"No. For then the scandal would be doubled. Your husband's name would be charged with the thing as well as your own. Rest easy, Lady Woodroffe. I will make her acquainted, however, with the young man."
[CHAPTER VIII.]
THE COUSINS.
The hall of a West End hotel on a fine afternoon, even in October, not to speak of June, is a spectacle of pious consolation in the eyes of those who like the contemplation of riches. Many there are on whose souls the sight of wealth in activity, producing its fruits in due season, pours sweet and balmy soothing. All those lovely costumes flitting across the hall, the coming and the going of the people in their carriages, the continual arrival of messengers with parcels, the driving up to the hotel or the driving off, the hotel porters, the liveries, the haughty children of pride and show who wear them—these things in a desert of longing illustrate what wealth can give, and how much wealth is to be envied; these things make wealth appear boundless and stable. Surely one may take such wealth as this to the halls of heaven! Inexhaustible it must be, else how could the hotel bills be paid? The magnificent person in uniform, with a gold band round his cap, makes wealth all-powerful as well as beautiful, else how could he receive a wage at all adequate to his appearance and his manners? The noble perspective of white tables through the doors on the right, and of velvet sofas through the doors on the left, proves the illimitable nature of the modern wealth of the millionaire, else how could those sumptuous dinners be paid for? The American accent which everywhere strikes the ear further indicates that the wealth mostly belongs to another country, which makes the true philanthropist and the altruist rejoice. "Non nobis, Domine," he chants, "but to our neighbours and our cousins." So long as there is accumulated wealth, which enables us to run these big hotels, and to maintain these costly costumes, and to keep these messengers on the trot, why should we grumble? All the world desires wealth. It is only at such places as the entrance-hall of a great hotel that the impecunious can really see with their own eyes, and properly understand, what great riches can actually do for their possessor. What can confer happiness more solid, more satisfying, more abiding, than to buy your wife a costume for two hundred guineas, and to live in such a hotel as this, with the whole treasures of London lying at your feet, and waiting for your choice?
About half-past four, when the crush of arrivals was greatest, and the talk in the hall was loudest, another carriage and pair deposited at the hotel an elderly couple. The man was tall and thin; his features were plain, but strongly marked; his hair was grey, and his beard, which he grew behind his chin, was also grey. You may see men like him in face and figure, and in the disposition of his beard behind his chin, in every Yorkshire town—in fact, he was a Yorkshireman by birth, though he had spent the last forty years of his life in the Western States. His face was habitually grave; he spoke slowly. This man, in fact, was one of that most envied and enviable class—the rich American. In those lists which people like so much to read, the name of John Haveril was generally placed about halfway down, opposite the imposing figures 13,000,000 dollars. Reading these figures, the ordinary average Briton remarked, "Dollars, sir; dollars. Not pounds sterling. But still, two millions and a half sterling. And still rolling, still r-r-r-rolling!" The city magnate, reading them, sighs and says, "He cannot spend a quarter of the income. The rest fructifies, sir—fr-r-r-ructifies!"
John Haveril arrived at this pinnacle of greatness by methods which I believe are perfectly well understood by everybody who is interested in the great mystery of making money. It is a mystery which is intelligible, easy, and open to everybody. Yet only a very few—say, one in twenty millions—are able to practise the art successfully. A vast number try to cross that stormy sea which has no chart by which they can navigate their barques; rocks strike upon them and overwhelm them; hurricanes capsize and sink them. Disappointment, bankruptcy, concealment for life, flight, ruin, cruel misrepresentation, even open trial, conviction, sentence, and imprisonment are too often the consequences when persons who, perhaps, possess every quality except one—or all the qualities but one or two—in imperfection. Corners, rings, trusts, presidencies, the control of markets, monopolies, the crushing of competition, the trampling down of the weaker, disregard of scruple, tenderness, pity, sympathy, belong to the success which ought to have made John Haveril happy.
The fortunate possessor of thirteen millions—dollars—got out of the carriage when it stopped. He looked round him. On the steps of the hotel the people drew back, hushed and awed. "John Haveril!" he heard, in whispers. He smiled. It is always a pleasure monstrari digito. He marched up the steps and into the hall, leaving his wife to follow alone.
This lady, whom we have already met in the doctor's consultation-room, was dressed in the splendour that belonged to her position. It is useless to have thirteen millions of dollars if you do not spend some of them in proclaiming the fact by silks and satins, lace and embroidery, chains of gold and glittering jewels. Mr. Haveril liked to see his wife in costly array. What wife would not willingly respond to such a pleasing taste in a husband? On this point, at least, the married couple's hearts beat as one—in unison. Mrs. Haveril, therefore, ought to have enjoyed nothing so much as the triumphal march across the hall, with all the people gazing upon her as the thrice happy, the four times happy, the pride of her country, the millionairess.
I do not think that she ever, under any circumstances, got the full flavour out of her wealth. You have seen her with the doctor; a constant anxiety weighed her down; she was weak in body and troubled in mind. She was no happier with the millions than if they had been hundreds. Moreover, she was always a simple woman, contented with simple ways—one to whom footmen, waiters, and grand dinners were a weariness. With her pale, delicate face, and sad soft eyes, she looked more like a nun in disguise than a woman rolling in gold.