CHAPTER V
BARBARA MAKES A SPEECH
While Alan and Barbara, on the most momentous occasion of their lives,
were seated upon the fallen oak in the woods that thrilled with the
breath of spring, another interview was taking place in Mr. Champers-
Haswell's private suite at The Court, the decorations of which, as he
was wont to inform his visitors, had cost nearly £2000. Sir Robert,
whose taste at any rate was good, thought them so appalling that while
waiting for his host and partner, whom he had come to see, he took a
seat in the bow window of the sitting-room and studied the view that
nobody had been able to spoil. Presently Mr. Haswell emerged from his
bedroom, wrapped in a dressing gown and looking very pale and shaky.
"Delighted to see you all right again," said Sir Robert as he wheeled
up a chair into which Mr. Haswell sank.
"I am not all right, Aylward," he answered; "I am not all right at
all. Never had such an upset in my life; thought I was going to die
when that accursed savage told his beastly tale. Aylward, you are a
man of the world, tell me, what is the meaning of the thing? You
remember what we thought we saw in the office, and then--that story."
"I don't know," he answered; "frankly I don't know. I am a man who has
never believed in anything I cannot see and test, one who utterly
lacks faith. In my leisure I have examined into the various religious
systems and found them to be rubbish. I am convinced that we are but
highly-developed mammals born by chance, and when our day is done,
departing into the black nothingness out of which we came. Everything
else, that is, what is called the higher and spiritual part, I
attribute to the superstitions incident to the terror of the hideous
position in which we find ourselves, that of gods of a sort hemmed in
by a few years of fearful and tormented life. But you know the old
arguments, so why should I enter on them? And now I am confronted with
an experience which I cannot explain. I certainly thought that in the
office on Friday evening I saw that gold mask to which I had taken so
strange a fancy that I offered to give Vernon £17,000 for it because I
thought that it brought us luck, swim across the floor of our room and
look first into your face and then into mine. Well, the next night
that negro tells his story. What am I to make of it?"
"Can't tell you," answered Mr. Champers-Haswell with a groan. "All I
know is that it nearly made a corpse of me. I am not like you,
Aylward, I was brought up as an Evangelical, and although I haven't
given much thought to these matters of late years--well, we don't
shake them off in a hurry. I daresay there is something somewhere, and
when the black man was speaking, that something seemed uncommonly
near. It got up and gripped me by the throat, shaking the mortal
breath out of me, and upon my word, Aylward, I have been wishing all
the morning that I had led a different kind of life, as my old parents
and my brother John, Barbara's father, who was a very religious kind
of man, did before me."
"It is rather late to think of all that now, Haswell," said Sir
Robert, shrugging his shoulders. "One takes one's line and there's an
end. Personally I believe that we are overstrained with the fearful
and anxious work of this flotation, and have been the victims of an
hallucination and a coincidence. Although I confess that I came to
look upon the thing as a kind of mascot, I put no trust in any fetish.
How can a bit of gold move, and how can it know the future? Well, I
have written to them to clear it out of the office to-morrow, so it
won't trouble us any more. And now I have come to speak to you on
another matter."
"Not business," said Mr. Haswell with a sigh. "We have that all the
week and there will be enough of it on Monday."
"No," he answered, "something more important. About your niece
Barbara."
Mr. Haswell glanced at him with those little eyes of his which were so
sharp that they seemed to bore like gimlets.
"Barbara?" he said. "What of Barbara?"
"Can't you guess, Haswell? You are pretty good at it, generally. Well,
it is no use beating about the bush; I want to marry her."
At this sudden announcement his partner became exceedingly interested.
Leaning back in the chair he stared at the decorated ceiling, and
uttered his favourite wind-in-the-wires whistle.
"Indeed," he said. "I never knew that matrimony was in your line,
Aylward, any more than it has been in mine, especially as you are
always preaching against it. Well, has the young lady given her
consent?"
"No, I have not spoken to her. I meant to do so this morning, but she
has slipped off somewhere, with Vernon, I suppose."
Mr. Haswell whistled again, but on a new note.
"Pray do stop that noise," said Sir Robert; "it gets upon my nerves,
which are shaky this morning. Listen: It is a curious thing, one less
to be understood even than the coincidence of the Yellow God, but at
my present age of forty-four, for the first time in my life I have
committed the folly of what is called falling in love. It is not the
case of a successful, middle-aged man wishing to /ranger/ himself and
settle down with a desirable /partie/, but of sheer, stark
infatuation. I adore Barbara; the worse she treats me the more I adore
her. I had rather that the Sahara flotation should fail than that she
should refuse me. I would rather lose three-quarters of my fortune
than lose her. Do you understand?"
