Part 3

‘Thank you, Mrs. Porter,’ said Lord Griffinhoofe, with a nervous smile: ‘I thought you would know what was the right thing.... And what can I do for you, Madam?’ he inquired, stumbling on Mr. Cato. ‘What, Mr. Cato! So you’re back. How stupid of them to keep you waiting in here. Come along! Come along!’

He led him into his study beyond.

‘So you’ve come back for the great fight. It’s a secret--I had a wire this morning--you mustn’t tell anyone; we’re within measurable distance of a General Election.’

‘Yes; I saw it in the “Westminster” last night.’

‘Really! How _do_ these papers find out? It came on me quite as a surprise. I’ve been promised--practically promised the--h’m! h’m! It’s a dead secret, mind; you mustn’t let it out.’

‘Why, the “Westminster”....’

‘They had that in too?’

‘No; in fact they mentioned Lord Rosebery.’

‘Bosh!’

‘Only guesswork, of course,’ added Mr. Cato hastily, seeing an uneasy flush on Lord Griffinhoofe’s face. ‘Quite impracticable! Not a man we could work with.’

‘A mere talker!’

‘With the Eastern Question looming....’

‘A man who can’t say No!’

‘Russia needs a firm hand....’

‘Rosebery’s no more capable of managing Russia than I am of managing a ... well, a ... well.... And what was it you came to see me about, Mr. Cato?’

Mr. Cato entered with great detail into all the facts of Prince Dwala’s case. The great man rubbed his fat knees and assumed a sagacious look; his breath came very short, and suddenly he looked as if he were going to cry.

‘Wait a moment, Mr. Cato. If I had a bit of pencil, I should like to put your facts down, so as to get a clear idea. In what year do you say he was born?’

‘I haven’t a notion. These facts aren’t important enough to make a note of.’

‘Then you oughtn’t to tell me them. It only confuses.’

‘The important thing is: how far will the Party help him?’

‘We shall want a pencil for that. It’s such a nuisance my secretary being away. He always has a pencil. He takes his holiday now. Couldn’t we put it off till Parliament assembles?’

‘The matter is urgent.’

‘Everything seems so urgent nowadays,’ Lord Griffinhoofe smiled sadly, as if remembering better days.

‘We must secure the best lawyers at once.’

‘Oh, it’s a law case! I see.’

‘Yes, I’ve told you so already; an appeal to the Privy Council. Colonial appeals go before the Privy Council.’

‘I remember. That’ll be the Judicial Committee, no doubt. Well, can’t _they_ settle it?’

‘That isn’t the point. It’s a most difficult question of law, and everything depends on how the question is argued. We must get the very best counsel we can. The expenses are enormous.’

‘Can’t the ... er ... the what’s his name manage it?’

‘Prince Dwala? We have no right to ask it of him. His fortune is very small, for a Prince; and I look upon the British nation and the Liberal Party as trustees to see that he gets it intact. I myself have already incurred very heavy expenses.’

‘Oh, you shouldn’t spend your own money.’

‘That’s just it; I want the Party to help with their funds.’

‘Well, well; if the cause is a good one. We might wait a few months, and see what people think.’

‘But the case will be over.’

‘One can’t help that. We mustn’t rush things.’

Nothing could budge the great man from his attitude of caution and delay. It was evident that, in the absence of his secretary with the pencil, he conceived only the vaguest idea of the question in hand. Mr. Cato went home at last, expressing the heroic resolution to fight the case on his own money, even if it ruined him.

VIII

Mr. Cato’s work was no light matter. He followed the case in every stage; he explained it all to the solicitors, and re-explained it to different layers of barristers. Every new document was submitted to him for revision. He was tormented all the time by anxiety for the future; his fortune was not a large one, and he had to reduce his capital to a very serious extent in order to meet the preliminary expenses of the case. The Prince, his guest, must indeed miss no comfort in his house; but in every other respect he enjoined the strictest economy on his sisters.

There were other things also to be thought of. The Prince’s ignorance on many subjects was astonishing; his questions showed it. This was, of course, natural in a native; but if he was to be a social success in England, then, in spite of his age, it was necessary that he should have some education. The Prince raised no objection. He had taken quite a fancy to Miss Briscoe, who appeared at first in the character of a guest at lunch, with no suggestion of the governess about her. A big genial woman of fifty, with thick black eyebrows, and an indomitable belief in the Christian fellowship of all men in this wonderful world, she brought light into Dwala’s life.

