The Cords of Vanity Part 33

"Oh, I suppose you can't help it. But why make _all_ the actions of your life so foolish? What good do you get out of having the gout, for instance?"

Whereupon Mr. Blagden desired to be informed if I considered those with-various-adjectives-accompanied twinges in that qualified foot to be a source of personal pleasure to the owner of the very-extensively-hiatused foot. In which case, Mr. Blagden felt at liberty to express his opinion of my intellectual attainments, which was of an uncomplimentary nature.

"Because, you know," I pursued, equably, "you wouldn't have the gout if you did not habitually overeat yourself and drink more than is good for you. In consequence, here you are at thirty-two with a foot the same general size and shape as a hayrick, only rather less symmetrical, and quite unable to attend to the really serious business of life, which is to present me to the heiress. It is a case of vicarious punishment which strikes me as extremely unfair. You have made of your stomach a G.o.d, Peter, and I am the one to suffer for it. You have made of your stomach," I continued, venturing aspiringly into metaphor, "a brazen Moloch, before which you are now calmly preparing to immolate my prospects in life. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Peter!"

Mr. Blagden's next observation was describable as impolite.

"Fate, too," I lamented, in a tragic voice, "appears to have entered into this nefarious conspiracy. Here, not two miles away, is one of the greatest heiresses in America,--clever, I am told, beautiful, I am sure, for I have yet to discover a woman who sees anything in the least attractive about her,--and, above all, with the Woods millions at her disposal. Why, Peter, Margaret Hugonin is the woman I have been looking for these last three years. She is, to a hair, the sort of woman I have always intended to make unhappy. And I can't even get a sight of her!

Here are you, laid up with the gout, and unable to help me; and yonder is the heiress, making a foolish pretence at mourning for the old curmudgeon who left her all that money, and declining to meet people.

Oh, but she is a s.h.i.+ftless woman, Peter! At this very moment she might be getting better acquainted with me; at this very moment, Peter, I might be explaining to her in what points she is utterly and entirely different from all the other women I have ever known. And she prefers to immure herself in Selwoode, with no better company than her father, that unG.o.dly old retired colonel, and a she-cousin, somewhere on the undiscussable side of forty--when she might be engaging me in amorous dalliance! That Miss Hugonin is a s.h.i.+ftless woman, I tell you! And Fate--oh, but Fate, too, is a vixenish jade!" I cried, and shook my fist under the nose of an imaginary Lachesis.

"You appear," said Peter, drily, "to be unusually well-informed as to what is going on at Selwoode."

"You flatter me," I answered, as with proper modesty. "You must remember that there are maids at Selwoode. You must remember that my man Byam, is--and will be until that inevitable day when he will attempt to blackmail me, and I shall kill him in the most lingering fas.h.i.+on I can think of,--that Byam is, I say, something of a diplomatist."

Mr. Blagden regarded me with disapproval.

"So you've been sending your n.i.g.g.e.r cousin over to Selwoode to spy for you! You're a d.a.m.n cad, you know, Bob," he pensively observed. "Now most people think that when you carry on like a lunatic you're simply acting on impulse. I don't. I believe you plan it out a week ahead. I sometimes think you are the most adroit and unblus.h.i.+ng looker-out for number one I ever knew; and I can't for the life of me understand why I don't turn you out of doors."

"I don't know where you picked up your manners," said I, reflectively, "but it must have been in devilish low company. I would cut your acquaintance, Peter, if I could afford it." Then I fell to pacing up and down the floor. "I incline, as you have somewhat grossly suggested, to a certain favouritism among the digits. And why the deuce shouldn't I? A fortune is the only thing I need. I have good looks, you know, of a sort; ah, I'm not vain, but both my gla.s.s and a number of women have been kind enough to rea.s.sure me on this particular point. And that I have a fair amount of wits my creditors will attest, who have lived promise-crammed for the last year or two, feeding upon air like chameleons. Then I have birth,--not that good birth ensures anything but bad habits though, for you will observe that, by some curious freak of nature, an old family-tree very seldom produces anything but wild oats.

And, finally, I have position. I can introduce my wife into the best society; ah, yes, you may depend upon it, Peter, she will have the privilege of meeting the very worst and stupidest and silliest people in the country on perfectly equal terms. You will perceive, then, that the one desirable thing I lack is wealth. And this I shall naturally expect my wife to furnish. So, the point is settled, and you may give me a cigarette."

Peter handed me the case, with a snort. "You are a hopelessly conceited a.s.s," Mr. Blagden was pleased to observe, "for otherwise you would have learned, by this, that you'll, most likely, never have the luck of Charteris, and land a woman who will take it as a favour that you let her pay your bills. G.o.d knows you've angled for enough of 'em!"