His partner looked at him, pursed up his lips to whistle, then
remembered and shook his head instead.
"No," he answered. "Barbara is a nice girl, but I should not have
imagined her capable of inspiring such sentiments in a man almost old
enough to be her father. I think that you are the victim of a kind of
mania, which I have heard of but never experienced. Venus--or is it
Cupid?--has netted you, my dear Aylward."
"Oh! pray leave gods and goddesses out of it, we have had enough of
them already," he answered, exasperated. "That is my case at any rate,
and what I want to know now is if I have your support in my suit.
Remember, I have something to offer, Haswell, for instance, a large
fortune of which I will settle half--it is a good thing to do in our
business,--and a baronetcy that will be a peerage before long."
"A peerage! Have you squared that?"
"I think so. There will be a General Election within the next three
months, and on such occasions a couple of hundred thousand in cool
cash come in useful to a Party that is short of ready money. I think I
may say that it is settled. She will be the Lady Aylward, or any other
name she may fancy, and one of the richest women in England. Now have
I your support?"
"Yes, my dear friend, why not, though Barbara does not want money, for
she has plenty of her own, in first-class securities that I could
never persuade her to vary, for she is shrewd in that way and steadily
refuses to sign anything. Also she will probably be my heiress--and,
Aylward," here a sickly look of alarm spread itself over his face, "I
don't know how long I have to live. That infernal doctor examined my
heart this morning and told me that it was weak. Weak was his word,
but from the tone in which he said it, I believe that he meant more.
Aylward, I gather that I may die any day."
"Nonsense, Haswell, so may we all," he replied, with an affectation of
cheerfulness which failed to carry conviction.
Presently Mr. Haswell, who had hidden his face in his hand, looked up
with a sigh and said:
"Oh! yes, of course you have my support, for after all she is my only
relation and I should be glad to see her safely married. Also, as it
happens, she can't marry anyone without my consent, at any rate until
she is five and twenty, for if she does, under her father's will all
her property goes away, most of it to charities, except a beggarly
£200 a year. You see my brother John had a great horror of imprudent
marriages and a still greater belief in me, which as it chances, is a
good thing for you."
"Had he?" said Sir Robert. "And pray why is it a good thing for me?"
"Because, my dear Aylward, unless my observation is at fault, there is
another Richard in the field, our late partner, Vernon, of whom, by
the way, Barbara is extremely fond, though it may only be in a
friendly fashion. At any rate she pays more attention to his wishes
and opinions than to mine and yours put together."
At the mention of Alan's name Aylward started violently.
"I feared it," he said, "and he is more than ten years my junior and a
soldier, not a man of business. Also there is no use disguising the
truth, although I am a baronet and shall be a peer and he is nothing
but a beggarly country gentleman with a D.S.O. tacked on to his name,
he belongs to a different class to us, as she does too on her mother's
side. Well, I can smash him up, for you remember I took over that
mortgage on Yarleys, and I'll do it if necessary. Practically our
friend has not a shilling that he can call his own. Therefore,
Haswell, unless you play me false, which I don't think you will, for I
can be a nasty enemy," he added with a threat in his voice, "Alan
Vernon hasn't much chance in that direction."
"I don't know, Aylward, I don't know," replied Haswell, shaking his
white head. "Barbara is a strong-willed woman and she might choose to
take the man and let the money go, and then--who can stop her? Also I
don't like your idea of smashing Vernon. It isn't right, and it may
come back on our own heads, especially yours. I am sorry that he has
left us, as you were on Friday night, for somehow he was a good,
honest stick to lean on, and we want such a stick. But I am tired now,
I really can't talk any more. The doctor warned me against excitement.
Get the girl's consent, Aylward, and we'll see. Ah! here comes my
soup. Good-bye for the present."
When Sir Robert came down to luncheon he found Barbara looking
particularly radiant and charming, already presiding at that meal and
conversing in her best French to the foreign gentlemen, who were
paying her compliments.
"Forgive me for being late," he said; "first of all I have been
talking to your uncle, and afterwards skimming through the articles in
yesterday's papers on our little venture which comes out to-morrow. A
cheerful occupation on the whole, for with one or two exceptions they
are all favourable."
