A Comedy of Masks Part 37

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 doc.u.ment. 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 rest.i.tution 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 a.s.sociated with disgrace.

Even the abortive ending of his pa.s.sion--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, a.s.sisted 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 a.n.a.lysed, 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 rest.i.tution 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 embarra.s.sment 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 d.u.c.h.ess? 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."

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

"Now, isn't it a pretty dance?" murmured Mrs. Dollond rapturously, as she sank into a low chair in a corner secure from the traffic of the kaleidoscopic crowd which had invaded Mrs. Lightmark's drawing-room, and opened her painted fan with a little sigh intended to express her beat.i.tude.

Colonel Lightmark, to whom Mrs. Dollond addressed this complimentary query (which, after all, was more of an a.s.sertion or challenge, in that it took its answer for granted), was arrayed in the brilliant scarlet and silver of the regiment which had once the honour of calling him Colonel; his tunic was so tight that sitting down was almost an impossibility for him, and Mrs. Dollond, who looked charming in her powder and brocade, could not help wondering whether any mortal b.u.t.tons could stand the strain; and, on the other hand, the dimensions of his patent leather boots were such that standing, for a man of his weight, involved a torture which it was hard to conceal. And yet the veteran was happy--he was positively radiant.

He felt that his nephew's success in the world of Art and of Society considerably enhanced his own importance; he was not ashamed to owe a portion of his brilliance to borrowed light--and tonight one could not count the celebrities on the fingers of both hands.

The old hero-wors.h.i.+pper gazed complacently at the little ever-s.h.i.+fting crowd which surrounded his nephew and his niece (so he called her) at their post near the doorway, and he listened to Mrs.

Dollond's sparkling sallies with a blissful ignorance of her secret ambition in the direction of a partner who would make her dance, and for whose edification she would be able to liken the Colonel's warlike figure to a newly-boiled lobster, or a ripe tomato.

"Regular flower-show, isn't it?" he suggested, navely reinforcing his simile. "I don't know what the d.i.c.kens they're all meant for, but a good many of them seem to have escaped from the Lyceum--Juliets, and Portias, and Shylocks, and so forth."

"Yes," said Mrs. Dollond. "I think the Shylocks must be picture-dealers, you know. But their conversation isn't very Shakespearian, is it? I heard Hamlet say, just now, that the floor was too perfect for anything, and Ophelia--she was dancing with a Pierrot _incroyable_--told her partner that she adored waltzing to a string band!"

They both laughed, the Colonel shortly and boisterously, Mrs.

Dollond in a manner which suggested careful study before a looking-gla.s.s, with an effect of dimples and of flas.h.i.+ng teeth.

"What wicked things you say, Colonel Lightmark," she added demurely.