Читать книгу Miracle Gold: A Novel (Vol. 3 of 3) - Dowling Richard - Страница 1

When John Hanbury turned his face homeward to Chester Square from Grimsby Street that evening, the long summer day was at last ended, and it was dusk.

He had, before setting out for the country that morning, written a note to his mother explaining whither he was going, and left it with the document she had given him the night before. He wound up his note by telling her he was still, even after the night, so confused and hurried in his thoughts that he would make no comment on the discovery except that it was one of the most extraordinary that had ever befallen man. He was going into the country to find what confirmation he could, if any, of the marvellous tale.

On getting back to London he had had a strange meeting with his mother. Both were profoundly moved, and each, out of mercy to the other, affected to be perfectly calm, and fell to discussing the new aspect of affairs as though the news into which they had just come was no more interesting than the ordinary surprises that awaken interest once a week in the quietest family. Beyond an embrace of more warmth and endurance than usual, there was no sign that anything very unusual had occurred since their last meeting. Then Mrs. Hanbury sat down, and her son, as was his custom when excited, walked up and down the room as he told his Derbyshire experience.

"In a few hours," he went on, after some introductory sentences, "I found out all that is to be found out about the Graces near their former place, Gracedieu. It exactly corresponds with all my father says. The story of Kate Grace's disappearance and marriage to a foreign nobleman (by the tradition he is French), is still told in the place, and the shop in which her father formerly carried on his business in wool can still be pointed out, unaltered after a hundred and thirty years. There is Gracedieu itself, a small house in a garden, such as a man who had made money in trade in a country town would retire to. There is also the tradition that Grace, the wool dealer, did not make his money in trade, but came into it through his rich son-in-law, whose name is not even guessed at, the people there being content as a rule to describe him as a foreigner, while those who pride themselves on their accuracy, call him a Frenchman, and the entirely scrupulous say he was a French count."

"And do these Graces still live at Gracedieu, John?"

"No, mother. They left it years ago-generations ago. And now I want to tell you a thing almost as incredible as the subject of my father's letter. No longer since than yesterday I met, in London, the representative of these Graces, the only surviving descendant."

"That is truly astonishing," said Mrs. Hanbury. "Yesterday was a day of wonders."

"A day of miracles," said the young man thoughtfully.

For the first time in his life he had a secret from his mother, and he was at this moment in doubt as to whether he should impart to her, or not, all the circumstances of his going to Grimsby Street yesterday. He had no inclination to speak now of the quarrel or disagreement with Dora. That incident no longer occupied a front and illumined position in his mind. It was in a dim background, a quiet twilight.

"How did you come across them? What are they like?"

"I came across them quite by accident. It is much too long a tale to tell now. Indeed, it would take hours to tell fully, and I want not to lose any time at present."

"As you please, John. This is a day when wonders come so quick that we lose all sense of their importance. Tell me just what you like. I am only concerned about one thing."

"And what is that, mother?" He asked in a troubled voice. He was afraid she was about to make some reference to Dora.

"That you do not allow yourself to become too excited or carried away," she said, with pleading solicitude.

He kissed her, and said cheerfully: "Trust me, mother, I am not going to lose my head or knock myself up. Well, when I met Mrs. and Miss Grace yesterday-"

"Oh, the representatives are women?"

"Yes, mother, and gentlewomen too; though I should think far from well off-"

"If," said Mrs. Hanbury promptly, "narrow circumstances are all the drawback they labour under that could be soon put right."

"God bless you, my good mother," cried the son with affectionate pride. "Well, when I saw them yesterday in their place in Grimsby Street I had, of course, no notion whatever that they were in any way related to us. I took no particular notice of them beyond observing that they were ladies. The strangest thing about them is that the younger is-is-" He hesitated, not knowing how much of yesterday's events must come out.

"What?" said the mother with a smile.

"Is, as I said, a perfect lady."

"Yes; but why do you hesitate?"