"You are painfully coa.r.s.e, Peter," I pointed out, with a sigh. "Indeed, your general lack of refinement might easily lead one to think you owed your millions to your own thrifty industry, or some equally unpleasant attribute, rather than to your uncle's very commendable and lucrative innovation in the line of--well, I remember it was something extremely indigestible, but, for the moment, I forget whether it was steam-reapers or a new sort of pickle. Yes, in a great many respects, you are hopelessly parvenuish. This cigarette-case, for instance--studded with diamonds and engraved with a monogram big enough for a coach-door! Why, Peter, it simply reeks with the ostentation of honestly acquired wealth,--and with very good tobacco, too, by the way. I shall take it, for I am going for a walk, and I haven't any of my own. And some day I shall p.a.w.n this jewelled abortion, Peter,--p.a.w.n it for much fine gold; and upon the proceeds I shall make merriment for myself and for my friends." And I pocketed the case.

"That's all very well," Peter growled, "but you needn't try to change the subject. You know you _have_ angled after any number of rich women who have had sense enough, thank G.o.d, to refuse you. You didn't use to be--but now you're quite notoriously good-for-nothing."

"It is the one blemish," said I, sweetly, "upon an otherwise perfect character. And it is true," I continued, after an interval of meditation, "that I have, in my time, encountered some very foolish women. There was, for instance, Elena Barry-Smith, who threw me over for Warwick Risby; and Celia Reindan, who had the bad taste to prefer Teddy Anstruther; and Rosalind Jemmett, who is, very inconsiderately, going to marry Tom Gelwix, instead of me. These were staggeringly foolish women, Peter, but while their taste is bad, their dinners are good, so I have remained upon the best of terms with them. They have trodden me under their feet, but I am the long worm that has no turning. Moreover, you are doubtless aware of the axiomatic equality between the fish in the sea and those out of it. I hope before long to better my position in life. I hope--Ah, well, that would scarcely interest you. Good morning, Peter. And I trust, when I return," I added, with chastening dignity, "that you will evince a somewhat more Christian spirit toward the world in general, and that your language will be rather less reminiscent of the blood-stained buccaneer of historical fiction."

"You're a grinning buffoon," said Peter. "You're a fat Jack-pudding.

You're an a.s.s. Where are you going, anyway?"

"I am going," said I, "to the extreme end of Gridlington. Afterward I am going to climb the wall that stands between Gridlington and Selwoode."

"And after that?" said Peter.

I gave a gesture. "Why, after that," said I, "fortune will favour the brave. And I, Peter, am very, very brave."

Then I departed, whistling. In view of all my memories it had been strangely droll to worry Peter Blagden into an abuse of marrying for money. For this was on the twenty-eighth of April, the anniversary of the day that Stella had died, you may remember....

3

And a half-hour subsequently, true to my word, I was scaling a ten-foot stone wall, thickly overgrown with ivy. At the top of it I paused, and sat down to take breath and to meditate, my legs meanwhile bedangling over an as flouris.h.i.+ng Italian garden as you would wish to see.

"Now, I wonder," I queried, of my soul, "what will be next? There is a very cheerful uncertainty about what will be next. It may be a spring-gun, and it may be a bull-dog, and it may be a susceptible heiress. But it is apt to be--No, it isn't," I amended, promptly; "it is going to be an angel. Or perhaps it is going to be a dream. She can't be real, you know--I am probably just dreaming her. I would be quite certain I was just dreaming her, if this wall were not so humpy and uncomfortable. For it stands to reason, I would not be fool enough to dream of such unsympathetic iron spikes as I am sitting on."

"Perhaps you are not aware," hazarded a soprano voice, "that this is private property?"

"Why, no," said I, very placidly; "on the contrary I was just thinking it must be heaven. And I am tolerably certain," I commented further, in my soul, "that you are one of the more influential seraphim."

The girl had lifted her brows. She sat upon a semi-circular stone bench, some twenty feet from the wall, and had apparently been reading, for a book lay open in her lap. She now inspected me, with a sort of languid wonder in her eyes, and I returned the scrutiny with unqualified approval in mine.

And in this I had reason. The heiress of Selwoode was eminently good to look upon.

24.

_He Reconciles Sentiment and Reason_

So I regarded her for a rather lengthy interval, considering meanwhile, with an immeasurable content how utterly and entirely impossible it would always be to describe her.

Clearly, it would be out of the question to trust to words, however choicely picked, for, upon inspection, there was a delightful ambiguity about every one of this girl's features that defied such idiotic makes.h.i.+fts. Her eyes, for example, I noted with a faint thrill of surprise, just escaped being brown by virtue of an amber glow they had; what colour, then, was I conscientiously to call them?