For it must be confessed that the Prince’s first impression of this long-desired civilisation was one of disappointment. It was undoubtedly dull in Mr. Cato’s house. Mr. Cato was out all day; and though his aunt was a dear old lady in her way, and his sisters two of the most charitable creatures in the neighbourhood, nobody would have called them lively company for a Missing Link. The indoor life told upon his health; the clockwork regularity of the daily round and the entire absence of events reduced his spirits to the lowest depth. He had been accustomed in his childhood to the happy vicissitudes of forest life; to the pleasure of escaping thunderstorms and beasts of prey; to the relief of calm sleep after weeks of storm-rocked trees; to the wild delight after long hunger of finding more than he could eat. It maddened him to hear these old ladies chattering over tiny pulsations of monotony as it they were events; to hear them discussing the paltry British weather under an impervious roof; to hear them talk of burglars in the next parish as if they were tigers on the lower branches; to learn that Julia’s quarrel with Mrs. Armstrong had ended in changing her doctor, when he had pictured her tearing handfuls of fur out of Mrs. Armstrong’s back. He longed to throttle the smug butcher who brought the daily tray of meat, robbing life of all the pleasure of desire.

When he first arrived the Prince had been so easily amused. It was enough for him to sit at a window and watch the men mending the road; to follow the housemaid from room to room and see her make the beds; to help to screw a leaf into the dining-room table; to dust Mr. Cato’s books. It was, therefore, a great surprise to his host when he blurted this out one evening. Had it been one of his nephews from the country--his youngest sister married the Rector of Woolcombing--Mr. Cato would have known what to do; he would have treated him to some of those amusements which are provided for country nephews; taken him to the British Museum, South Kensington, the Tower of London, or the College of Mining in Jermyn Street; he would have contrived little outings on omnibuses, ending with tea at an Aërated Bread shop. But the Prince seemed too old for these things; the weather was bad; Mr. Cato was busy, and he had determined to keep him at Hampstead till things had settled down and he knew his proper social value.

IX

That was one of Mr. Cato’s chief preoccupations. What was the Prince’s social station in England? How much deference might be demanded of the world? Who were the people to whose company he had a natural right? One must neither prejudice his future by assuming too low a value for him, nor expose him to any rebuff by claiming too much.

The question was one beyond Mr. Cato’s own competence. His thoughts turned to his nephew Pendred. Not a country nephew this, with any implication of humbleness. Quite the contrary; Pendred Lillico, ex-Lieutenant of the Grenadiers, son of Mr. Cato’s half-sister, who had married a hitherto obscure baronet in the days of her beauty. Pendred was a dancing man, a well-known man, a pattern of manners, an arbiter of fashions. They rarely met: Mr. Cato was secretly afraid of his nephew; Pendred seldom had occasion to boast of his uncle.

He arrived on his motor-car--small, fair, translucent, admirable. The occasion suited him. Appreciation was his _métier_--appreciation of frocks, laces, china, women, men. He knew hallmarks, pottery-marks, marks of breeding, marks of coming success. Mr. Cato passed the morning before his arrival in a restless state; he was nervous as to the verdict.

‘How much a year, do you say?’ asked Pendred, in his touching little glass voice.

‘Two thousand.’

‘H’m ... Borneo.... Can I see him?’

‘But that makes no difference, does it?’

‘It’s everything.’

‘But, surely dukes and millionaires aren’t estimated on their personal value?’

‘Oh, once you get into big figures!’

‘But a man’s social value....’

‘Social value, my dear uncle, is human value.’

‘Well, I’m delighted to hear it.’

‘On two thousand a year, that is.... Well, let’s see your man. I think I shall be able to give you an opinion.’

Prince Dwala was seated in an armchair in the library--nursing the fire, remote, abstracted. So abstracted that he took no notice of their entrance. Pendred put his head on one side and tried to sketch a rough estimate; he was puzzled. He put his head on the other side and attempted a new valuation. Mr. Cato touched the Prince on the shoulder.

‘I’ve brought you my nephew to make your acquaintance.’

Dwala gave a long sigh and looked up.

‘Nephew ... what’s a nephew?’

‘_This_ is my nephew,’ said Mr. Cato, presenting Pendred, who stepped delicately forward, smiling, with hand extended.