"Well, mother, I don't know how to put it," he laughed lightly, and coloured impatiently at his own blundering stupidity.

"I will help you. That the younger is fifty, wears corkscrew curls, and teaches the piano in that awful Grimsby Street. Never mind, John, I am not afraid of an old maid, even if you are."

"Good heavens! I don't mean that, mother! I'll put it in this way. It is not to say that there is a strong likeness, but, if you saw Miss Grace, you would be prepared to swear it was Miss Ashton."

"What? So like Dora Ashton! Then, indeed, she must be not only ladylike but a beauty as well."

"The two would be, I think, quite indistinguishable to the eye, anyway. The voices are not the same."

"Now, indeed, you do interest me. And was it because of this extraordinary resemblance you sought the young lady's acquaintance?"

"Well, as I said, it is too long a story, much too long a story to tell now. I did not seek the lady's acquaintance. A man who knew us both, and whom I met yesterday by accident, was so struck by the similarity between Miss Ashton and Miss Grace that he insisted upon my going with him to the house of this Mrs. Grace."

"Oh, I understand. You were at Mrs. Ashton's Thursday, met some man there, and he carried you off. Upon my word you seem to be in a whirl of romances," she said gaily.

"That was not exactly the way the thing arose. The man who introduced me was at Ashton's, but we shall have the whole story out another day."

"Then what do you think of doing now? You seem in a great hurry."

"I'm not, mother, in a great hurry anywhere in particular.

"You, of course, are wishing to run away to Curzon street?"

"No. They are not at home this evening. Mrs. Ashton said they were to dine at Byngfield's. I am in a hurry, but in a hurry nowhere. I am simply in a blaze of excitement, as you may imagine." He paused, and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. The worst was over. There had been a reference to Dora and no explanation, a thing he wished to avoid at any expense just now. There had been a statement that he had met the Graces, and no mention of Leigh. His mind had been in a wild whirl. He had in the first burst of his interview with his mother magnified to himself the unpleasant episodes of yesterday, as far as Leigh was concerned at all events. Now he was more at rest. He had got breathing space, and he could between this and the next reference decide upon the course he should pursue in that most uncomfortable affair. There would be ample excuse for almost any irregularity on his part with regard to her in the amazing news which had come upon him. His mind was calmer and more unclouded now.

"Well, perhaps if you talk to me a while you may grow cooler. Tell me anything you like or nothing. You will wear yourself out, John, if you don't take care. To judge from your father's letter to you he attached on practical importance to the secret it contained, to the only object he had in communicating it was to keep you still. It has had so far an effect the very opposite of what he desired."

"I know I am very excitable. I will try to be more calm. Let me see. What can we talk about? Of course I can neither think nor speak about anything which does not bear on the disclosure."

"Tell me then what you heard of the Graces in Derbyshire, and why you think them not well off. That may have a practical use, and will take your mind off your own place in the affair."

"Oh! yes. Well, you see Castleton isn't a very big place, and Mr. Coutch is the most important professional man in it, so I found my way to him, and he told me he had been making inquiries for a widow and her granddaughter who lived in London, and I asked where they lived and so on, and found out that Mrs. Grace who was making the inquiries was the very Mrs. Grace I had met yesterday. I told Coutch that I was the person he was looking for, that I represented the other branch of the Grace family, and that I was most anxious to befriend my relatives by giving them what information they might desire. I did not say anything to him about the Polish affair, or the man whom Kate Grace had married, beyond informing Coutch that he had not been a French nobleman, and that I was a descendant of that marriage.

"Then he told me he feared from what his London correspondent had written him that the Graces were in distress, or anyway were far from well off, as Mrs. Grace had lately lost a large sum of money, and Miss Grace every penny she had in the world. His correspondent said he thought the only object of the inquiry was to find out if by any chance there might be ever so remote a chance of tracing the other branch of the family with a view to finding out if by will or failure of that line some property might remain to those who bore the name of Grace, and were direct in the line of the wool-dealer of the eighteenth century. I then told him that I was not either exactly poor or rich, and that I would be most happy to do anything in my power for my distant relatives. He said that there was not even a trace of property in his neighbourhood to which either of the branches had the shadow of a claim, as Gracedieu had generations ago passed away from the family by sale, and they had never owned anything else there."

