Читать книгу Swords Reluctant - Pemberton Max - Страница 6

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BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH

I

Clad in an alpaca coat, which had long since lost its lining, and in carpet slippers very much too large for him, Gordon Silvester awaited his daughter's return to the house in Well Walk. The luncheon bell had rung a second time, and God alone knew what was in the mind of Agatha, the cook. Silvester feared this woman greatly, especially in those frequently recurring seasons when her madness ran to taking the pledge.

It was a quarter past two when Gabrielle returned, and they should have lunched at half-past one. The minister's anxiety was above all meats, and in his curiosity to know what had happened he forgot the sainted martyr below stairs.

"Well, is he willing, my dear?"

Gabrielle drew a chair to the table; she carried a couple of letters in her hand, and glanced at their envelopes while she spoke.

"Oh, my dear father, it was quite hopeless."

Silvester sighed, and took up his knife and fork. It was a terrible descent from the millennium to mutton; but, after all, he ate but to live.

"I feared it would be so. Well, we have done our best, and that is something. Did he give you any reasons?"

"One tremendous reason—he calls it human nature."

Silvester helped her to a fair cut and himself to two. He was already eating when he took up the subject again.

"This movement will be stronger than his argument," he said. "What people call human nature is often little more than the animal instinct. I can conceive no nobler mission for any man. We cannot expect this particular class of man to see eye to eye with us."

"There was never any chance of it, father. He believes that war is the will of God, and he does not hesitate to say so."

"Would he have us to believe that typhoid fever is the will of God—or smallpox? We are stamping those out. Why not the greater plague?"

Gabrielle sighed.

"I wish you had been there to argue with him, father. A girl is at such a disadvantage."

"Naturally, with such a man. I don't suppose John Faber ever knew one really human weakness since he was a child. Did he say anything about me, by the way?"

"He mentioned you several times. I told him about the call to Yonkers."

The minister's eyes sparkled.

"That is a subject I would gladly take his advice upon. What did he say about it?"

"Very little, I think."

"Was it favourable to my going?"

"I don't think he expressed an opinion either way."

"It would have been a great help to me had he done so. Sometimes I feel that I have a great work to do in America. This Peace Movement is the finest thing in the story of the whole world. Christ Himself has taught us no more beautiful idea—His own, as we must admit. There is a true sentiment in America; but a pretence of it here, I fear."

"Are you quite sure of that, father?"

"Of what, my dear?"

"Of the true sentiment in America. Mr. Faber said on the ship that he hoped to sell five hundred thousand rifles for Mexico before the trouble was over. Is that a true sentiment?"

"I believe it very foreign to the real wishes of the American people."

"He doesn't; neither do the Germans. They say all this talk of arbitration is so much humbug to prevent us adding to our navy, and to allow President Taft to occupy Mexico."

"That is in the yellow press, my dear; you should not listen to it."

"Anyway, Sir Jules Achon thinks it true. May I read Eva's letter? I expect she reminds me of my promise to go there to-day."

"You know that we have a meeting of the Girls' Friendly Committee to-night?"

"Oh, father, can't they do without me for once? I don't often stay away."

He helped himself to an apple tart, and made no reply. Gabrielle read her letter, and her cheeks flamed with excitement.

"What do you think?" she said. "Sir Jules is going on his yacht to Corfu, and he wishes me to go with them."

"To go upon his yacht!" The astonishment was very natural. "That is very kind of him."

"Douglas Renshaw is going, and Dr. Burrall. Eva says they will call at Lisbon and Gibraltar, and perhaps at Genoa. What a splendid trip!"

Her eyes were very bright with the vision, and her lips parted in excitement. Not only was this a respite from the monotonous days, but a respite which she would consider regal. She was going upon a pilgrimage into the old world as she had gone into the new. And with the promise there flashed upon her mind a memory of John Faber's wager. He would meet her in Paris or Berlin!

"It is indeed a very remarkable opportunity," said her father presently. "Sir Jules Achon is a greater man than your American. He has more ballast, and quite as much money."

"And he has not come to Europe to marry an English woman."