"Mon Dieu," said the French gentlemen on the right, "seeing what they
did cost, that is not strange. Your English papers they are so
expensive; in Paris we have done it for half the money."
Barbara and some of the guests laughed outright, finding this
frankness charming.
"But where have you been, Miss Champers? I thought that we were going
to have a round of golf together. The caddies were there, I was there,
the greens had been specially rolled this morning, but there was no
You."
"No," she answered, "because Major Vernon and I walked to church and
heard a very good sermon upon the observance of the Sabbath."
"You are severe," he said. "Do you think it wrong for men who work
hard all the week to play a harmless game on Sunday?"
"Not at all, Sir Robert." Then she looked at him and, coming to a
sudden decision, added, "If you like I will play you nine holes this
afternoon and give you a stroke a hole, or would you prefer a
foursome?"
"No, let us fight alone and let the best player win."
"Very well, Sir Robert; but you mustn't forget that I am handicapped."
"Don't look angry," she whispered to Alan as they strolled out into
the garden after lunch, "I must clear things up and know what we have
to face. I'll be back by tea-time, and we will have it out with my
uncle."
The nine holes had been played, and by a single stroke Barbara had won
the match, which pleased her very much, for she had done her best, and
with such heavy odds in his favour Sir Robert, who had also done his
best, was no mean opponent, even for a player of her skill. Indeed the
fight had been quite earnest, for each party knew that it was but a
prelude to another and more serious fight, and looked upon the result
as in some sense an omen.
"I am conquered," he said in a voice in which vexation struggled with
a laugh, "and by a woman over whom I had an advantage. It is
humiliating, for I confess I do not like being beaten."
"Don't you think that women generally win if they mean to?" asked
Barbara. "I believe that when they fail, which is often enough, it is
because they don't care, or can't make up their minds. A woman in
earnest is a dangerous antagonist."
"Yes," he answered, "or the best of allies." Then he gave the clubs
and half-a-crown to the caddies, and when they were out of hearing,
added, "Miss Champers, I have been wondering for some time whether it
is possible that you would become such an ally to me."
"I know nothing of business, Sir Robert; my tastes do not lie that
way."
"You know well that I was not speaking of business, Miss Champers. I
was speaking of another kind of partnership, that which Nature has
ordained between men and women--marriage. Will you accept me as a
husband?"
She opened her lips to speak, but he lifted his hand and went on.
"Listen before you give that ready answer which it is so hard to
recall, or smooth away. I know all my disadvantages, my years, which
to you may seem many; my modest origin; my trade, which, not
altogether without reason, you despise and dislike. Well, the first
two cannot be changed except for the worse; the second can be, and
already is, buried beneath the gold and ermine of wealth and titles.
What does it matter if I am the son of a City clerk who never earned
more than £2 a week and was born in a tenement at Battersea, when I am
one of the rich men of this rich land and shall die a peer in a
palace, leaving millions and honours to my children? As for the third,
my occupation, I am prepared to give it up. It has served my turn, and
after next week I shall have earned the amount that years ago I
determined to earn. Thenceforth, set above the accidents of fortune, I
propose to devote myself to higher aims, those of legitimate ambition.
So far as my time would allow I have already taken some share in
politics as a worker; I intend to continue in them as a ruler which I
still have the health and ability to do. I mean to be one of the first
men in this Empire, to ride to power over the heads of all the
nonentities whose only claim upon the confidence of their countrymen
is that they were born in a certain class, with money in their pockets
and without the need to spend the best of their manhood in work. With
you at my side I can do all these things and more, and such is the
future that I have to offer you."
Again she would have broken in upon his speech and again he stopped
her, reading the unspoken answer on her lips.
"Listen: I have not told you all. Perhaps I have put first what should
have come last. I have not told you that I love you earnestly and
sincerely, with the settled, unalterable love that sometimes comes to
men in middle-age who have never turned their thought that way before.
I will not attempt the rhapsodies of passion which at my time of life
might sound foolish or out of place; yet it is true that I am filled
with this passion which has descended on me and taken possession of
me. I who often have laughed at such things in other men, adore you.
You are a joy to my eyes. If you are not in the room, for me it is
empty. I admire the uprightness of your character, and even your
prejudices, and to your standard I desire to approximate my own. I
think that no man can ever love you quite so well as I do, Barbara
Champers. Now speak. I am ready to meet the best or the worst."