"I am delighted you told this man we would be happy to be of any use we could to this poor old lady, and her granddaughter. Of course, John, in this case you must not do anything in which I am not a sharer. All I have will be yours legally one day, and in the mean time is yours with my whole heart and soul. Apart altogether from my desire to aid in this matter because these people are your people, it would, of course, be my duty to do so, because they are your dead father's people. You own you are restless. Why not go to them and tell them all? Say they have friends and well-wishers in us, and that I will call upon them to-morrow."

So mother and son parted, and he went to Grimsby Street. He had left Chester Square in a comparatively quiet state of mind, but as he drove in the hansom his imagination took fire once more, and when he found himself in Mrs. Grace's sitting-room he was highly excited.

When he returned to Chester Square he sought his mother's room. He found her sitting alone in the twilight. In a hasty way he described the interview between himself, Mrs. and Miss Grace, and said he had conveyed his mother's promise of a visit the next day.

Then he said: "Do you know, I think we had better keep all this to ourselves?"

"I am glad, my son, you are of that opinion. Up to this I have spoken to no one, not even to your aunt Preston or Sir Edward, who were here to-day. I don't remember ever having heard that the Hanburys were related to people called Grace, and I suppose if I did not hear it, no one among our friends did. I hope you cautioned Mrs. and Miss Grace. But, remember, John, this is not wholly our secret. It is theirs quite as much, if not more, than ours. All we can do for the present is to keep our own tongues quiet."

"I am sure you will like Mrs. and Miss Grace. They are very quiet people and took my news very well. Good news or news of this kind tries people a great deal more than calamitous news. They seem to be simple and well-bred."

"Well, when people are simple and well-bred, and good-natured, and not selfish-"

"I think they are all that," he interjected.

"There is no merit in getting on with them. The only thing to consider John, is, will they get on with me? Am I to be got on with by them?"

"Why, my mother would get on with the most disagreeable women ever known."

"Yes, but then these two may not be the most disagreeable. At all events I'll do my best. Do you intend staying in or are you going to the club or to Curzon Street?"

"The Curzon Street people are dining out at Byngfields' as I told you earlier in the day. I am too restless to stay in the house and the club seems too trivial for an evening like this. I think I'll go out and walk to that most delightful of all places."

"Where is that?"

"Nowhere in particular. I am too tired and excited to decide upon anything to-night. I'll just go for a stroll and think about nothing at all. I'll say good night, as I may not be back early."

And so mother and son parted.

He left the house. It was almost dark. He wandered on in an easterly direction, not caring or heeding where he went. He tried to keep his mind from hurrying by walking at a leisurely rate, and he tried to persuade himself he was thinking of nothing by employing his eyes actively on all things that came his way as he strolled along. But this device was only an attempt and scarcely a sincere attempt.

"A king," he would think, insensibly holding his head high, "one of my people, my great grandfather's grandfather, has been king of an old monarchy and millions of men. It is a long time ago, no doubt, but what does all blood pride itself upon if not former splendours? A king! And the king of no miserable Balkan state or Christian fragment of the Turkish empire, but a king of an ancient and powerful state which stood powerful and stubborn in the heart of fierce, military, warlike Europe and held its own! Poniatowski was no doubt an elected king, but so were the others, and he was a Lithuanian nobleman before he became King. The kingdom over which he ruled exists no longer except in history, and even if the infamous partitions had never taken place and Stanislaus had owned his English marriage and taken his English family with him, I should have no more claim to the throne than to that of the Queen. But I am the lineal descendant of a king who reigned for a generation, and neither the malignity of to-day nor the lies of history can destroy that fact.