The Prince drew him towards himself. Then suddenly, without any warning, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he took him up in his arms and carried him to the light to make a better examination. Mr. Cato stood petrified. Pendred lay perfectly still, looking up with frightened blue eyes. Dwala seated himself on the edge of the table by the window, and put Pendred on his knee. It was the first finished product of civilisation that he had seen, perfect at every point. He smelt him; he stroked his hair and ears; he felt the fineness of his clothes; and growled a deep guttural growl of delight.

‘I should like to have a nephew, too.’

‘Put him down, put him down,’ cried Mr. Cato, finding voice: ‘you mustn’t treat Pendred like that!’

Dwala glided obediently off the table, set Pendred on a chair, and crouched at his feet looking up.

‘Does it talk?’ he asked.

‘That’s right. Of course he does. Pendred’s a terrible chatterbox. He’ll talk your head off.’

‘Please make it talk.’

‘How can he talk when you frighten him to death like that?’

‘Don’t be absurd, Uncle Wyndham,’ said Pendred plaintively: ‘I’m not at all frightened, thank you.’ He pulled out his case of gold-tipped cigarettes, and lighted one, at which Dwala growled again and clapped his hands.

‘Did you have a jolly voyage? I hear you were quite a lion on board. Terrible long journey. Awful bore travellin’. What do you think of England?’

‘Pretty voice! pretty voice!’ said the Prince, stroking one of his little boots. ‘Will it eat? He pulled a biscuit out of his pocket and put it up to Pendred’s lips. Pendred slipped his legs away and jumped up.

‘No, thanks awfully. I must be gettin’ home. People to tea. Awful bore.’ And with this he bolted straight out of the door and through the house to his motor-car, which was snorting and jumping up and down outside, in charge of a man in shiny black surrounded by a crowd of ragamuffins. He was half-way down the road when Mr. Cato emerged in pursuit.

The Prince sat by the fire, nodding his head in high spirits, and ejaculating: ‘Awful bore! Awful bore!’

‘How dare you?’ said Mr. Cato, coming in a moment later, and shutting the door behind him.

‘Dare what?’

‘How dare you treat my nephew like that? Pendred! A gentleman! A future baronet! Here am I, working my fingers to the bone to get justice done to you--at it night and day, spending my substance, sacrificing everything--and then, when I invite my nephew out here, who might have helped you in your London career, you treat him like that! You drive him out of the house--he even forgot his gloves.’

‘I liked him. I wanted to keep him.’

‘You treat him like a child, like a plaything, a doll. You forget that he is a man.’

‘Is he a man?’

‘He was twenty-eight in June. Of course he’s a man.’

‘I didn’t know. He has no eye.’

‘No eye? What do you mean?’

‘Nothing here.’ The Prince moved his hand over his eyes. ‘Nothing behind.’

‘I don’t know what you mean. Eye or no eye, I’ll beg you for the future to be respectful to _everybody_, mind you--_everybody_, high or low. Social position makes no difference. Now you’ve spoilt everything. Pendred’s offended. He won’t come back. How can you get on if you behave like that?’

Mr. Cato had heard of a man ‘having a leg,’ but never of a man having ‘no eye.’ It conveyed nothing to him. But the idea was clear and even elementary to Dwala. Being a beast, endowed with no reason, having only instinct and that μονὴ αἰσθήματος, or persistence of impressions, which takes the place of reason in the lower animals, he was incapable of the rational classification of natural things which characterises the human outlook. His criteria of species were distinct but illogical; his categories did not tally with human categories; they fell short of them and they overlapped them. Species was defined for him, not by the grouping of attributes, but by an abstract something--a spiritual essence inherent in the attributes. He was guided, to put it in philosophical terms, not by ‘phenomena,’ but by ‘noumena.’ For instance, he knew a horse from a donkey, not by its size, its ears, or its coat, not on consideration, but abruptly, instinctively, round the corner, by an effluence of individuality; in short, by its ‘equinity.’ So too, in the forest, he had always known a venomous cobra from a harmless grass-snake at any distance, not by considerations of form or colour--considerations which might often have led to too late a conclusion--but merely by its ‘cobrinity.’ But this attitude is liable to error; and Prince Dwala had been led astray by it. His notion of the essence of humanity was formed from the men he had first met; it was limited and imperfect. It included an element not essential to humanity, this ‘eye’ of which he spoke: a thing difficult to define; something revealed in the bodily eye; not exactly strength of will or power to command; not entirely dignity or courage; some reflection rather of the spirit of the universe, a self-completeness and responsibility, a consciousness of individual independence. This he had known and felt in the American, in the Soochings, in Mr. Cato, in the housemaid--it was the basis of his respect and obedience; but it was wanting in Pendred Lillico.