After her fashion Barbara looked him straight in the face with her
steady eyes, and answered gently enough, for the man's method of
presenting his case, elaborate and prepared though it evidently was,
had touched her.
"I fear it is the worst, Sir Robert. There are hundreds of women
superior to myself in every way who would be glad to give you the help
and companionship you ask, with their hearts thrown in. Choose one of
them, for I cannot do so."
He heard and for the first time his face broke, as it were. All this
while it had remained masklike and immovable, even when he spoke of
his love, but now it broke as ice breaks at the pressure of a sudden
flood beneath, and she saw the depths and eddies of his nature and
understood their strength. Not that he revealed them in speech, angry
or pleading, for that remained calm and measured enough. She did not
hear, she saw, and even then it was marvellous to her that a mere
change in a man's expression could explain so much.
"Those are very cruel words," he said. "Are they unalterable?"
"Quite. I do not play in such matters, it would be wicked."
"May I ask you one question, for if the answer is in the negative, I
shall still continue to hope? Do you care for any other man?"
Again she looked at him with her fearless eyes and answered:
"Yes, I am engaged to another man."
"To Alan Vernon?"
She nodded.
"When did that happen? Some years ago?"
"No, this morning."
"Great Heavens!" he muttered in a hoarse voice turning his head away,
"this morning. Then last night it might not have been too late, and
last night I should have spoken to you, I had arranged it all. Yes, if
it had not been for the story of that accursed fetish and your uncle's
illness, I should have spoken to you, and perhaps succeeded."
"I think not," she said.
He turned upon her and notwithstanding the tears in his eyes they
burned like fire.
"You think--you think," he gasped, "but I know. Of course after this
morning it was impossible. But, Barbara, I say that I will win you
yet. I have never failed in any object that I set before myself, and
do not suppose that I shall fail in this. Although in a way I liked
and respected him, I have always felt that Vernon was my enemy, one
destined to bring grief and loss upon me, even if he did not intend to
do so. Now I understand why, and he shall learn that I am stronger
than he. God help him! I say."
"I think He will," Barbara answered, calmly. "You are speaking wildly,
and I understand the reason and hope that you will forget your words,
but whether you forget or remember, do not suppose that you frighten
me. You men who have made money," she went on with swelling
indignation, "who have made money somehow, and have bought honours
with the moneys somehow, think yourselves great, and in your little
day, your little, little day that will end with three lines in small
type in /The Times/, you are great in this vulgar land. You can buy
what you want and people creep round you and ask you for doles and
favours, and railway porters call you 'my Lord' at every other step.
But you forget your limitations in this world, and that which lives
above you. You say you will do this and that. You should study a book
which few of you ever read, where it tells you that you do not know
what you will be on the morrow; that your life is even as a vapour
appearing for a little time and then vanishing away. You think that
you can crush the man to whom I have given my heart because he is
honest and you are dishonest, because you are rich and he is poor, and
because he chances to have succeeded where you have not. Well, for
myself and for him I defy you. Do your worst and fail, and when you
have failed, in the hour of your extremity remember my words to-day.
If I have given you pain by refusing you it is not my fault and I am
sorry, but when you threaten the man who has honoured me with his love
and whom I honour above every creature upon the earth, then I threaten
back, and may the Power that made us all judge between you and me, as
judge it will," and bursting into tears she turned and left him.
Sir Robert watched her go.
"What a woman!" he said meditatively, "what a woman--to have lost.
Well she has set the stakes and we will play out the game. The cards
all seem to be in my hands, but it would not in the least surprise me
if she won the rubber, for the element that I call Chance and she
would call something else, may come in. Still, I never refused a
challenge yet and we will play the game out without pity to the
loser."
That night the first trick was played. When he got back to The Court
Sir Robert ordered his motorcar and departed on urgent business,
either to his own place, Old Hall, or to London, saying only that he
had been summoned away by telegram. As the 70-horse-power Mercedes
glided out of the gates a pencilled note was put into Mr. Haswell's
hand.
It ran: "I have tried and failed--for the present. By ill-luck
A.V. had been before me, only this morning. If I had not missed my
chance last night owing to your illness, it would have been
different. I do not, however, in the least abandon my plan, in
which of course I rely on and expect your support. Keep V. in the
office or let him go as you like. Perhaps it would be better if
you could prevail upon him to stop there until after the
flotation. But whatever you say at the moment, I trust to you to
absolutely veto any engagement between him and your niece, and to
that end to use all your powers and authority as her guardian.
Burn this note.
"R.A."
