CHAPTER XXXII
It was Margot who gave him the letter: Oswyn remembered that afterwards with a kind of superstition. She came to meet him, wearing an air of immense importance, when his quick step fell upon the bare wooden stairway which led to his rooms.
"There's a letter for you," she said, nodding impressively, "a big letter, with a seal on it; and Mrs. Thomas had to write something on a piece of green paper before the postman would give it to her."
Then she followed him into the twilight of the attic which was his studio, and watched him gravely while he lighted the gas and, in deference to her curiosity, broke the seal.
The envelope contained a letter, and a considerable bundle of papers, folded small, and neatly tied together with red tape.
When he had read the letter, he turned the package over with a sigh, reflectively eying it for some minutes, and then put it aside.
Later, when Mrs. Thomas, his landlady, had carried the child away to bed, he took, the papers up again, and, after some hesitation, slowly untied the tape which encircled them.
The letter was from Messrs. Furnival and Co., the firm of solicitors who had acted for Rainham, and were now representing Oswyn as his friend's sole executor.
It contained a brief intimation that the grant of probate of the late Mr. Rainham's will had been duly extracted, and ended with a request that the executor would consider the inclosed bundle of documents, which appeared to be of a private nature, and decide whether they should be preserved or destroyed.
When he had removed the tape, Oswyn noticed that a great many of the letters had the appearance of being in the same handwriting; these were tied up separately with a piece of narrow faded silk riband, and it was evident that they were arranged more or less in order of date; the writing in the case of the earliest letter being that of a child, while the most recent, dated less than a year ago, was a short note, an invitation, with the signature "Eve Lightmark."
Oswyn contemplated the little bundle with an air of indecision, falling at last into a long reverie, his thoughts wandering from the letters to the child, the woman who had written them, the woman whose name his friend so rarely breathed, whose face he had seen for the first time, proud, and cold, and beautiful, that very afternoon. Did she, too, care? Would she guard her secret as jealously?
Suddenly he frowned; the thought of Lightmark's effrontery recurred, breaking his contemplative calm and disturbing his speculations. He laid the papers aside without further investigation, and, after gazing for a few minutes vacantly out of the uncurtained window, rolled a fresh cigarette and went out into the night.
Next morning he made an expedition to Lincoln's Inn Fields to see Messrs. Furnival and Co., taking the packet with him. The partner who had the matter in hand was engaged, and he was kept waiting for nearly half an hour, in a dusty room with an elaborately moulded ceiling, and a carved wooden chimney-piece and scrolled panelling of some beauty, both disfigured with thick layers of dingy brown paint. A fire had just been lighted, in deference to the unseasonable coldness of the June day, and the room was full of pungent smoke.
As he waited his irritation increased. Lightmark's impertinent intrusion (such it appeared to him) and the scene which had ensued, had entirely aroused him from the state of indifference into which, when the incident occurred, he was beginning to relapse. The man was dangerous; a malign passion, a craving for vengeance, slept in him, born of his southern blood, and glancing out now and again at his eyes, like the fire which darts from the windows of a burning building.
He wondered now, as he thought of the wrongs he had borne, as it seemed to him, so patiently; in Rainham's lifetime there had doubtless been reasons, but was he never to retaliate? Had not he considered other people enough? His forbearance struck him now as a kind of weakness, as something almost contemptible, to be thought of with a feeling akin to shame.
Finally he was ushered up into Mr. Furnival's room, a pleasant apartment on the first floor, with windows looking out upon a charming oasis of grass and trees. The lawyer apologized for keeping him waiting, intimated delicately that he had a pressing appointment in five minutes' time, and expressed his sympathy with Oswyn's difficulty as to the letters.
"It's quite a matter for you to decide," he said. "If you like to take the responsibility you may burn them forthwith, unread; or you may give them to me, to file with the other papers. But I should advise you to glance through the later letters, at all events. May I look at them? Thanks."
Oswyn had given him the packet of letters, and he spread them out on the table at which he was sitting, methodically, in little heaps, clearing a space among the piles of drafts and abstracts which lay before him.
"I think we may destroy these," said Oswyn, pointing to the little bundle tied up with riband. "I think I know what they are."
"As you like," said Mr. Furnival; "they appear to be from a lady.
Yes, I don't think you need read them."
"And these," continued Oswyn. "They are all from Lady Garnett, and it is extremely unlikely that they can have any business reference."
"That disposes of nearly all," said the lawyer cheerfully. "I may put them on the fire, then?"
Oswyn bowed a grave assent, and Mr. Furnival dropped the little packets quickly into the hottest part of the fire.
"Now, here is a letter with a very recent postmark," he continued. "A man's writing, too, I should say. Will you read this, while I go through the others? It looks like rather a long epistle."