The minister looked at her covertly. A secret thought which had sent her to the Savoy Hotel whispered an accusation in his ear, and found him guilty. He would have given much to know just what passed between Gabrielle and John Faber. Perhaps he saw also that his daughter had never looked so well. Undoubtedly she was a beautiful woman.

"Yes," he said at last; "I don't think Sir Jules will marry. You must accept this invitation, Gabrielle."

"But what am I to do for frocks?"

"Can't you wear those you took to America?"

"My dear father, they were mostly summer dresses."

"Well, Corfu is a summer resort. I forget what the winter temperature is—something abnormal. Unfortunately, they have just opened a gambling saloon there. Wherever nature is most beautiful, there men turn their backs upon her."

"Sir Jules is hardly likely to do that. He is going to Corfu to try to meet the German Emperor. You know he has a great idea—the Federation of Europe. He says that commerce is the only key to the peace of the world."

"A faith rather in the Jews than the Divine gospels."

"Oh! I think not—a faith in good common sense, father."

Silvester shook his head.

"He will not associate himself with us," he said, a little sadly. And then, "They tell me he is a very rich man."

"Just the reason why I must have some frocks if I go to Corfu."

II

She was not to leave for Richmond until the end of the week, and when lunch was over she was reminded of Harry Lassett's promise by the advent of that boisterous sportsman and his expressed determination to take her at once to the Vale of Health pond, where the ice was "top-notch." There Gabrielle found herself amid a knot of very suburban but friendly people, whose noisy cordiality forced her to remember that this rather than the other was her true sphere.

Harry Lassett had been down to St. James's Street to get her skates, and they fitted her to perfection. The scene was inspiriting and full of colour. All about them lay the whitened heath; London beneath a veil of sunlit fog in the hollow. So keen was the splendid air that every nerve reverberated at its breath. Such frost had not been known in England since oxen were roasted whole upon the Thames in the early days of the nineteenth century.

She was a good skater, and had often accompanied Eva Achon to Princes during the previous season. Harry Lassett waltzed divinely, and while waltzing upon boards was anathema to Gordon Silvester, waltzing upon the ice seemed to him a harmless diversion. He even came down to the brink of the pond and watched the merry throng at play; but that was before dusk fell and the great bonfire was lighted, and those who had merely clasped hands discovered that a more binding link was necessary. Silvester saw nothing of the outrageous flirtations. He would have been sadly distressed had he known that Gabrielle herself was among the number of the sinners. She was, in fact, one of the ringleaders.

Why should she not have been? What pages of her life written in the dark room of a shabby parsonage forbade that freshet of a young girl's spirit, here gushing from the wells of convention which so long had preserved it? Silvester, all said and done, was just a successful Congregational minister. His sincerity and natural gifts of eloquence had pushed him into the first rank of well-advertised special pleaders. By this cause and that, the doors had been opened to him; and with him went Gabrielle to the ethical fray. If her heart remained with those whom the world would have called "her equals," she was but obeying the fundamental laws of human nature. Millionaires and their palaces; my lord this and my lord that, thrust into the chair of a cause for which they did not care a snap of the fingers—what had Silvester's house in common with them? Reason answered nothing; he himself would never have put the question.

So here was Gabrielle like a child let out of school. The long afternoon found her pirouetting with Harry Lassett, or with other disorderly young men of a like nature; the swift night discovered her in a sentimental mood, with all thought of multi-millionaires gone away to the twinkling stars. A brass band had begun to play by that time, and a man was selling baked chestnuts. A pretty contrast that to the Savoy Hotel.

Their talk had been chiefly ejaculatory during the afternoon, but the twilight found them mellowing. Harry still harped upon America, and with some disdain; and now, at length, his contempt found expression.

"Did you see that American chap all right?" he asked her in an interval of the riot.

She admitted the guilt of it.

"Do you mean Mr. Faber?"

"The fellow you met on the ship—Apollo and the liar; the man who talked about eleven millions sterling."

"Yes, I saw him. How did you know I was going?"

"Oh! I was in the Savoy myself this morning. I'm thinking of buying the place."

"Then you propose to settle down?"

