touched his arm, drummed it "My greatest
need--one to roar as gently as the sucking-dove."
"But what if I, not knowing the rules of the game, should think myself on
the corner of the veldt or in an Indian's tepee, and hit out?"
"You do not carry derringers?"
He smiled. "No; but--"
He glanced down at his arms.
"Well, well; that will come one day, perhaps!" Lord Faramond paused,
abstracted, then added: "But not through you. Good-bye, then, good-bye.
Little Grapnel in ten days!"
And it was so. Little Grapnel was Conservative. It was mostly a matter of
nomination, and in two weeks Gaston, in a kind of dream, went down to
Westminster, lunched with Lord Faramond, and was introduced to the House.
The Ladies Gallery was full, for the matter was in all the papers, and a
pretty sensation had been worked up one way and another.
That night, after dinner, Gaston rose to make his maiden speech on a bill
dealing with an imminent social question. He was not an amateur. Time
upon time he had addressed gatherings in the North, and had once stood at
the bar of the Canadian Commons to plead the cause of the half-breeds. He
was pale, but firm, and looked striking. His eyes went slowly round the
House, and he began in a low, clear, deliberate voice, which got
attention at once. The first sentence was, however, a surprise to every
one, and not the least to his own party, excepting Lord Faramond. He
disclaimed detailed and accurate knowledge of the subject. He said this
with an honesty which took away the breath of the House. In a quiet, easy
tone he then referred to what had been previously said in the debate.
The first thing he did was to crumble away with a regretful kind of
superiority the arguments of two Conservative speakers, to the sudden
amusement of the Opposition, who presently cheered him. He looked up as
though a little surprised, waited patiently, and went on. The iconoclasm
proceeded. He had one or two fixed ideas in his mind, simple principles
on social questions of which he had spoken to his leader, and he never
wavered from the sight of them, though he had yet to state them. The
Premier sat, head cocked, with an ironical smile at the cheering, but he
was wondering whether, after all, his man was sure; whether he could
stand this fire, and reverse his engine quite as he intended. One of the
previous speakers was furious, came over and appealed to Lord Faramond,
who merely said, "Wait."
Gaston kept on. The flippant amusement of the Opposition continued.
Something, however, in his grim steadiness began to impress his own party
as the other, while from more than one quarter of the House there came a
murmur of sympathy. His courage, his stone-cold strength, the disdain
which was coming into his voice, impressed them, apart from his argument
or its bearing on the previous debate. Lord Faramond heard the occasional
murmurs of approval and smiled. Then there came a striking silence, for
Gaston paused. He looked towards the Ladies Gallery. As if in a
dream--for his brain was working with clear, painful power--he saw, not
Delia nor her mother, nor Lady Dargan, but Alice Wingfield! He had a
sting, a rush in his blood. He felt that none had an interest in him such
as she: shamed, sorrowful, denied the compensating comfort which his
brother's love might give her. Her face, looking through the barriers,
pale, glowing, anxious, almost weird, seemed set to the bars of a cage.