And her hair I found a bewildering, though pleasing, mesh of shadow and sunlight, all made up of mult.i.tudinous graduations of some anonymous colour that seemed to vary with the light you chanced to see it in, through the whole gamut of bronze and chestnut and gold; and where, pray, in the bulkiest lexicon, in the very weightiest thesaurus, was I to find the adjective which could, if but in desperation, be applied to hair like that without trenching on sacrilege? ... For it was spring, you must remember, and I was twenty-five.

So that in my appraisal, you may depend upon it, her lips were quickly pa.s.sed over as a dangerous topic, and were dismissed with the mental statement that they were red and not altogether unattractive. Whereas her cheeks baffled me for a time,--but always with a haunting sense of familiarity--till I had, at last, discovered they reminded me of those little tatters of cloud that sometimes float about the setting sun,--those irresolute wisps which cannot quite decide whether to be pink or white, and waver through their tiny lives between the two colours.

2

To this effect, then, I discoursed with my soul, what time I sat upon the wall-top and smiled and kicked my heels to and fro among the ivy. By and by, though, the girl sighed.

"You are placing me in an extremely unpleasant position," she complained, as if wearily. "Would you mind returning to your sanatorium and allowing me to go on reading? For I am interested in my book, and I can't possibly go on in any comfort so long as you elect to perch up there like Humpty-Dumpty, and grin like seven dozen Ches.h.i.+re cats."

"Now, that," I spoke, in absent wise, "is but another instance of the widely prevalent desire to have me serve as scapegoat for the sins of all humanity. I am being blamed now for sitting on top of this wall. One would think I wanted to sit here. One would actually think," I cried, and raised my eyes to heaven, "that sitting on the very humpiest kind of iron spikes was my favorite form of recreation! No,--in the interests of justice," I continued, and fell into a milder tone, "I must ask you to place the blame where it more rightfully belongs. The injuries which are within the moment being inflicted on my sensitive nature, and, incidentally, upon my not overstocked wardrobe, I am willing to pa.s.s over. But the claims of justice are everywhere paramount. Miss Hugonin, and Miss Hugonin alone, is responsible for my present emulation of Mohammed's coffin, and upon that responsibility I am compelled to insist."

"May one suggest," she queried gently, "that you are probably--mistaken?"

I sketched a bow. "Recognising your present point of view," said I, gallantly, "I thank you for the kindly euphemism. But may one allowably demonstrate the fallacy of this same point of view? I thank you: for silence, I am told, is proverbially equal to a.s.sent. I am, then, one Robert Townsend, by birth a gentleman, by courtesy an author, by inclination an idler, and by lucky chance a guest of Mr. Peter Blagden, whose flouris.h.i.+ng estate extends indefinitely yonder to the rear of my coat-tails. My hobby chances to be gardening. I am a connoisseur, an admirer, a devotee of gardens. It is, indeed, hereditary among the Townsends; a love for gardens runs in our family just as a love for gin runs in less favoured races. It is with us an irresistible pa.s.sion. The very founder of our family--one Adam, whom you may have heard of,--was a gardener. Owing to the unfortunate loss of his position, the family since then has sunken somewhat in the world; but time and poverty alike have proven powerless against our horticultural tastes and botanical inclinations. And then," cried I, with a flourish, "and then, what follows logically?"

"Why, if you are not more careful," she languidly made answer, "I am afraid that, owing to the laws of gravitation, a broken neck is what follows logically."

"You are a rogue," I commented, in my soul, "and I like you all the better for it."

Aloud, I stated: "What follows is that we can no more keep away from a creditable sort of garden than a moth can from a lighted candle.

Consider, then, my position. Here am I on one side of the wall, and with my peach-tree, to be sure--but on the other side is one of the most famous masterpieces of formal gardening in the whole country. Am I to blame if I succ.u.mb to the temptation? Surely not," I argued; "for surely to any fair-minded person it will be at once apparent that I am brought to my present very uncomfortable position upon the points of these very humpy iron spikes by a simple combination of atavism and injustice,--atavism because hereditary inclination draws me irresistibly to the top of the wall, and injustice because Miss Hugonin's perfectly unreasonable refusal to admit visitors prevents my coming any farther.

Surely, that is at once apparent?"

But now the girl yielded to my grave face, and broke into a clear, rippling carol of mirth. She laughed from the chest, this woman. And perched in insecure discomfort on my wall, I found time to rejoice that I had finally discovered that rarity of rarities, a woman who neither giggles nor cackles, but has found the happy mean between these two abominations, and knows how to laugh.

"I have heard of you, Mr. Townsend," she said at last. "Oh, yes, I have heard a deal of you. And I remember now that I never heard you were suspected of sanity."

"Common-sense," I informed her, from my pedestal, "is confined to that decorous cla.s.s of people who never lose either their tempers or their umbrellas. Now, I haven't any temper to speak of--or not at least in the presence of ladies,--and, so far, I have managed to avoid laying aside anything whatever for a rainy day; so that it stands to reason I must possess uncommon sense."