The handwriting seemed familiar to Oswyn, and his hand trembled slightly as he turned to the signature for corroboration. As he guessed, it was from Lightmark.
"I think I had better read this," he said grimly, half to himself.
He glanced quickly through the letter, and then read it a second time slowly, and while he was reading it his expression was such as to confirm the solicitor's previous opinion, that the man was a little bit mad.
When he had finished his perusal (he thought at the time that he should never forget a single word of that disgraceful letter), Oswyn sat in silence for some minutes, intently watching Mr. Furnival's struggles with a large bundle of papers and a small black bag.
The letter had, if such a thing were possible, increased his contempt for the writer; that the man was insincere (Oswyn would have used a far stronger term) he had been aware from the beginning; now he knew that he was a coward, a creature almost unworthy of his hatred.
A quick thought struck him, and he smiled.
"We won't burn this—at present, at any rate," he said quietly. "Is there anything else for me to read?"
The lawyer shuffled the remaining papers together quickly.
"I think not: these are chiefly bills which have since been paid. Will you keep that letter, or do you wish us to do anything about it?"
Oswyn deliberated for a moment, with a curious expression flitting over his face, biting his lip and frowning slightly, as he gazed at the fireplace, where Rainham's long-cherished letters from Eve and Lady Garnett's delicate, witty compositions were represented by a little heap of wavering black ashes.
The lawyer looked at his watch uneasily.
"I beg your pardon," said Oswyn quickly; "I needn't keep you any longer. Will you let me have an envelope? I dare say they can give me Mr. Sylvester's address downstairs—Mr. Charles Sylvester, the barrister?"
"The new member, you mean, of course?" said the lawyer. "He has chambers in Paper Buildings, No. 11. Do you know him?"
"I am going to send him this letter," said Oswyn briefly, folding it up and bestowing it in the envelope which Mr. Furnival had given him. "Thanks, no, I needn't trouble you to have it posted: I prefer to leave it at Mr. Sylvester's chambers myself."
"He was a great friend of the late Mr. Rainham, as, of course, you know," said the lawyer, as they parted at the door. "Mr. Rainham introduced him to us when he was quite a young man—soon after he was called, in fact, and we gave him his first brief—the first of a good many! He's been one of our standing counsel for years. Good-day!"
As he made his way towards the Temple, Oswyn smiled to himself rather savagely, tasting in anticipation the sweets of long-deferred revenge. The flame of his ancient discontent with the academical art of the day, which had been fed by his personal hatred of one particularly successful exponent of it, was fanned into fury. And, at the same time, as he proceeded, with short, hasty steps, amply armed for the vindication of his friend, in his grim fatalism he seemed to himself immensely the instrument of destiny, which had so given his enemy into his hands.
He paused when he reached Fleet Street; entering the first public-house, at haphazard, to order six pennyworth of brandy, which he drank neat across the counter, with slow, appreciative sips, as he reminded himself that, the excellence of his ammunition notwithstanding, he was still without any definite plan of campaign.
Would his luck desert him again? Would Sylvester be away, or refuse to see him? or, while receiving him, contrive by some sinuous legal device, adroitly to divert his attack? The mere contemplation of any such frustration dulled him strangely.
He called for his glass to be replenished, and emptied it sharply: and immediately the generous spirit moved his pulse, rebuked him for his depression, sent him briskly on on his way.
As he lifted the ponderous knocker upon Sylvester's door, he remembered vividly the only other occasion upon which he had visited those chambers. With the member for Mallow, too, indiscreet busybody that he was, had he not a reckoning to settle? The choice of him as an instrument of his punishment, which, if it was primarily directed against another, should not leave him wholly unscathed, gave a zest to his malice, and increased firmness to his manner, as he curtly ordered the clerk to take in his card.
"Is it an appointment?" this youth had asked dubiously, "because if it isn't——"
"Mr. Sylvester will see me," said Oswyn with irritation, "if you will have the goodness to do as you are told, and give him my name."
At which the youth had smiled loftily and retired, only to return five minutes later with an air of greater humility and information that the legislator was disengaged.
Charles looked up at him from the table at which he was sitting, with an open volume of Hansard before him, coldly waving him to a chair—an offer which Oswyn, mentally damning his superciliousness, ignored.
"My business is very brief," he said quickly; "I can explain it standing."
"I understand that it is urgent, Mr.—Mr. Oswyn. Otherwise, you know, I am a busy man."
"You mean that my call is inconvenient? I can quite imagine it. I should hardly have troubled you if you had not once taken the trouble to send for me—you, perhaps, have forgotten the occurrence; that seemed to give me a sort of right, a claim on your attention."
"I recognised it," said Charles gravely, in a tone which implied that, had he not given this nicety the benefit of his liberal consideration, the intruder would never have penetrated so far. "Since that is agreed, may I ask you to explain your business as expeditiously as possible?"