"Or settle up. What did you want from the Stars and Stripes this morning, Gabrielle?"

"An impertinent question. Why should I tell you? Why do you want to know?"

"Because I have the right to know."

"The right, Harry—the right!"

They were over at the eastern corner of the pond, shadows sheltering them. Harry Lassett's "six foot one" towered above her five feet five, and made a woman of her. He had the round, "apple" face of a boy of twenty-four, vast shoulders, limbs of iron. His eyes were clear and lustrous, and his hair jet black. There was every quality which makes a quick, physical appeal to the other sex, and now, perhaps not for the first time, Gabrielle became acutely conscious of it. This was something totally apart from schemes for the world's good; something with which millionaires, were they British or American, had no concern whatever. Ten years of a boy and girl friendship culminated here. She tried to withdraw her fingers from Harry's grasp, but could not release herself; his breath was hot upon her forehead; she quivered at his touch, and then stood very still.

"Why have I not got the right? Who has if I haven't?"

"The right to what?"

"To warn Apollo off. Gabrielle, I'm in love with you—you know it."

She looked up; his eyes devoured her.

"What is the good of our being in love?"

"You don't mean to say you are thinking of the beastly money?"

"Harry!"

"Well, then, don't ask me. I've three hundred a year, and I'm going with Barlean in Throgmorton Street when the cricket season's over. That's a half-commission job, and my cricketing friends will rally round. If I tour Australia next year, they'll pay my expenses, and I'll make them pretty hot. We could be married when I come back, Gabrielle."

She laughed, and half turned her head.

"It's quite like a fairy story. And so mercenary! It's just like a business deal."

"Well, your father will ask for a balance sheet, and there it is—totted up by 'Why not' and audited by 'Expectation.' Why don't you say something about it?"

"Do you want me to say that you will always be my best friend?"

"Family Reading—go on. Love and respect and esteem. I'm d——d if I stand it. This is what I think."

He slipped his arms about her, and kissed her hotly upon the lips. She had never been kissed by a man before, and the swift assault found her without argument. She was conscious in a vague way that prudence should have made an end of all this upon the spot. Yet there was a physical magnetism before which she was powerless; an instantaneous revelation of life in its fuller meaning, of a sentiment which had nothing to do with prudence.

"Harry!" she cried, and that was all.

"Gabrielle, you love me—I feel that you do when you are near me."

"How foolish it all is—how mad!"

"I won't have that rot. Why, you are part of my life, Gabrielle."

"Of course, we are very old friends——"

"If you say any word like that I will take you out into the very centre of the pond and kiss you there. Come along and skate now. I feel quite mad."

He caught her in his arms, and they went whirling away. The red-nosed man with the cornet played the "Merry Widow" until his whole body swelled; there were harsh tones of cockneyism, silver laughter of boys and girls, the whirr of good skates cutting the ice. And above all a clear, starless heaven, such as London had not known for many a year.

"How long will you be away with these Achon people, Gabrielle?"

"I don't know; we are going to Corfu to see the German Emperor."

"Don't bring him back with you. He'd never get on with fools. Isn't it all rather out of the picture?"

"What do you mean by that, Harry?"

"Well, your trotting about with millionaires, hanging on to the skirts of other people's ambitions. It can't last. Some day soon, these doors will be shut. There'll be nobody at home when you call."

"That would not trouble me. I go because my father wishes it; and, of course, I like Eva."

"She's rather a jolly girl, isn't she? They're a different class to that Faber man. He's just an adventurer."

"Who has managed to make himself necessary to two continents. I wish you knew him. You'd be the first to bow down."

"To eleven millions! I might if he handed over one of them. That must be the fly in his ointment. I don't suppose he has a friend in the world who doesn't want to get something out of him."

"Do you include me in that category?"

"Well, you wanted his name. I knew he'd laugh at all that peace rot. It's the greatest humbug of the twentieth century, and I admire the German Emperor for his courage. He and Kitchener are the two greatest men in the world to-day. Now, don't you think so?"

"I don't think anything of the kind. If there is any one conviction in my life that is sincere it is this. You know it, Harry."