It was fortunate that he was disabused of error so early in his career. He could afford to laugh at his foolishness later--he saw what mistakes of behaviour it would have led him into; for when he came to know London better, he found that the mass of people, both in drawing-rooms and slums, indubitably men, altogether lacked the ‘eye’ which he had thought essential.

X

At breakfast next morning Mr. Cato groaned a good deal over his letters.

‘Well, Wyndham, what does Pendred say?’ asked sister Emily.

Mr. Cato frowned, and shook his head in a menacing aside, enjoining discretion.

‘I was afraid so,’ he said, after breakfast, when Dwala had retired to the study fire. ‘Pendred is very pessimistic. Oh dear, oh dear! And yet, who can say he is not right after the way he was treated? “I am afraid that the same thing cannot be said of your _protégé_. Quite apart from his rudeness to me--of which I will say nothing, if you will do the same--it is evident that Prince Dwala is not a gentleman. Not at present, at any rate. There is a _brusquerie_ about him which would do very well in a Hapsburg or a Hohenzollern, but not in a deposed Borneo Prince. He doesn’t know how to sit down; nor in fact what to sit on. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands; all his movements are too large, and, as Lady Hamish would say, ‘too conclusive.’” Pendred won’t come to lunch on Tuesday--I was afraid not; he leaves town on Monday. However, there is a ray of hope. It is really very generous of Pendred, considering. It is certainly worth trying. “Gentlemen are made as well as born. Captain Howland-Bowser acquired it because he was determined to succeed; and now nobody would know he was not a gentleman, and in fact a very fine gentleman, and received everywhere. Of course it is a secret. I should never have known if Warbeck Wemyss had not told me himself. Present the letter I enclose, and let him see that you mean perfect discretion.”’

‘Who is Warbeck Wemyss? Not _the_ ...’

‘Of course.’

‘The actor?’

‘Gives lessons in manners, do you mean?’

‘But won’t it be very expensive?’

‘Of course Wyndham means the Prince to pay himself.’

‘Now Clara, once for all, let me hear no more of these hints. The Prince shall _not_ pay. We have no right to expect it, poor fellow. We have done very well without going to the country this year, and surely we can manage to do it again. If the worst comes to the worst we can move into a smaller house when the Prince leaves us. You must try to be more economical; the bills come to far more than they ought to.’ He closed the discussion by leaving the room.

Warbeck Wemyss consented, on terms. It was a ‘wrench,’ as Traddles would have said; but surely it was worth while. The lessons were a great amusement for the Prince. The going out into the passage; the entering the library, hat in hand; the surprise on Mr. Wemyss’s part; the little interchange on health and weather; the play with his monstrous gloves: the more elaborate lessons; introductions; forgetfulnesses; the assumption of grave interest while a humble Wemyss endeavoured to recall to him where they had met before; the pretended dinners; the new words; the manner of gallantry; the manner of confidence; the gestures and ejaculations of patience under a long anecdote--a thousand situations which pictured a new and delightful universe before his eyes. Dwala had the imitative faculty in perfection; he almost cried with humble joy when Wemyss clapped him on the shoulder, and assured him that he would make a gentleman of him in no time. Mr. Cato was delighted with the teacher’s reports: a little slapdash at first; rather random in the use of ‘rippin’’ and ‘awful bore,’ but quicker progress than he had ever seen.

XI

Meanwhile there were other things to raise Mr. Cato’s spirits. Parliament was back. The Government still held good, it is true, in spite of all rumours to the contrary; but opposition is exhilarating. Best of all, the Privy Council was in session. The Crown Officers, worn out with long obstructive sittings, made a poor fight of it: a dispute about a bit of land in Borneo was a small matter compared with the fate of a historic party. The judges were favourably impressed by the brusque appositeness of Mr. Cato’s counsel.

When Mr. Cato came back one day in a four-wheeler instead of the omnibus, his sisters knew that something extraordinary had happened.

‘We’ve won!’ he cried, sinking, smiling and exhausted, into an armchair.

Everybody shook hands with Dwala.

