I heard from Miss Gascoyne constantly, and my letters in reply to her high-souled, dignified, yet tender epistles were masterpieces in diplomacy—an unkind critic might have said in hypocrisy.
I cannot help wondering as I sit here writing these memoirs what her feelings are at the present moment. I am afraid that she is one of those extraordinary characters who literally cannot love where they do not respect. She will have the pleasure, however, of glancing over her letters written to me at this time, for I have left her the task of examining my papers and destroying such as I thought fit to keep. Sibella’s letters I always destroyed. This is an act of justice to any woman with whom one is conducting an intrigue which should not be neglected. Not that Sibella had written many letters. As I have pointed out, there was a curious vein of caution in the Hallward family. In fact, much as I know she must be suffering, she has not made the least sign since the law took charge of my affairs. I believe that she still has faith that I shall extricate myself somehow. Poor child! Jack Sheppard himself could not do much inside the condemned cell of a modern prison. I have given the matter of escape thought, but considering how easy it is to cage a human being, it is somewhat surprising that there should ever have been an age in which the escape of criminals was comparatively frequent. I have also wondered whether, if a murderer were to display signs of madness between conviction and execution, the law would carry out the penalty. It might be worth the while of a smaller criminal to make the attempt. In my case I cannot help thinking it would be somewhat undignified to linger in the public mind as an individual who was mouthing through the remainder of his existence with straws in his hair. Besides, it would be a satisfaction for the public—who have been made uncomfortable by such wholesale murdering—to be able to say, “Poor creature! he was mad.” On the whole, I would sooner live as the wicked Lord Gascoyne than with a reputation for insanity. Moreover, my simulation might not be effective, and if a report got abroad that I had made myself ridiculous by feigning madness it would be intolerable.
Chapter XXI
Lionel Holland was, of course, mistaken in accepting as genuine my indifference as to whether the Gascoynes were civil to me or no. Since they had asked me to their house it was necessary I should become as intimate as possible, and Lionel could not know how I had schemed and intrigued to make myself acceptable in their sight. I had nibbled all round their circle, so to speak, unobtrusively attempting to identify myself as much as possible with the people they knew. This was a matter of no little difficulty. I was compelled to make it known how near I stood to the succession. This gave me a certain sort of position, and at least tolerance, as more or less one of themselves by the exclusive set in which the Gascoynes moved. They still, however, showed no sign of great friendliness. Of course, the important person to conciliate was Lady Gascoyne. She did not belong to the difficult set by birth, and was naturally nervous of doing anything which might show her as a novice in the art of social selection. Not that she was in any way a snob; indeed, far from it.
She evidently liked me. I was the sort of personality that the heiress of enterprising American ancestors—the wrong word; her forbears could hardly be described as ancestors—would like. I had, however, so far not interested Lord Gascoyne, whose sympathies were limited. He had asked me to the house in a purely formal way, and as a member of the family who had a right to be so asked.
So far I had, as it were, been conducting reconnaissances round the network of his character and temperament in order to discover his vulnerable point. It was extremely difficult. He was one of those self-contained Englishmen whose sense of duty comes somewhat as a surprise in conjunction with an apparently unenthusiastic temperament. The very person to be a royal substitute in a dependency. Enthusiasm is the greatest curse that can befall a reigning Sovereign, and a really sincere, enthusiastic monarch is distrusted by no one so much as by his own subjects. In his presence I at once suppressed the artistic side of my character, and pretended to a reserve and coldness in no way natural to me. Such topics as were discussed I treated with as much pure reason as was consistent with a respect to aristocratic prejudices, an attitude eminently conciliatory to the English noble, who is never so happy as when he flatters himself that he is displaying liberal tendencies. There did not, however, appear to be any likelihood of my being asked to Hammerton, and even my confession that I had visited the place as a tourist failed to elicit the desired invitation. He was, because of his limitations, the most difficult person I had yet had to deal with. At the same time, my being on visiting terms with Lord and Lady Gascoyne, and admitted by them to be a relative, gave me a social status which I had not before possessed.
It was highly necessary to be swift with his lordship. I must say that I had less compunction about removing him than I had had about any of the others. He was so entirely impersonal in his relations with the outer world.
I think his wife was in love with him. He was the sort of man women love desperately where they love at all; for the simple reason that they are never permitted to become really familiar. They are always in the presence of their reigning sovereign. A very wholesome thing for most women, and especially corrective for an American woman. It had been, I fancy, a great change for her, inasmuch as before marriage she had ruled her father absolutely. It was a little surprising that Lord Gascoyne should have condescended to mingle his blood with what was, after all, quite a plebeian strain. It was the more surprising as he was in no need of money, and I discovered afterwards that at his request her enormous dowry was settled absolutely on her children. I wondered very much if the dowry would revert to the American relations should she die childless; also if, in the case of Lord Hammerton outliving his parents, but dying a minor, the money would pass to the Gascoyne family. It would certainly be amusing were I to inherit the American dollars.
The great thing, however, was to secure an invitation to Hammerton. If I could only render Lord Gascoyne some service, or place him under an obligation to me in any way, it would probably follow as a matter of course.
An idea struck me. There was the portrait of Lord George, the one thing saved from the wreck of my uncle’s home. I knew that Lord Gascoyne took the greatest pride and interest in the portrait gallery at Hammerton, and that there was no portrait of Lord George Gascoyne, my own immediate ancestor, among the family pictures.