Oswyn smiled with some irony; and Sylvester suppressed a little shudder, reflecting that the man's uncouthness almost transgressed the bounds of decency.
"I can quote your own words on a previous occasion: it concerns the honour of a friend—the honour of your family, if you like it better."
Sylvester shut his volume sharply, glanced up at the other with suppressed irritation.
"That is not a matter I can discuss with you," he said at last.
"I simply intend you to read," went on Oswyn calmly, "a letter which your brother-in-law wrote to my friend, Philip Rainham, a few weeks before his death."
Charles rose from his chair quickly, avoiding the other's face.
"I regret that I can't assist you," he said haughtily; "I have no interest whatever in the affairs of the late Mr. Rainham, and I must decline to read your letter."
He glanced significantly at the door, not suppressing a slight yawn; it was incredible how this repulsive little artist, with his indelicate propositions, bored him.
But Oswyn ignored his gesture; simply laid the missive in question on the table; then he glanced casually at his watch.
"I can't compel you to read this letter," he said in the same studiously calm voice. "I warn you that your honour is gravely interested in its contents, and I will give you five minutes in which to decide. If you still persist in your determination, I have no course left but to send copies of it to some of Rainham's most intimate friends, and to your sister, Mrs. Lightmark."
He had his watch in one hand, but his gaze, curiously ironical, followed the direction of Charles's irresolute eyes, and the five minutes had not elapsed before he realized—and a touch of triumph mingled with his immense contempt of the man and his pompous unreality—that Charles's resolution had succumbed.
He stretched out his hand for the letter, unfolded it deliberately, and read it once, twice, three times, with a judicial slowness, which the other, who was now curiously moved, found exasperating.
When at last he looked up at Oswyn he shaded his eyes with one hand, but his face remained for the rest imperturbable and expressionless. The painter saw that his discretion was larger than he had imagined.
If the reading had been disagreeably illuminative—and Oswyn believed that under his surface composure he concealed, at least, a terrible wound to his pride—he was not going to allow this impression to appear.
"I might suggest that this document is a forgery," he said after a moment.
Oswyn indulged in a little, harsh laugh, shrugging his shoulders.
"That would be too fatuous, Mr. Sylvester."
"I might suggest it," went on Charles slowly. "Perhaps, then, you will be surprised when I tell you that I believe it to be genuine. May I ask, Mr. Oswyn, why you move in this matter?"
"As Rainham's friend," said Oswyn quickly, "I intend to expose the miserable calumny which clouded his last days."
"A public scandal would be greatly to be deplored," Charles hazarded inconsequently, in the tone of a man who argued with himself.
Oswyn made as if he would have taken up the letter with a gesture of sudden impatience; but Charles intercepted him quickly, and his voice had a grave simplicity in it which arrested the other's attention.
"Don't mistake me, Mr. Oswyn; I have not the least desire or intention to suppress this document. I must expect you to judge me harshly; but you will surely see that my honour is as deeply concerned in the redressing of Mr. Rainham's reputation as anyone's can be, only I am naturally desirous of sparing my—of sparing the innocent persons who are unfortunately mixed up in the affair unnecessary pain, the scandal of publicity."
"There are certain persons who must absolutely know the truth," said
Oswyn bluntly.
"If I pledge you my word that the persons whom you mean shall be immediately enlightened, will you leave me to act alone?"
The other was silent for a moment revolving the proposition, half surprised at the unwonted humility of the barrister's eagerness. At last he said, with a short, ambiguous laugh:
"I will leave it in your hands, Mr. Sylvester."
He underwent a momentary repentance of his own readiness when he was in the street, and had turned his face to Soho again; it seemed almost childishly trusting. But presently, remembering he knew not what shade of curious sternness in Sylvester's manner, he decided that he had done wisely—it was on some such result as this that he had counted in his coming—and that the score, stupendous as it was, would be accurately settled.
For a long while, after his unwelcome visitor had departed, Charles sat silent and buried in deep thought.
From time to time he glanced vaguely at the letter which Oswyn had abandoned, and he wondered—but quite inconsequently, and with no heart to make the experiment—whether any further perusal of those disgraceful lines could explain or palliate the blunt obloquy of the writer's conduct. His concise, legal habit of mind forbade him to cherish any false illusions.
Lightmark, writing in an hour of intimate excitement, when the burden of his friend's sacrifice seemed for a fleeting moment more intolerable than the wrench of explanation with his wife, had too effectually compromised himself. He had cringed, procrastinated, promised; had been abject, hypocritical, explicit.
It seemed to Sylvester, in the first flush of his honourable disgust, that there was no generous restitution which the man had not promised, no craven meanness to which he had not amply confessed.