She was very earnest, and he would not wound her. Gabrielle Silvester could dream dreams, and some of them would put great intellects to shame. Harry knew this and admired her in the mood; he altered his own course at once.

"Of course I know it. But tell me, what did Faber say?"

"Oh, very little—he spoke about the frost."

"Wants to skate with you, eh?"

"I think not. He is full of bogies. The English Channel and the North Sea are to be frozen over."

"Great idea that. We shall skate all the way to Paris! Dine at the Ritz and curl afterwards. What a man!"

"No, really—what he fears is a panic in England if the sea should really freeze."

Harry thought about it for some minutes in silence. Presently he said:

"I don't believe it could happen. He was chaffing you."

"I think he was."

"But if it did happen—by gad! what a funk some people would be in!"

"The valiant people—who believe in war in the abstract."

"Now you're ironical, Gabrielle."

"No," she said; "I'm only hungry."

III

It was very dark in Well Walk when they arrived before her father's house.

Harry had fallen to a sentimental mood, and would talk about their future just as though it had all been settled in the beginning of things, and was as unalterable as the course of the planets. She began to think that his love for her was very real, and not a mere ebullition of a boyish sentiment. Long years of her childhood seemed to be lived again as he put his arm about her and told her of his happiness.

"You knew it all the time, Gabrielle. You never had any doubt about it. Of course, I loved you. Tell me so yourself. Let me see it in your eyes."

She laughed, and told him, as the situation seemed to require, not to be foolish.

"Father will be waiting for me. What shall I say to him?"

"That I am going to marry you directly I return from the Australian tour."

"Why frighten him prematurely? There are thousands of pretty girls in Australia."

"That's beastly of you. Deny it, or I will kiss you again."

"Oh, Harry, my cheeks will be so red."

"Say it's the frost. I must kiss you, Gabrielle. There—little cat! Why do you wrestle with me?"

"Because I feel that we are just two children playing."

"But you'll never play with any other child—swear that to me, Gabrielle."

"My dear Harry, that would be the most childish thing of all. Now, you must say good-night, I hear my father."

He held her for an instant in his arms, and she trembled. When at length he strode off in his masterful and imperious way, her father stood in the porch and called her. He had seen nothing of this curiously "worldly" scene, and was full of a letter he had just received from the Archbishop of Canterbury. This invited him to a Conference at the Mansion House, and he pointed out with satisfaction that it had been written at the archiepiscopal palace at Lambeth.

"This movement may not bring all the nations in, or make them dwell together in harmony and peace, he said, "but it will certainly bring peace to the churches. Of course, they will ask me to speak, Gabrielle."

"When is it for, father?" she asked him.

"In ten days' time—at the Mansion House."

"You will have to get a typewriter; I shall be at Richmond."

"I think it is better. I should not like Sir Jules or Mr. Faber to know that you do such work, Gabrielle."

"Oh," she said with a light laugh, "I don't think they would be shocked, father. They are both self-made men."

"Yes, but self-made men rarely like self-made women. It's the way of the world. If we go to America——"

"But you do not intend to accept the call from Yonkers, father?"

He shook his head.

"A man might do a great work over there. My imagination is sorely tempted. I am altogether at a loss."

She was too tired to take up the ancient arguments which this threadbare question had provoked. Later on, in her own bedroom, she sat before a brisk fire, and tried to take stock of the varied events of that busy day.

Vaguely out of the mists there emerged the truth, that two men had made love to her, and that one was a man who might presently rule the Western world. She could look down a vista of fable land to a future surpassing all expectations of her dreams, and believe that at a word she might enter in. The obverse of the medal was Harry Lassett and the story of her youth. This lad had crept into the secret places of her heart. She still trembled at a memory of his kisses. With him, life would be meticulous—a villa and a trim maidservant. His scheme of things could embrace no great idea; and yet he, too, was a popular hero, and great throngs would go to Lords to see him play. Gabrielle knew that she loved him; but she doubted if her love would prove as strong as the dreams.

It was midnight when she undressed.

The weather had turned much warmer. She opened her window to discover that it was snowing, and that the snow melted as it fell.

The fables were already discredited. It seemed almost an omen.