"Still the whole thing is, of course, only moonshine now, and if I went to Lithuania, to Wolczyn itself, they would laugh at my pretensions. The family estates and honours had been vapourized before that last of the Poniatowskis fell under Napoleon. So my father asserts, and he took some trouble to enquire. Therefore, no doubt it would be best to keep the whole thing secret. But can we?"

He put the thought away from him as having no immediate urgency. It would be best for him to think of nothing at all, but to watch the gas lamps and the people and the cabs and carriages hurrying through the free air of England.

But Dora? What of Dora? Dora had said good night to him and then good bye. He had behaved badly, shamefully, no doubt. There was no excuse for him or for any man allowing himself to be carried away by temper in speaking to a lady, above all in speaking to a lady whom he thought and intended to make his wife. Could Dora ever forgive him? It was more than doubtful. If she did, what assurance had he for the future? How would Dora take this discovery about the husband of Kate Grace in the eighteenth century? She would think little or nothing about it. She had no respect for hereditary honours or for old blood. She judged all men by their deeds and by their deeds alone. Hence she had tolerated him, doubtless, when she believed him to be no more than the son of a City merchant possessing some abilities. She had tolerated him! It was intolerable to be tolerated! And by the woman he intended asking to be his wife.

He had asked her to be his wife and she had hung back because he had not yet done anything important, had not yet even taken up a well-defined position in politics.

If he told her to-night that he was descended from Stanislaus II. King of Poland she would not be impressed ever so little. He did not attach much importance to his old Lithuanian blood or the transient gleam of kingship which had shone upon his race. But there was, in spite of Dora, something in these things after all, or all the world was wrong.

Dora was really too matter-of-fact. No doubt the rank is but the guinea stamp and the man is the gold for all that. But in our complex civilization the stamp is very convenient; it saves the trouble of assaying and weighing every piece of yellow metal we are offered as gold, and Burns himself, in his letters at least, shows anything but this fierce democratic spirit. Why Burns' letters erred the other way, and were full of sickening tuft-hunting and sycophancy.

What a marvellous likeness there was between the appearance of those two young girls. Now, if anyone had said there was a remote cousinship between the girls all who saw would say cousinship! Sisterhood! No twins could be more alike. And yet the resemblance was only accidental.

He would like to see them together and compare them.

Like to see them together? Should he?

Well, no.

Dora was generous, there was no question of that; and she was not disposed to be in the least jealous. But she could scarcely help wondering how he felt towards another girl who was physically her counterpart and seemed to think more of blood and race.

It might occur to Dora to look at the likeness between herself and his cousin Edith in this way: To me John Hanbury is merely a young man of promising ability, who may if he likes forward causes in which I take a great interest. I sometimes cross him and thwart him, but then he is my lover, and, though I despise rank, I am his social superior in England now anyway. How would it be with him if this young girl whose appearance is so like mine cares' for him, apart from his abilities and possible usefulness in causes interesting to me, and sets great store by noble race and royal blood?

That would be an inquiry upon which Dora might not care to enter. Or it might be she would not care? Might it be she was glad to say good-bye?

"Perhaps Dora has begun to think she made a mistake in listening to me at all. After yesterday and my cowardly weakness and vacillation during the afternoon, and my unpardonable outburst after dinner, she may not care to send me away from her because she pities me! Good God! am I going to marry a woman who pities me?

"I will put Dora away from my thoughts for the present.

"The Graces must come to live with us, that's certain.

"Fancy that odious dwarf and Dora pitying me! I cannot bear the thought! I could not breathe five minutes in an atmosphere of pity. There are good points in my character, but I must take care of them or they might deteriorate into baseness. I must take care of myself, beware of myself. I am not perfect, I am not very vile. I should like to be a god. Let me try."

He had told his mother he was going Nowhere in particular. It was quite plain his reflections were bringing him no nearer to Curzon Street.