‘Thank you, thank you,’ he said, pressing each hand delicately, and laying his left hand on the top of it, in a graceful and engaging way which Mr. Wemyss had taught him. ‘You’re very kind.’ But he had no understanding of the news. Only at dinner, when a gold-necked bottle of Christmas champagne was produced and they all drank his health, he began to realise that it was something solemn and important.

XII

It was more solemn than anybody suspected. The news from the mines had been good; but it was nothing to what it was going to be. When Mr. Cato came home in the afternoon, two days later, he found a smart brougham at the door. On the hall table lay a card: ‘Baron Blumenstrauss.’ The famous Baron in his house! The drawing-room was empty. He went into the library. There he beheld an elderly bald-headed Jewish gentleman in a white waistcoat, with fat little purple hands clasping his spread knees, gazing with baggy eyes through dishevelled gold pince-nez at Prince Dwala, who lay back in an armchair, lids down, breathing heavily. At Mr. Cato’s entrance, the visitor took off his pince-nez and looked up.

‘It iss an extra-ordinary ting,’ he said: ‘de shendlemann ’as gone to sleep!’

The Prince awoke at this and leaned forward blinking.

‘Pray continue. It is _most_ interesting.’

‘I am not used to ’ave my beesness bropositions receift in soch a way. I am Baron Blumenstrauss,’ he said, turning to Mr. Cato, with gurgling guttural r’s.

‘Yes?... I am Mr. Cato--Mr. Wyndham Cato ... I ... I live here, you know.’

‘Ah--sit down, Mister Cato. I ’ave read your speeches. You are cleffer man; you ’ave ideas; wrong ideas, bot cleffer. What can I do wid a shendlemann dat go to sleep when I make him beesness bropositions? I offer to make him very rich man, he say “rippin’”; I say four hunderd tousand pount a year, he shut his eye; I say _fife_ hunderd tousand pount, he go to sleep.’

‘Five, hundred ... thousand ... pounds!’ ejaculated Mr. Cato faintly, overwhelmed.

‘Effery year.’

‘Why?’

The Baron winked ponderously, with an effort, and smiled with exquisite penetration of Mr. Cato’s labyrinthine slyness.

‘Nod for nussing!’

‘What is the proposition?’

‘Are you de shendlemann’s guardian?’ returned the Baron abruptly.

‘Why no,’ reflected Mr. Cato: ‘I suppose I am not. But I’m his principal adviser.’

‘Ah! I know.’

The Baron rose suddenly, snatching up his white-lined hat and lavender gloves.

‘Well, goot-bye, shendlemen. I haf laties wait for me at home. Adieu, mon Prince.’

‘_Good_-bye, _good_-bye,’ said Dwala, with careful intonations: ‘I hope you’ll look in again some time.’

‘Goot-bye, I leaf you to your books, your studies. Goot-bye ... Dis vay?’ he appealed to Mr. Cato, moving towards the door.

‘I’ll see you out.’

‘Goot! You haf charming leetle house. Man can see dat Madame haf excellent taste.’

He stopped at the hat-rack, took down a hat and put it into Mr. Cato’s hand, nodding and smiling.

‘Put him on. You come wid me.’

‘I wasn’t going out.’

‘Come alonk. I make you beesness broposition.’ He hurried him down the steps. ‘Leedle flower’s all dead,’ he said, half glancing at the wintry garden. ‘Half-past seex,’ he added, looking at his watch.

As they bowled along in the smooth brougham, night fell. The Baron talked; Mr. Cato began to see dimly the gigantic outline of the thing that he had done. His mind was still numbed with the vastness of big figures; he hardly perceived the order in which things happened. The Baron had drawn a paper from some recess of the carriage and put it in his hand; he was fascinated by the purple unconscious forefinger striding about it, and the continuous voice in his ear. It was a map, a copy of the map of the Sooching forest made by the lawyers: ‘As shown in the map appended hereto, and marked C,’ he repeated to himself. Yellow squares, and circles and figures in black had grown on the bare centre since he last saw it. The purple blood-gorged finger was running rapidly from pit to pit; they were all full of gold, and the finger was peeping and gloating and chuckling, planning schemes of union and division, conquest and annihilation. The coachman’s steady back looked in with its two silver eyes from the box, like the face of a giant Fate, rumbling and gliding them to inevitable ends.

The burst of a barrel organ brought him to everyday consciousness. The Baron was still talking.