Part 14

“To tell the plain but honest truth,” said Lucian, cheerfully leaning back and stretching a pair of muddy boots on the opposite seat, “because I’m clean cleaned out. I’ve nothing but my fare up from Dover.”

“I see.”

The stranger stood up to lift down his bag and put on his overcoat, in all of which actions he was as neat and quiet and dainty as a cat. After a short pause he turned to Lucian again and said, with some hesitation, “I shall have a deck cabin myself; will you share it?”

“I shall be awfully ill,” said Lucian, very much amazed.

“So shall I.”

“Well, under those circumstances you may be grateful and comforting; I’m disgusting. Sure you want me?”

“If I did not I should not have asked you,” said the stranger concisely.

“It’s really remarkably good of you.”

“Then that’s settled; thanks very much.”

Thus it came to pass that Lucian and Lal crossed the Channel in one cabin, and very ill were they both, especially Lal, who suffered like a martyr, without one groan. He could hardly have done a thing more unselfish than this, but, unluckily, his conscience was too lofty-minded to applaud him for a sacrifice merely of personal dignity. Virtue failed to reward itself here. Moreover, he was partly of opinion that he had made a fool of himself in making friends with a stranger. The hollow sound of Lucian’s cough and the mournful display of dripping passengers at Dover were consolatory, inasmuch as they permitted him to father his impulsive behaviour on common humanity.

Of those, dripping passengers Farquhar was the wettest and least pitiable. For the past four hours he had been leaning over the bows, watching the speed of the steamer, and formulating arguments that should be urgent enough to procure him a special at Dover. Those arguments only failed because the thing was impossible. Cursing high and cursing low, Farquhar went to look at a time-table, and found that the quickest way to reach Monkswell was by going straight past it in the express up to London, and coming down again by the slow. He went off to take his ticket, confident that though he and his rival might arrive at Monkswell together he would yet be the first to see Dolly at Fanes. How that could be was his secret.

But they did not arrive at Monkswell together. Lucian’s unrecognised friend had a mind to follow Farquhar’s plan, and he went up by the express; Lucian bade him good-bye and remained at Dover. When crossing in the spring he had made the acquaintance of a porter; between the station and the pier they had become intimate friends. Lucian sought out this man now, and by dint of much persuasive eloquence seduced him into an alliance. There was no slow train up for some hours; but a goods train started immediately after the express. The porter and Lucian both talked to the driver of that engine from the time the boat came in till the goods train went off, and after its departure Lucian was no more to be seen at Dover Priory. It was strictly against the rules, no doubt, but rules are not unbreakable. The consequence was that Lucian was turned out at Faversham Junction at three in the morning, and there waited until a slow train up from the Kent coast-line carried him on to Monkswell.

First of the three, Lucian reached the station at ten minutes to seven, and set off to walk to Fanes, at two miles’ distance. He was utterly tired; the exhaustion of the previous day’s adventures, capped by a long journey, bad sea-sickness, a sleepless night, and exciting anxiety, weighed down each step he made. He had had nothing to eat, feeling disinclined at Dover and lacking the chance at Monkswell. The familiar morning-scented country lanes spun round him as he went.

Nine minutes after the up, the down train from town came in, bringing Noel Farquhar and Lal Laurenson. Seeing each other for the first time on the platform, they saluted distantly. Lal passed straight out of the station from the down platform, whence a field path led past the station-master’s pigsties and clothes-line to the road. Farquhar crossed over to the main buildings of the station, on the up platform, and there in the yard found his dog-cart waiting with an extremely sleepy groom. This was his trump card; he had telegraphed to Simpson from Gedinne before ever they started; by this he hoped to forestall Lucian at Fanes. And now all three had entered on the final stage of their journey.

Farquhar’s dog-cart flew down the hill and under the railway arch, noiselessly running on its rubber tyres: past the surgery and through the village and on into the country lanes, long tunnels of green sprinkled with sunlight. The irreproachable Simpson still sat behind. They turned a sharp corner, and the horse shied across the road: Farquhar checked him mercilessly, glanced back to see the cause of offence, and pulled him up short. Lucian sat clasping his knees by the way-side.

He looked up; consciousness of defeat blent with laughing and charitable defiance was writ on his face; impotent anger and deadly impatience on Farquhar’s. He tossed the reins to his groom with a curt, “Hold that,” sprang down, and went to Lucian.

“Come, will you? Confound you!”

Lucian’s face changed. “Going to give me a lift, sonny?”

“D’you suppose I can leave you here?”

“Right, then; I’m dead beat.”

For the second time Farquhar picked him up and deposited him in the dog-cart; and they drove on together.

