Diana Tempest Volume Iii Part 15

"He took three days' leave to nurse his father at Brighton, with the intention of coming back here to-night," John said to himself. "He will be here directly." And he made up his mind what he would do.

And in truth a few minutes later a hansom rattled to the door, and Archie came in, breathless with haste. He looked eagerly round the room, and then, as he caught sight of the unexpected occupant, his face crimsoned, and he grinned nervously.

"She is gone," said John, without moving.

"Gone? Who? I don't know what you mean."

"No, of course not. What made you so late?"

"Train broke down outside London."

"I came here to get your address at Brighton, because I have news for you. You are there at this moment, aren't you, looking after your father?"

Archie did not answer. He only grinned and showed his teeth. John was aware that though he stood quietly enough by the table, turning over some loose silver in his pocket, he was in a state of blind fury. He also knew that if he waited a little it would pa.s.s. Something in John's moral and physical strength had always the power to quell Archie's fits of pa.s.sion.

"I had no intention of prying on you," said John, after an interval. "I wanted your address at Brighton, and I could not wait till to-morrow for it. I am going to Paris to-night on business, and--as it is yours as much as mine--you will go with me."

Archie never indulged in those flowers of speech with which some adorn their conversation. But there are exceptions to every rule, and he made one now. He culled, so to speak, one large bouquet of the choicest epithets and presented it to John.

"He knew not what to say, and so he swore." That is why men swear often, and women seldom.

"I shall not leave you in London with that woman," said John, calmly.

"You will go to her if I do."

"I shall do as I think fit," stammered Archie, striking the table with his slender white hand.

"There you err," said John. "You will start with me in half an hour for Paris."

CHAPTER XIII.

"There's not a crime But takes its proper change out still in crime If once rung on the counter of this world."

E. B. BROWNING.

There is in Paris, just out of the Rue du Bac, a certain old-fas.h.i.+oned hotel, the name of which I forget, with a little _cour_ in the middle of the rambling old building, and a thin fountain perennially plas.h.i.+ng therein, adorned by a few pigeons and feathers on the brink. It had been a very fas.h.i.+onable hotel in the days when Madame Mohl held her _salon_ near at hand. But the old order changes. It was superseded now. Why John often went there I don't know. He probably did not know himself, unless it was for the sake of quiet. Anyhow, he and Archie arrived there together that morning; for it is needless to say that, having determined to get Archie at any cost out of London, John had carried his point, as he had done on previous occasions, to the disgust of the sulky young man, who had proved anything but a pleasant travelling companion, and who, late in the afternoon, was still invisible behind the white curtains in one of the two little bedrooms that opened out of the sitting-room in which John was walking up and down.

He had put several questions to Archie respecting the state of his father's health, and that gentleman had a.s.sured him he was all right, quite able to look after himself; no need for him to remain with him.

"Of course not," said John, "or you would not have left him. But is he able to attend to business?"

"Rather," said Archie, with the emphasis of ignorance.

As long as Archie was in the next room, out of harm's way, John did not want his company. He knew that when he did appear he had to tell him that for eight and twenty years he had lived on Colonel Tempest's substance; and then he must post the letter lying ready written on the table to Colonel Tempest, only needing the address.

After that life was a blank. Archie would rush home, of course. John did not know where he should go, except that it would not be with Archie.

Back to Overleigh? No. And with a sudden choking sensation he realized that he should not see Overleigh again. He wondered what Mitty was doing at that moment, and whether the horse-chestnut against the nursery window would ever burst to leaf. Here in Paris they were out. He had noticed them as he returned from an interview with Lord ----. That gentleman had been much pressed for time, but had nevertheless accorded him a quarter of an hour. He was genuinely perturbed by the disclosure the young man made to him, deplored the event as it affected John, but after the first moment was obviously more concerned about the seat, and the loss of the Tempest support, than the wreck of John's career. After a decorous interval, Lord ---- had put a few questions to him about Colonel Tempest, his age, political views, etc. John perceived with what intentions those questions were put, and they made it the harder for him to ask the great man to help him to a livelihood.

As John spoke, and the elder man's eye sought his watch, John experienced for the first time the truth of the saying that the highest price that can be paid for anything is to have to ask for it. If it had not been for Mitty he could not have forced himself to do it.

"But my dear--er--Tempest," said Lord ----, "surely we need not antic.i.p.ate that--er--your uncle--er--that Colonel Tempest will fail to make a suitable provision for one--who--who----"

"He may offer to do so," replied John; "but if he did, I should not take it. He is not the kind of man from whom it is possible to accept money."

"Still, under the circ.u.mstances, the extraordinary combination of circ.u.mstances, I should advise you to--my time is so circ.u.mscribed--I should certainly advise you to--you see, Tempest, with every feeling of regard for yourself and your father--ahem--Mr. Tempest before you, it is difficult for a person situated as I am at the present moment, to offer you, on the eve of the general election, any position at all adequate to your undeniably great abilities."