He dropped his correct head upon his hands with something like a moan, as he contrasted the ironical silence which had been Rainham's only answer to this effusion—a silence which had since been irrevocably sealed. He had never before been so disheartened, had never seemed so intimately associated with disgrace.
Even the abortive ending of his passion—he knew that this was deep-seated and genuine, although its outward expression had been formal and cold—seemed a tolerable experience in comparison.
But this was dishonour absolute, and dishonour which could never be perfectly atoned.
Had not he in his personal antipathy to Philip Rainham—the tide of that ancient hostility surged over him again even while he vowed sternly to make the fullest amends—had he not seized with indecent eagerness upon any pretext or occasion to justify his dislike?
He had, at least, assisted unjustly to destroy Rainham's reputation, giving his adherence to the vainest of vain lies; and however zealous he might be in destroying this elaborate structure which he had helped to build, however successful the disagreeable task of enlightening his sister and the maligned man's most interested friends might prove, the reproach upon his own foresight would remain.
It was notable that, in the somewhat hard integrity of his character, he did not for a moment seek to persuade himself, as a man of greater sympathy might have done, that Eve was a person to whom the truth could legitimately be spared.
How she would suffer it, and whither her indignation might lead her, he did not care to inquire; these were matters with which henceforth he should decline to meddle. His part would be done when he had given her the simple information that was her due—that they had made a great mistake; that her husband was not to be trusted.
He tried to prepare the few set phrases in which the intelligence would be couched, but found none that were satisfactory. The effort appeared more and more stupendous as the afternoon advanced, until at last, with astonishment at his weakness which refused to be analysed, he recognised that, after all, it was not possible. It was news which he could not give to his sister with his own lips.
Mary Masters as a possible mediator suddenly occurred to him. He recognised by some occult instinct that she was one of the persons for whom Oswyn had stipulated, to whom restitution was due, and at once he resolved to appeal to her.
He reminded himself that the Lightmarks were entertaining that evening on a scale of quite exceptional grandeur, that he had a card for their fancy-dress ball, from which Lady Garnett and her niece would hardly be absentees. If he could see the girl beforehand, she would doubtless find the time and occasion to say what was necessary.
He had recovered his composure when, at no considerable interval after the formation of this resolve, he was ushered into Lady Garnett's drawing-room. It was his first appearance there since the rejection of his suit (he had not had the courage to renew it, although he was by no means prepared to admit that it was hopeless), and in the slight embarrassment which this recollection caused him he hardly regretted the presence of a second visitor, although his identification as a certain Lord Overstock, whom he believed to be opposed to him in more ways than in his political views (he was a notorious Tory), was not made without a jealous pang. He greeted Mary, however, without undue formality, and went over to Lady Garnett.
The old lady glanced up at him rather listlessly. She was growing deaf, or feigned deafness. He said to himself that perhaps she was much older than they knew—was growing tired. Her persiflage, which Charles had never much appreciated, was less frequent than of old, and she no longer poured out her witticisms with the placid sweetness of a person offering you bonbons. There were sentences in her talk—it was when she spoke of the couple opposite them, who were conveniently out of ear-shot—which the barrister found deliberately malignant.
"You mean that it is settled?" she asked, affecting to misunderstand some trivial remark. "Ah, no, but it will arrange itself—it is coming. You think she will make an admirable duchess? She has sometimes quite the grand air. Have you not found that out? You know his father is very old; he cannot in reason live much longer. And such estates! Personally, too, the nicest of boys, and as proper as if he had something to gain by it. And yet, in England, a Duke can do almost anything and be respected. Ah, Mr. Sylvester, you did not use your opportunity!"
"I want one now," he said rather coldly, "of saying two words to
Miss Masters."
She just raised her delicate eyebrows.
"Will it be very useful?"
Charles flushed slightly, then he frowned.
"It has nothing to do with myself. I have some news she should hear.
Perhaps you yourself——"
She interrupted him with a little mirthless laugh.
"I will not hear anything serious, and you look to me very serious. I am old enough to have promised never again to be serious in my life."
She submitted, however, to listen to him, seeing that his weighty confidences would not be brooked; and when he had finished—he said what he had to say in very few words—she glanced up at him with the same air of impenetrable indifference.
"Come!" she said, "what does it matter to me that you acted in exceedingly bad taste, and repent it? It made no difference to me—I am not the police des moeurs. If I were you, I would hold my tongue."
Then she added, as he glanced at her with evident mystification, shrugging her shoulders:
"When one is dead, Mr. Sylvester, what does it matter?"
He turned away rather impatiently, his eyes following the fine lines of Mary's face, which he saw in profile.
He noticed that she talked with animation, and that Lord Overstock's expression was frankly admiring. At last the old lady said:
"But, yes; you must tell Mary—by all means. To her it will mean much. See, the Marquis is going; if you wish I will leave you alone together."