Half a mile beyond this the gates of Fanes confronted the road. As the horse slackened to ascend the hill, the groom jumped down to throw them open, but when he turned he saw that they were open already, and that his master’s carriage was vanishing down the slope. He ran after it for a little way; then with great philosophy relapsed among the bushes and got out his pipe.

Farquhar drove noiselessly down the smooth yellow drive between snow-wreathed acacias, past the stream and past the lawn and past the rookery, till at the turn of the path where it widened to the sweep and the house came in sight, he again pulled up with a jerk.

In the fresh morning sunshine before the open door stood Dolly, in her blue frock, calling the pigeons to be fed. They sailed down to her, blue, and fawn, and white as snow, settling around and upon her, and she scattered handfuls of grain which glittered like gold. Her milk-white skin, her chestnut hair, her cornflower dress were bright and pure in colour as the sunlight itself. One pigeon floated down with outspread quiet wings and alit on her bare head, and she laughed as she shook it off: a careless laugh, a free gesture, which brought the blood to Lucian’s face. Then Farquhar’s hand fell on his arm, and he saw what he had not seen before, what Dolly, with her back turned, still did not see: the figure of a young man in a grey suit in the act of leaning a bicycle against the wall, a bicycle which unkindly refused to stand. He settled it at last, came noiselessly behind, and slipped his arm round the curve of her waist.

Dolly turned to him; the watchers saw her colour blossom and the breaking of light over her beautiful, vivid young face, as her basket slid down the curve of her drooping arm and spilled her golden store.

“You!” she said. “Back already! I’ve wished ten times an hour I’d never sent you, Lal.”

Lucian shut his eyes. Farquhar, without a word, dragged the chestnut round and lashed him till he went flying back up the drive, scattering pebbles at every step.

XX

SO THEY TWO WENT ON

In the break that followed, both turned and looked after the dog-cart. Dolly spoke first. “There!” she said, clasping her hands together; “now it’s done!”

“They had no business to listen,” Lal said. It was his embarrassment that spoke, but Dolly turned on him in a flash. “Lucian listen? Lucian would no more listen than you would. They could not help seeing.” Again she pressed her hands together, and let them drop at her side with a gesture unconsciously tragic. “I wish it had not happened so, Lal!”

“I don’t wonder you like him; he’s very attractive.”

“I’m so sorry for him!” She lifted her candid eyes. “Because I say little, never think I don’t feel. Well, it can’t be helped now.” She turned the basket upside down over the pigeons crowding round her feet, and brushed the husks from her skirt. “Did you bring them back with you? Did you know they were coming? Last night’s paper said they were rescued, no more.”

Lal gave her an evening journal, price three centimes, whose themes were murder and sudden death and the seventh commandment, all printed in vile black type upon villanous drab paper. “When I got to Namur I saw this. I thought it useless to go on,” he said, while Dolly skimmed through a highly sensational narrative of Farquhar’s heroism and Lucian’s fortitude. “I actually travelled in the same carriage with De Saumarez, but I did not recognise him. Last time we met I think he had not shaved for several days,” he finished, with a smile. Dolly let her paper drop against her skirt.

“I never should have sent you, Lal; I ought to have known better. I to think he had hurt Lucian! Oh, I have been a fool. A baby could not be more harmless than Noel Farquhar when he cares for any one; and he does care for Lucian. There, I’ve been in the wrong all through. I like him; I like both of them. This is a hateful affair. I wonder, I do wonder what they’ll do.”

“I should fancy that Farquhar will console himself within the year,” said Lal, perversely. “I’m very sorry for De Saumarez.”

“That is sheer prejudice. Lucian is far more likely to get over it soon than Noel Farquhar. In fact, I don’t believe he ever will get over it. Well!” She looked away at the golden sky, sighing, her brows drawn down. “I can’t go to them myself, that’s certain, nor can you. I must write and explain, I suppose.”

“Dolly,” Lal said, detaining her, “you have never told me which, after all, you meant to take when you summoned them in that fashion.”

“I dare say you’ll think me a fool,” Dolly said, after a pause. “I hate vacillating people myself; but the truth is—I could _not_ make up my mind. I could hardly bear to refuse Lucian; yet Noel Farquhar fascinated me, I don’t deny it. His is such a strong character, and he did care for me. Then Lucian was penniless, while Mr. Farquhar was rich and in a good position; and I’m ambitious, Lal. Besides, Bernard was continually warning me against him. And I was so completely in love with you that I did not very much care what I did with myself. You _did_ trouble me so,” she broke off, her voice softening to a richer inflection. “You almost broke my heart. I was so proud of you for being what you are; and to find you in that place! I could have died for grief; I could have beaten out my eyes for seeing it.”

“Oh, Dolly!” said Lal, and bent down quickly to kiss her. The shy, swift, furtive movement brought tears to Dolly’s eyes. There was reverence in his touch, there was even awe; and so, for the first time, Dolly tasted the grace of true humility.