"We shall not hear much more of my great abilities now that I am penniless," said John, with bitterness. "If I can get any kind of employment by which I can support myself and an old servant, I shall be thankful."

Lord ---- promised to do his best. He felt obliged to add that he could do but little, but he would do what he could. John might rest a.s.sured of that. In the meantime---- He looked anxiously at the watch on the table.

John understood, and took his leave. Lord ---- pressed him warmly by the hand, commended his conduct, once more deplored the turn events had taken, which he should consider as strictly private until they had been publicly announced, and a.s.sured him he would keep him in his mind, and communicate with him immediately should any vacancy occur that, etc., etc.

John retraced his steps wearily to the hotel. The loss of his career had stung him yesterday. How to keep Mitty in comfort seemed of far greater importance to-day--how to provide a home for her with a little kitchen in it. John wondered whether he and Mitty could live on a hundred a year. He knew a good deal about the ways and means of the working cla.s.ses, but of how the poor of his own cla.s.s lived he knew nothing.

But even the thought of Mitty could not hold him long. His mind ever went back to Di with an agony of despair and rapture. During these three interminable months during which he had not seen her, he had pictured her to himself as taking life as usual, wondering perhaps sometimes--yes, certainly wondering--why he did not come; but it had never struck him that she would be unhappy. When he saw her he had suddenly realized that the same emotions which had rent his soul had left their imprint on her face. Could women really love like men? Could Di actually, after her own fas.h.i.+on, feel towards him one t.i.the of the love he felt for her? John recognized with an exaltation, which for the moment transfigured as by fire the empty desolation of his heart, that the change which had been wrought in Di was his own work. Her cheek had grown pale for him, her eyes had wept for him, her very beauty had become dimmed for his sake.

"I shall go mad," said John, starting to his feet. "Why is that d.a.m.ned letter still unposted?"

Purpose was melting within him. The irrevocable step even now had not been taken. Lord ---- and his own lawyer would say nothing if at the eleventh hour he drew back. He must act finally this instant, or he would never act at all.

He went into the next room, where Archie was languidly shaving himself in a pink silk _peignoir_, and obtained from him Colonel Tempest's address. He addressed the letter, and took his hat and stick.

"I will post it myself this instant," he said to himself.

He went quickly downstairs and across the little court, scattering the pigeons. His face looked worn and ravaged in the vivid suns.h.i.+ne.

He pa.s.sed under the archway into the street, and as he did so two well-dressed men came out of a _cafe_ on the opposite side. Before he had gone many steps one of them crossed the road, and raised his hat, holding out a card.

"Mr. Tempest of Overleigh, I think," he said respectfully.

John stopped and looked at the man. He did not know him. The decisive moment had come even before posting the letter.

"Now or never," whispered conscience.

"My name is Fane," he said, and pa.s.sed on.

The man fell back at once and rejoined his companion.

"I told you so," he said. "That man is a deal too old, and he said his name was Fane. It's the other one in the tow wig, as I said from the first. That ain't real hair. It's the wig as alters him."

John posted his letter, saw it slide past recall, and then walked back to the hotel, found Archie in the sitting-room reading the playbills for the evening, and told him.

Perhaps nothing is more characteristic of our fellow-creatures than the manner in which they bear unexpected reverses of fortune. Archie had some of the callousness of feeling for others which accompanies lack of imagination. He had never put himself in the place of others. He was not likely to begin now. He had no intention of hurting John by setting his iron heel on his face. He had no idea people minded being trodden on.

And, indeed, as John stood by the window with his hands clasped behind his back, he was as indifferent as he appeared to be to anything that Archie, pacing up and down the room with flas.h.i.+ng eyes, could say. He had at last closed the iron gates of the irrevocable behind himself, and he was at first too much stunned by the clang even to hear what the excited young man was talking about. Perhaps it was just as well.

"By Jove!" Archie was saying, as John's attention came slowly back. "To think of the old governor at Overleigh, poor old chap! He has missed it all his best years, but I hope he'll live to enjoy it yet. I do indeed."

Archie felt he could afford to be generous. "And Di, John, dear old Di, shall come and queen it at Overleigh. And she shall have a suitable fortune. I'll make father do the right thing by Di. He won't want to do more than he can help, because she has never been much of a daughter to him; but he shall. And when it's known, she'll marry off quick enough; and I'll see it gets about. And don't you be down-hearted, John. We'll do the right thing by you. You know you never cared for the money when you had it. You were always a bit of a screw, to yourself as well as to others--I will say that for you; but--let me see--you allowed me three hundred a year. Don't you wish now it had been four? for you shall have the same, if the old guv. agrees. And I dare say I shall be a bit freer with a ten-pound note now and then than ever you were to me."