“Well”—she picked up the thread of her confession with a sigh—“I suppose it has to be told. As I say, I could not see what to do; and I did not care myself; and Bernard would advise me till I was mazed with thinking. So I ended by leaving it to chance.”

“And how did you settle it?”

“I said I would accept the one who reached me first.”

“I reached you first, Dolly.”

“And do you want more of me than you’ve got?” Dolly said, turning on him her face, full of sweetness and fire.

“What have I got? A bare ‘Yes,’ and nothing more!”

“Your own fault, for asking such a question in such a place. I longed to sink into the ground. Besides, I gave you the promise of my marriage vows; isn’t that enough?”

“What marriage vows?”

“Love; honour; obedience.”

“Love—honour,” Lal repeated, strongly moved. “Do you give those to me, Dolly? You make me ashamed.”

“You know I give them. I give everything.”

“Even obedience? Dolly, will you ever obey anybody?”

“Certainly I shall,” Dolly said, with proud humility. “I take my stand with other women; we all promise to obey, and I shall obey. I always keep my promises. There, dearest, let me go now and write. Afterwards—”

* * * * *

Noel Farquhar came into his library at The Lilacs and unlocked his writing-table, one of those elegant roll-top American contrivances full of drawers and pigeon-holes. He took out his blotter, his writing-paper, and his revolver. He made sure that this was properly loaded, and then dipped pen in ink and began to write.

“TO THE CORONER

“DEAR SIR,—I wish it clearly to be understood that I write in sound physical health, and that my brain is not, and never has been, in danger of insanity. I purpose shortly to commit suicide by shooting myself, and I do not wish my body to receive rites in which I never have had a shadow of belief. In plain English, I, not being a Christian, do not desire Christian burial. I have neither hope nor wish for a joyful resurrection. This has been my lifelong creed. I have been at the pains to belie it, and live as the model of virtue, both in public and private, in order to earn the esteem of my respectable British fellow-citizens. I challenge any man living to say I have not succeeded. Honesty is unquestionably the best policy for the man who wishes to thrive: _experto crede_. I would not wish to die with a lie on my lips; the taste of truth is pleasantly novel.

“Within the last few months the issue of a love-affair, together with certain pecuniary losses which endanger my political position, have contrived to make life uninteresting, and even burdensome. I see no chance of improvement, and have not the patience to undergo present discomfort in the vague hope of a problematical future gain. I take the only logical course. In shooting myself I carry out a purpose conditionally framed as soon as I was old enough to think for myself. Let me again repeat that I am not mad; and let me beg, let me beseech the twelve worthy gentlemen who shall sit upon my body to burden their consciences with no unnecessary perjury, but to cap the inquest with a truthful verdict of _felo de se_.

“In conclusion, I commend to my biographers the study of my birthplace, parentage, and nationality. I refer them for information to the records of the province of Kiew, South Russia.

“I am, sir, faithfully yours,

“NOEL DMITRI FARQUHAR.

“The Lilacs, Monkswell, 2/7/03.”

When he had finished, he read over the letter with satisfaction. While he was so doing, somebody opened the door and came noiselessly in. Farquhar glanced angrily over his shoulder; but, seeing only Lucian de Saumarez, he went on with his reading, after taking the precaution of drawing his blotter across the revolver to hide it. With an indescribably guilty and shamefaced air, like a dog that has been caught stealing, Lucian went and lay down on the sofa. He was holding a handkerchief to his lips.

Farquhar closed the letter and took the revolver, glancing again at Lucian. Lucian heard the movement, turned his head, and for the moment took away the stained handkerchief.

“Farquhar, old man—” he began; he could not get any further.

Farquhar set his teeth on his underlip and swore. He sat immovable, looking dangerous, all rebellion; and then the inevitable law of his nature asserted itself, as it had done before, as in him it always would: the power that held him in bondage. He tore the letter across and across and across again and flung the fragments into the grate; he took up the revolver by the barrel and hurled it through the window across the flower-beds into the fountain on the lawn. He came and knelt by Lucian’s side, and lifted him with fierce tenderness against his breast.

“Confound you! What have you been doing to yourself?” he said.

THE END

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources.

Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added, when a predominant preference was found in the original book.

Except for those changes noted below, alternative spellings, misspellings and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.

Page 52: “chestnut gown” replaced by “chestnut gown.”. Page 83: “streaming with blood” replaced by “streaming with blood.”. Page 125: “gossipped” replaced by “gossiped”. Page 138: “disqualifications” replaced by “disqualifications.”. Page 161: “gallon a day,’”” replaced by “gallon a day,””. Page 165: ‘I’d like to replaced by “I’d like to.